The Conference Board of Canada
  

 


About Workplace Literacy and Basic Skills

Workplace Basic Skills are the core skills that employees need to do their jobs successfully. These skills are critical to the success of modern businesses. They are also crucial in public sector workplaces such as hospitals, schools and government offices.

Workplace basic skills include literacy skills and other important skills, attitudes and behaviors that are essential to workplace success and high performance. Gaining basic skills also has a positive impact on employees' attitudes and behaviors. This is often just as valuable to employers as the skills gains themselves.

Workplace Basic Skills include:

  • Understanding and ability to use prose (such as reports, letters, and equipment manuals)

  • Communicating effectively

  • Understanding and ability to use documents (such as safety instructions, assembly directions, maps)

  • Understanding and ability to use numbers by themselves or charts and tables

  • Thinking critically and acting logically to solve problems and make decisions

  • Using computers, technology, tools and information systems effectively

  • Ability to build and work in teams

  • Positive attitude toward change

  • Willingness and ability to learn for life

Workplace Basic Skills include the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) definition of literacy skills. IALS, a twenty-country comparative study of adult literacy in the workplace, highlighted the lack of basic skills in employed people in Canada, the United States and other highly developed countries. For employers, this means that many employees at every level in their organizations need help to improve their basic skills in order to do their jobs well.

IALS defines 'literacy' as a particular capacity and mode of behavior:

the ability to understand and employ printed information in daily activities, at home, at work and in the community - to achieve one's goals, and to develop one's knowledge and potential.

IALS identified three distinct literacy types:

  1. Prose literacy -- the knowledge and skills needed to understand and use information from texts including editorials, news stories, poems and fiction.


  2. Document literacy -- the knowledge and skills needed to locate and use information contained in various formats, including job applications, payroll forms, transportation schedules, maps, tables, and graphs.

  3. Quantitative Literacy -- the ability to work with numbers and conduct quantitative operations, such as balancing a checkbook, figuring out a tip, completing an order form, or determining interest on a loan.

For more information on IALS, visit:
  www.oecd.org/els/education/literacy

Definitions and Categories of Workplace Basic Skills

There are many definitions and categories of Workplace Basic Skills, although they share some common elements:

1. Employability Skills, as identified by The Conference Board of Canada in its Employability Skills 2000+ brochure, are the skills, attitudes and behaviors that you need to participate and progress in today's dynamic world of work:

Fundamental Skills - skills needed as a base for further development

  • Communicate

  • Manage information

  • Use numbers

  • Think and solve problems

Personal Management Skills - personal skills, attitudes and behaviors that drive one's potential for growth

  • Demonstrate positive attitudes and behaviors

  • Be responsible

  • Be adaptable

  • Learn continuously

  • Work safely

Teamwork Skills - skills and attributes needed to contribute productively

  • Work with others

  • Participate in projects and tasks

For more information on Employability Skills 2000+, visit: 
www.conferenceboard.ca/education

2. The Conference Board’s Employability Skills Toolkit for the Self-Managing Learner is a suite of practical tools designed to help learners use and develop the skills needed to enter, stay in, and progress in the world of work.

The Toolkit:

  • practical support for managing lifelong learning for personal growth and workplace success

  • provides Canadians with much-needed information about what employability skills look like, and

  • offers examples of ways they can develop and demonstrate their skills at home, school, work and in the community.

For more information on the Employability Skills Toolkit, visit
www.conferenceboard.ca/education/learning-tools

3. Employers who participated in The Conference Board's Turning Skills into Profit (1999) study of 25 workplace education programs identified the following as key Workplace Basic Skills:

Literacy Skills

  • improved understanding and ability to use ‘documents’ such as safety instructions, assembly directions or map

  • improved understanding and ability to use ‘numbers’ by themselves or in charts and tables

  • improved understanding and ability to use ‘prose writing’ such as reports, letters and manuals

Other Basic Skills

  • improved ability to listen to understand, learn and apply information and analysis

  • better ability to communicate by using English in the workplace

  • improved capacity to think critically and act logically to evaluate situations, solve problems, and make decisions

  • improved ability to use computers and other technology, instruments, tools and information systems effectively

New Attitudes

  • greater willingness and ability to learn for life

  • more positive attitude toward change

Working with Others

  • better ability to build and work in teams

  • improved understanding and willingness to work within the culture of the group

For more information on Turning Skills into Profit, visit:
www.conferenceboard.ca/education/reports

4. Essential Skills, as identified by Human Resources Development Canada, are enabling skills that help people perform the tasks required by their occupation and other activities of daily life; provide people with a foundation to learn other skills; and enhance people’s ability to adapt to workplace change. They include:

  • reading text

  • document use

  • writing

  • numeracy (math)

  • oral communication

  • thinking skills (problem solving, decision making, job task planning and organization, significant use of memory and finding information)

  • working with others

  • computer use

  • continuous learning

For more information on Essential Skills, visit:
www15.hrdc-drhc.gc.ca

5. The Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS) identifies five workplace competencies and a three-part foundation of skills and personal qualities that are needed for solid job performance:

Resources – how to allocate time, money, materials, space and staff

Interpersonal Skills – work on teams, teach others, serve customers, lead, negotiate, and work well with people from culturally diverse backgrounds

Information – acquire and evaluate data, organize and maintain files, interpret and communicate, and use computers to process information

Systems – understand social, organizational, and technological systems; they can monitor and correct performance; and they can design or improve systems

Technology – select equipment and tools, apply technology to specific tasks, and maintain and troubleshoot equipment

Foundation Skills – competent workers in the high-performance workplace need:

Basic Skills – reading, writing, arithmetic and mathematics, speaking and listening

Thinking Skills – the ability to learn, to reason, to think creatively, to make decisions, and to solve problems

Personal Qualities – individual responsibility, self-esteem and self-management, sociability, and integrity

For more information on SCANS, visit:
  www.scans.jhu.edu

6. The CASAS Competency List focuses on learners' goals for adult and secondary level learners:

Basic Communication

  • Communicate in interpersonal interactions

  • Communicate regarding personal information

Consumer Economics

  • Use weights, measures, measurement scales and money

  • Apply principles of comparison shopping in the selection of goods and services

  • Understand methods and procedures used to purchase goods and services

  • Understand methods and procedures to obtain housing and related services

  • Apply principles of budgeting in the management of money

  • Understand consumer protection measures

  • Understand procedures for the care, maintenance, and the use of personal possessions

  • Use banking and financial services in the community

Community Resources

  • Use the telephone and telephone book

  • Understand how to locate and use different types of transportation and interpret related travel information

  • Understand concepts of time and weather

  • Use postal services

  • Use community agencies and services

  • Use leisure time resources and facilities

  • Understand aspects of society and culture

Health

  • Understand how to access and utilize the health care system

  • Understand medical and dental forms and related information

  • Understand how to select and use medications

  • Understand basic principles of health maintenance

Employment

  • Understand basic principles of getting a job

  • Understand wages, benefits and concepts of employee organizations

  • Understand work-related safety standards and precautions

  • Understand concepts and materials related to job performance and training

  • Effectively utilize common workplace technology and systems

  • Communicate effectively in the workplace

  • Effectively manage workplace resources

  • Demonstrate effectiveness in working with other people

  • Understand how social, organizational, and technological systems work, and operate effectively within them

Government and Law

  • Understand voting and the political process

  • Understand historical and geographical information

  • Understand and individual's legal rights and responsibilities and procedures for obtaining legal advice

  • Understand information about taxes

  • Understand governmental activities

  • Understand civic responsibilities and activities

  • Understand environmental and science-related issues

Computation

  • Demonstrate pre-computation skills

  • Compute using whole numbers

  • Compute using decimal fractions

  • Compute using fractions

  • Compute with percents, rate, ratio and proportion

  • Use expressions, equations and formulas

  • Demonstrate measurement skills

  • Interpret data from graphs and compute averages

  • Use statistics and probability

  • Use estimation and mental arithmetic

Learning to Learn

  • Identify or practice effective organizational and time management skills in accomplishing goals

  • Demonstrate ability to use thinking skills

  • Demonstrate ability to use problem solving skills

  • Demonstrate study skills

  • Understand aspects of and approaches to effective personal management

Independent Living Skills

  • Perform self-care skills

  • Perform home-care skills

  • Use support resources to assist in maintaining independence and achieving community integration

For more information on CASAS competencies, visit: www.casas.org