The American Management Association's (AMA) 10th annual survey on workplace testing was mailed in January 1996 to a sample of its 9,500 member companies, resulting in 961 usable responses. The survey sought to determine how many firms test for "basic skills," how job applicants perform on these tests, how much the tests costs, and what firms do…

This instructor's guide contains 11 lesson plans for inplant classes on workplace skills for employees in a cement plant. The 11 units cover the following topics: goals; interpreting memoranda; applying a standard set of work procedures; qualities of a safe worker; accident prevention; insurance forms; vocabulary development; inventory control…

This brief gives an overview of the topic of workplace literacy for the hotel and food service industries and lists program contacts. The following organizations operate employee basic skills programs for hotel and food service employees, provide technical assistance, or operate grant programs: Essential Skills Resource Center; Language Training…

General research and anecdotal reports have confirmed that both technical and basic skills training offer many benefits to companies of all sizes. Company training can improve employee performance, firm productivity, product quality, and company profitability. Training supports "high-performance" work practices such as the following: total quality…

Basic skills education has become a pressing need in the construction industry as jobs become more complex and fewer workers have needed skills. However, the construction industry lags in spending on training for entry-level workers. The Home Builders Institute (HBI) is testing a pilot basic skills program that it hopes will prove useful to the…

This volume, one of a series of eight curriculum guides compiled by the Colorado Workplace Learning Initiative: 1991-92, includes curriculum materials for nine workplace literacy basic reading and writing courses. Introductory materials include a table of contents and a list of subjects covered by each of the eight guides in the series. There are…

A JTPA/FEL (Job Training Partnership Act/Family English Literacy) demonstration project is reported that involves a partnership between the Lao Family Community (LFC) of Minnesota, the City of St. Paul, and St. Paul Public Schools/Adult Basic Education. The goal is to provide workplace literacy instruction to refugees with limited English…

This document offers brief lesson plans for four courses: (1) an 8-hour refresher course for employees who write memos, short reports, and letters; (2) an 8-hour refresher course on creating a short document; (3) a 16-hour course on technical manual writing; and (4) an 8-hour course on technical manual writing. The courses were part of a workplace…

Unions and employers currently operate in an environment that does not support investment in skill development. However, competitiveness demands that both work and the way workers are educated and trained be radically restructured. In high-performance workplaces, participatory labor-management approaches to job-linked basic skills development are…

This bibliography focuses on research in adult literacy and basic education. The general categories, which were determined on the basis of the agenda of the conference for which it was prepared, include bibliographies; history of literacy/illiteracy; theory of literacy; literacy provision (examples from local to international); literacy and…

This document explains the Pittsburgh Literacy Initiative (PLI), what role it plays in workplace literacy, what mechanisms it has used, and what has been learned. Section 1 lists the five aspects of the initiative's mission: clearinghouse, screening center, program development, data collection, and literacy promotion. Section 2 describes the…

The Job Skills Education Program (JSEP) is a computer-based, functional basic skills curriculum and instructional delivery system originally designed for the U.S. Department of the Army. The U.S. Department of Labor funded an exploration of the feasibility of increasing the use of JSEP as a workplace literacy tool for employers. It was found that…

Award restructure poses questions about appropriate response to the retraining and education needs of workers in Australia who have literacy difficulties. The following actions should be taken: (1) the government should fund a research project that will evaluate workplace efficiency outcomes for employers who have participated in the Workplace…

The need for a better educated work force has created a corresponding need for workplace literacy programs. A number of issues have emerged as the focus of literacy education has shifted from improving social mobility to providing employment-related literacy programs. Some of these issues are related to the need for more resources for workplace…

As part of a project that identified the specific literacy skills required in ten occupations, this report provides two levels of instructional information about machine tool operators. Factual data are presented in Parts I and II for use in decision making by program developers, administrators, teachers, and counselors. These sections note the…