Learning at work - on-the-job language and work skills training

Nation's Business, Feb, 1990 by Joan C. Szabo

Learning At Work

Kee Vang, a Laotian-born machine operator, gives high marks to the literacy-training class he is taking at United Mailing Inc., a mailing and data-processing firm in Chanhassen, Minn. His company's education program, he says, "is giving me a chance to improve my English skills and is helping me do my job." The literacy class emphasizes the language and communication skills needed to perform his job.

Funded through a U.S. Department of Education grant and administered by a local community college, the program, called Directions, offers employers in the Chanhassen area an experienced instructor for on-site training of workers in reading, language skills, and problem solving.

United Mailing began participating in the workplace literacy program about 18 months ago. Jerome Carlson, co-founder and co-owner of UMI, says the pilot program already is having a positive impact: "We have higher retention and attendance rates, greater productivity, and fewer errors and accidents than some of our competitors as a result of the program."

Vang and 14 other UMI employees are enrolled in the class for those learning English as a second language. In addition, under the Directions program, about 15 of the company's mechanics recently completed 20 hours of training in creative problem-solving techniques.

"Offering literacy training at the plant," Carlson says, "lets the instructor build bridges of trust that can help open up lines of communication and understanding between employees who have a need and the individual who can fulfill that need." He explains that the instructor works on language skills that are needed to perform specific jobs. "This not only helps the employees with the language, but it also helps the company. Our first objective is to make our employees more skilled so they can be more productive. By making the instruction germane to the job, everyone ends up winning."

Carlson also runs the Instant Web printing company and the Victory Envelope manufacturing firm, employs 1,100 people, and has annual gross sales of $90 million. Together the three firms make up one of the largest single-source suppliers to the direct-mail-marketing industry.

Carlson says he is spending about $40,000 a year for the workplace literacy program. This sum includes the value of the office space made available to the instructor, as well as the on-the-job time that employees spend in basic skills instruction each week. The grant pays the instructor's salary.

Carlson says he is fairly typical of numerous owners of small and medium-sized businesses who find basic language and workplace skills sorely lacking in many entry-level workers. Moreover, as the expected shortage of such workers increases, the need for companies of all sizes to provide basic-skills training is expected to increase.

The U.S. Labor Department estimates, for example, that the number of new workers ages 16 to 34 will decline by almost 4 million during the decade leading to the year 2000. This development will be especially troublesome for small firms, which hire two-thirds of all entry-level workers. In addition, workers hired by small businesses typically have less formal education than those working for large companies. As a result, small firms are more likely than large companies to hire and have to train functional illiterates, says Jules H. Lichtenstein, chief of the Applied Policy branch of the U.S. Small Business Administration.

A study commissioned by the Labor Department found that in firms with fewer than 500 employees, almost 4 percent of workers ages 20 to 24 had no more than an eighth-grade education, but in larger firms, employees in that age bracket and with that level of education accounted for under 1 percent of the work force. Finding effective ways to train such workers is becoming a matter of business survival, Carlson says.

The employee training provided by small businesses generally is remedial, focusing on skills that should have been acquired during formal schooling, says Lichtenstein. These skills include basic arithmetic and literacy, good work habits such as punctuality, and specific skills for operating machines.

Although there is a growing need for basic-skills training, small firms face bigger obstacles than large firms do when trying to train workers, says Haidee Clark, coordinator of the Governor's Initiative for Workforce Excellence in South Carolina. The initiative was launched by Gov. Carroll A. Campbell Jr. two years ago to help employers provide basic-skills training to their employees. "Small companies generally can't afford to schedule time during the work day for training," Clark says. "They also have trouble finding a place at the work site where classes can be held."

In addition, small businesses constantly face recruiting and training difficulties because they regularly lose trained workers to larger firms.

Because of these problems, small companies are advised to evaluate their training needs carefully. "Assess the extent of the skills problem and consider options for mitigating it," says Anthony Carnevale, chief economist and vice president for national affairs of the American Society of Training & Development, in Alexandria, Va. Determine if training is the only way to deal with the problem, he says. Sometimes, the solution lies in modifying written materials or changing equipment. For example, the company might switch to cash registers equipped with symbols instead of words.