In Nunavut and the NWT there is a critical need for greater awareness and better information about workplace and workforce literacy. Nunavut Literacy Council and NWT Literacy Council prepared this paper in order to provide information and analysis, and make recommendations about how to improve workplace and workforce literacy in Nunavut and the NWT.
The Workplace Checkup document is a tool that employers can use to gather employee feedback on essential skills in the workplace. The information collected will provide employers with a better understanding of the training needs of their organization. This tool also gives employees the opportunity to provide information about their skills and the availability of training in the workplace.
The Workplace Survey document is a tool designed to help employers identify potential essential skills issues or areas of strength in the workplace. The statements included in this tool are divided into nine sections, one for each of the nine essential skills (reading, numeracy, document use, continuous learning, writing, oral communication, thinking, working with others, computer use).
Canadian organizations are becoming increasingly aware that they need to maximize the skills of their work force in order to compete and grow, which often means enhancing or refreshing their employees’ essential skills. In this document, the authors present five cases studies involving organizations that faced specific essential skills challenges.
In this short document, Human Resources and Social Development Canada briefly describes the Essential Skills Research Project (ESRP) that the federal government launched in the early 1990s and what has been achieved since this project began. The ESRP identified nine Essential Skills: reading text, document use, numeracy, writing, oral communication, working with others, thinking skills, computer use and continuous learning.
This one-page fact sheet would be useful to anyone unfamiliar with Essential Skills profiles. In this fact sheet, Human Resources and Social Development Canada provides basic information about Essential Skills profiles by answering the following questions:
What are Essential Skills profiles?
What do profiles include?
How can profiles be used?
Who uses these profiles?
Taking time to work on Essential Skills often leads to success in the workplace and at home. It offers workers a bright future, while greatly improving day-to-day life. Essential Skills help people to carry out different tasks, give them a starting point for learning other skills, and help them adjust to change. This booklet includes six real stories about Canadian workers who have taken time to work on their Essential Skills.
In this short document prepared by Human Resources and Social Development Canada, the nine Essential Skills are defined and explained. Information on these nine skills - reading, writing, numeracy, document use, oral communication, computer use, continuous learning, thinking, and working with others - is presented in table format. In addition a definition, typical applications and a workplace example of each skill is provided.
The Document Use Indicator is a tool that can be used by employers to learn more about the document use skills of their employees. It gives an indication of skill levels by providing ten examples of Level 1 and Level 2 assessment questions. The questions duplicate actual workplace tasks performed in a variety of occupations, but they do not require specialized knowledge to be correctly answered.
This short guide is designed to help employers incorporate essential skills into workplace training. The essential skills include thinking, working with others, document use, oral communication, reading, writing, numeracy, continuous learning, and computer use. Activities that focus on each of these nine skills are provided. They can be used in formal or informal training to help employees improve their essential skills.
