Learning to read the signs by Chris Hewitt
With the increasingly competitive nature of the global economy, New Zealand needs to rely on lifting productivity, rather than hours worked, to be internationally successful. But does our workforce have the literacy and numeracy skills necessary to compete in a global market? Statistics from the 2006 Adult Literacy and Life Skills survey indicate that around 40% of
people in employment in New Zealand have literacy and numeracy skills below a level needed to participate fully in a knowledgebased economy. With the increasing complexity of workplace tasks, the demands on people to read, write, calculate and problem-solve effectively will only be amplified.
This problem exists under the surface of many organisations. Employers may not even realise that a literacy problem even exists in their workplace, as many employees with these problems mask them effectively, or learn to “get by”. Staff with extensive experience, for example, may be so familiar with their job and tasks that they no longer see literacy requirements as essential to the job.The Department of Labour’s Skills Highway website provides a skills gap indicator and questionnaire that asks you to look at challenges your business may be facing, such as incorrect or incomplete paperwork, limited employee participation or engagement, repeat errors or excessive wastage.
These issues may be indicative of a larger communications or literacy gap in your workplace. Michael Barnett, Chief Executive of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and Chair of the Equal Employment Opportunities Trust believes that “For employers, employee literacy and numeracy is a central plank to competitiveness, and even the viability of the business”, he says. “There are stories of businesses with innumerate employees who were unable to accurately calculate ratios, which led to thousands of dollars of wastage, expensive down-time, and lost productivity. If these issues occur repeatedly, it can even call in to question the entire overall profitability of the business.”
Once you identify that your business will benefit from increased employee literacy, put together a plan to implement the programme and work out what its critical success factors are. Sharon Sutherland, General Manager of workplace training provider Sadler and Associates, says that one of the keys to getting buy-in from both managerial and shop-floor levels is to remove the stigma of literacy training. “This is why refer to our programmes as business communication training.”
These sentiments are echoed by Karen Stent, Human Resources Manager at Cardinal Logistics: “One of the larger challenges we had to overcome when planning the literacy programme was working out how to offer it without giving employees a complex.” Cardinal approached literacy and numeracy training as part of a more holistic approach
to employee engagement and well being. Says Stent: “In 2008 we implemented the FISH! philosophy [a workplace management school of thinking developed to improve and strengthen an organisation’s culture].
One of the key tenets of the philosophy is “being there” - for your team mates, your customers, your staff. But it was hard to “be there“ for each other if you couldn’t communicate effectively. We found that using the organisation’s culture and values as a springboard to literacy training was a very effective way of getting the message across.”
The results of the programme make startling reading. According to Stent, the training resulted in a 40% reduction in health and safety issues, a 66% reduction in incidences of employees being absent without official leave, and a 47% reduction in overall absenteeism. Manukau Institute of Technology (MIT) Business Manager for the Community Enterprise Unit (CEU) Stephen Johnson says that the benefits of the training extend beyond the office.
“While it is clear that literacy and numeracy programmes contribute substantially to a business’ bottom line and competitive position, the benefits of training also extend beyond the workplace. Skills learned by participants translate well in to home life. We frequently hear from participants in the programme that one of the most positive aspects of literacy and numeracy training is that now they are able to help their children with their homework.
This is why we see a lift in overall engagement and overall attitude to work.” Course materials are based on what is actually used in the workplace on a day-today basis. Hazard registers, health and safety forms, standard operating procedures and instruction manuals are all used as part of the course. As part of the training process, these documents are often amended or rewritten to make them more user-friendly.
Sutherland says that “Everything is based around the employees’ professional environment. We tailor each course not just for each individual workplace, but each individual learner. As different learners have strengths and weaknesses in different areas, it’s important to tailor each course to ensure their needs are met.”
This level of customisation is a distrinctive feature of workplace literacy programmes and means that companies can be really engaged in shaping a programme to meet their, and their employees’ needs. That’s not to say there aren’t challenges in embedding this type of workplace learning in to the business. Managing the time off the floor requires flexibility from both the employee and the employer.
This means that getting buy-in from both the executive and supervisors on the shop floor is critical. Sutherland is quick to stress that this type of process does take time and an extended commitment. “You can’t take an employee off the job for a week-long block and expect them to learn English just like that. They would be back to square one within six weeks. These processes and skills take lots of practice to bed in, and so that’s why we spread the course over a period of months.” Sutherland says that it is uncommon to experience resistance within the organisation to this type of training, but that it occasionally does happen. “If we do get any push-back, it is often from the supervisory or team leader level.”
Times may have changed and technology evolved, but numeracy is still critical to the overall productivity of an employee. Even though calculators have taken a lot of the manual work out of mathematics in the workplace, the broader skills base in calculation, estimation and critical thinking is crucial to developing an employee who can make correct decisions and has the confidence to communicate those accurately.
One of the other issues covered under the umbrella of literacy and foundation skills is technology literacy. Industries such as warehousing, freight forwarding and manufacturing are becoming increasingly reliant on automation and technology,
therefore placing greater demands on staff. Johnson believes that technology and IT literacy is a large emerging aspect to the broader literacy discussion that has so far crept largely under the radar.
“In many cases, a lack of technological literacy can hold back innovation within a company. For example - an organisation implements a system - let’s say a stock-take system by the weight of goods on shelves, which is fed to a computer. If those employees can’t access and interpret that data correctly, then the investment is wasted.”
There is government funding to employers who deliver these courses in the workplace, through the Tertiary Education Commission’s Workplace Literacy Fund. Employers can access part- or fully-funded literacy training through one of the 25 approved providers throughout the country for up to two years of training. In addition to providing the courses themselves, the training providers will work to build training capacity within an organisation for further long-term learning.
In some cases, funding can also be provided directly to the employer, for example if they have in-house capability to run literacy and numeracy training. However, this only applies in organisation that will be training a minimum of 50 learners.
The main cost to your organisation is the time out of work that your staff will have to attend the course, as the programme typically takes place during work hours and on work premises. The message that Stephen Johnson wants to deliver to employers is that workplace literacy delivers tangible bottom-line benefits; it’s not something you do just to be a good employer. “If your staff can read, communicate and do maths better than your competitors can, your warehouses will run
better, your customer satisfaction will improve - at the end of the day, you will compete better overall.”