This document contains a final report, evaluation, and curriculum materials from a project conducted at the RJR Nabisco plant in Indianapolis to upgrade the literacy and numeracy skills of the workers to facilitate technological changes to production lines. As the final report explains, although the goal of the project was to recruit and test 150…

Directed at persons who are not experts in program evaluation or workplace literacy, this handbook provides various options and processes that can be used for formal evaluation of workplace literacy programs. The handbook is organized in six sections. An introductory section acknowledges the weaknesses of any evaluation attempt. In the second…

Part 1 of this conference report on employing the hard-core unemployed asserts the urgency of action by business and industry to meet employment problems, and presents examples of more active recruitment and liberalized hiring and placement practices, employer-sponsored education and training, efforts by employers to take action on transportation,…

Some good news and some bad news can be seen in six areas of workplace literacy efforts: awareness, curriculum development, collaboration, staff training, research and evaluation, and funding. The good news includes the following: (1) more highly placed corporation executives are becoming aware of the need for literacy programs; (2) curriculum…

This document consists of the woodyard skills handbook and an employee handbook for woodyard employees of Boise Cascade. The handbooks are products of a National Workplace Literacy project conducted by Alabama Southern Community College. The woodyard skills handbook contains information needed by employees to improve math, measurement, vocabulary,…

In December 1987, Motorola's MOS 5 Microprocessor Manufacturing Facility and Merex Corporation began a joint workplace literacy training project. MOS 5 had three basic objectives: to assess the level of the work materials, to assess the skill level of the work force, and to close the gap between the two. Merex designed an educational program to…

A study sought to determine how and why small businesses invest or do not invest in basic skills instruction for their workers. Data were gathered through a national mail and telephone survey of a random sampling of 11,000 small (50 or fewer employees) and medium-sized (51-400 employees) firms, a targeted mail survey of 4,317 manufacturers, a…

These three documents (final performance report, evaluation report, methodology guide) are products of a project through which the Career Advancement Center provided workplace literacy services to two industries in Greenville, South Carolina. The final performance report discusses achievement of objectives, specifically employee assessment,…

A project developed through Wallace State Community College (Alabama) united three corporations, two adult basic education programs, a technical college, two support/education programs, a work program for older adults, and three service organizations in a partnership to develop a model for providing workplace literacy training. Project LEARN…

Changing employer-based training represents one strategy that U.S. firms are adopting to confront recent transformations in the global economy. The new competitive conditions place new and different demands on workers, more of whom are being called upon to use technical, conceptual, and communications skills. Approaches to training in particular…

Workplace education (WPE) has a significant role to play in solving basic skills problems and in other training requirements. In addition to the benefit of a more able, adaptable work force, WPE leads to more contented workers, encouraged by better employment opportunities. In addition, employees benefit by being more confident both within the…

The nine papers in this volume represent a majority of the presentations at a conference that examined in detail employee development (ED) initiatives from Europe and North America. An introduction provides a contextual background to the vocational training and education debates characterizing policy development in the European and North American…

This report focuses on an investigation of assumptions and principles underpinning training and assessment programs offered by a civil construction company in Australia. Section 1 is an introduction. To conceptualize the new workplace and consider the role of literacy and numeracy in it, Section 2 addresses changing work conditions, features of a…

A demonstration project was conducted in Alabama to create a basic skills workplace curriculum that would assist a local corporation in improving work force productivity. During the 3-year project, a job-specific curriculum was written for Russell Corporation's Skills Training at Russell (STAR) program. The curriculum covered four topics: safety,…