The Attleboro (Massachusetts) Workplace Education Program, a partnership of four area companies and Bristol Community College, is intended to provide workers with education that will improve the quality of their lives and their work. Housed in a corporate office building in the Attleboro Industrial Park, the program offers classes in English as a…

Educational problems underlie the crisis in the high-tech workplace. Insufficient expenditures for workplace education result in low productivity. Technology requires a skilled work force; the chief competitive advantage for a nation will be its skilled workers. Workplace literacy has been a half-hearted effort. Investment of billions by U.S.…

An external evaluation of the Champaign County (Ohio) Workplace Literacy Project used the Triphase Evaluation process based on Stuffelbeam's decision-making model (1971). During the input phase, emphasis was on determining needs of workers and employers in order to develop a training program to meet specific identified needs. The process phase was…

A literacy/basic skills training project, revised to allow for the realities of the economic recession in New England, successfully trained 590 employees and 364 unemployed men and women. Revised positive outcomes included employment in companies outside the eight original companies in the project, enrollment in higher-level education and skills…

Changes in the workplace have raised the level of literacy needed by workers to full twelfth grade at least and outstripped manufacturers' ability to retrain workers. Even workers with high school diplomas may not be able to read. Although defined as literate, 40 percent of workers cannot meet the demands of the new technology. In order to achieve…

Presented in case study format, this report looks at different types of workplace literacy programs across Canada. It describes in some detail 10 particular work environments and the unique characteristics that have enabled each to offer quality worker education programs. Each case study provides information in these categories: profile (an…

Although a substantial literature has addressed workplace literacy programs, only two studies have attempted to evaluate rigorously the economic benefits to workplace education. A multivariate model has been suggested that provides evidence about the productivity impacts of participation in a workplace literacy program. The data used in this paper…

This booklet, which is designed as a how-to guide for training and development professionals, contains guidelines for developing and implementing work force education programs that include education, skills and training components. The rationale for work force education is presented. The general characteristics and limitations of existing programs…

A study identified and conducted onsite case studies of 18 different education programs conducted by small companies. Two-thirds of them were conducted by manufacturing companies; the remainder were in health services, construction, or transportation companies. Most of the programs served fewer than 25 workers and had been in operation for less…

In a high performance work organization (HPWO), employee basic skills are just one of many components. HPWOs feature the following: they have flatter organizational structures, have work done by teams of highly skilled workers, and have a focus on quality, customer service, and continuous improvement. The collaborative approach to workplace…

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…

Studies have confirmed that there is a strong correlation between employees' levels of basic workplace skills and their productivity in the workplace. Programs to build basic workplace skills have been shown to yield the following positive results: more instances of employees using reading and writing on the job, higher employee participation in…

A minicourse pilot project was designed by the Massachusetts Department of Education to meet the staff training and development needs of workplace educators in the National Workplace Literacy Program. During the course, various activities and group configurations were used to help teachers apply modeled approaches to their own teaching contexts,…

A workplace literacy survey was developed and distributed to 4,104 private-sector businesses throughout Illinois to gain a complete and statistically reliable profile of workforce literacy programs. Employers returned 1,340 usable responses. Findings indicated that 53 percent of Illinois firms reported a need to upgrade employees basic skills, yet…

This publication presents the abstracts of the 57 National Workplace Literacy Program 1993 projects. Each abstract provides the following information: project title; award number; project director; awardee; address; telephone and fax numbers; funds by fiscal year (federal and nonfederal); award period; federal project officer; objectives;…