What Are Essential Skills and Why Are They Important?
Essential skills are skills that have been identified as
being required in almost every occupation. They are often
referred to as the Velcro to which other training sticks.
In other words, they are the foundation upon which occupation-specific
skills are built.
Essential skills are also:
- enabling skills that help people perform tasks required by their
jobs
- skills
which allow workers to learn new skills
- skills which
enhance a worker’s ability to adapt to workplace change
- skills
necessary to use printed and written information to perform
competently in a workplace and to develop one’s knowledge
and potential
- basic skills that help workers to fulfill
their individual and collective potential at work, at home,
in the union, and in the community
- generic skills
required by most workplaces in the country
- the skills
that help you to keep a job
- the “academic” skills
that individuals require on a daily basis
Human Resources
Skills Development Canada has identified nine essential skills.
They are:
- reading text
- using documents
- writing
- numeracy
- oral communication
- thinking skills including:
- critical
thinking
- problem solving
- decision making
- job
task planning and organizing
- significant use of
memory
- finding
information
- working with others
- computer use
- continuous
learning
Specific examples of essential skills include:
- reading
and responding to an email
- writing
in a logbook
- reading instructions
in a manual
- interpreting
a blueprint
- making
a call to a supplier
- reading
a collective agreement
- converting metric measurements to Imperial
- scheduling daily activities
- measuring angles
- interpreting WHMIS symbols
- completing an expense claim
- calculating square footages
- doing a cost estimate for a job
Without
adequate essential skills learners and workers are less
able to acquire new knowledge, adapt to workplace change and
participate
fully in the community, local workplace or larger economy.