The Conference Board’s research has demonstrated that improving the literacy and basic skills of employees is associated with higher profits and a host of other bottom-line benefits including: reduced error rates, a better health and safety record, reduced waste in production of goods and services and increased customer and employee retention. In addition, employees with better basic skills tend to learn more and faster when they take job-specific and technical training. In general, benefits of workplace literacy enhancement programs tend to spread through the organization, developing a more conscientious, resourceful, and dependable workforce as a result.

Barriers for employers’ engagement

If the benefits are so significant, why are there so many workers with so limited basic skills and why aren’t organizations more diligent in caring about their workforce’s low skills? Through its research and survey work, the Conference Board (2001) has identified barriers for employers’ engagement in basic skills training and classified them in three categories:

• Structural barriers:
  • Poaching – this is the risk that other employers would hire workers trained in another firm;
  • Lack of information – limitations in awareness of existing suppliers and programs (including government-supported ones) dedicated to employee literacy and basic skills development;
  • Government-related factors – reflect the perception of a lack of government assistance and a weakness in public investment in education and training prior to entering the workplace; tax-related factors may also play a role;
  • Labour market trends – emphasis on university education resulting in struggling apprenticeship programs; development of non-standard types of employment and fluctuations in demand for skills may impede the development of training programs.
    
    
• Institutional barriers
  • Lack of time – relates to finding the time to design and implement a literacy training program, coping with absence of workers while in training, away from production;
  • Tracking return on investment (ROI) – the outcome of training is largely intangible and requires significant resources to overcome the measurement of returns;
  • The learning environment – the standard classroom approach, most familiar to university- or college-educated employees, will often generate anxiety and resistance on the part of workers who may have less positive memories of the school experience;
  • Customized programming – the search for, and access to, programs well adapted to specific needs is potentially costly in time and resources;
  • Organizational design – weak links in the human resource development process within an organization represent an obstacle to training.
    
    
• Individual barriers
  • Attitude – lack of employee interest or motivation for training, non recognition of skill limitation are further obstacles to entice employees into explicit learning activities;
  • Access – relates to the major social policy concern of unequal access to learning opportunities by level of education or skills, including to literacy training