Syncrude invests in one-on-one assessments of individuals’ Essential Skills. This personalized assessment ensures that trainers understand the actual skill needs of individual employees and can develop learning activities to meet each individual’s specific learning needs. Syncrude’s focus is not on measuring skill gaps and skill levels of individuals or of job categories within the work force as a whole. Instead, Syncrude prefers to take a developmental approach with each individual learner to help them master the Essential Skills needed to perform the tasks they have identified as problematic.