Billiton schedules Essential Skills training as part of the daily roster of work assignments at the mine. Production dictates which categories and quantities of workers are required to meet operational and safety objectives on any given day, but Essential Skills training is recognized as a core operation for personnel who need Essential Skills training but are not required on a work team that day.
Billiton carefully tracks the hours of paid release time that it provides for Essential Skills training for its employees, as well as the employee turnover rate, which is significantly lower for employees participating in Essential Skills training than for those who do not. The company has also been proactive in gauging the softer impacts of Essential Skills training, such as workers’ greater comfort in speaking up at safety meetings and improved morale.
The flexibility of Billiton’s model is evident from the variety of ways in which its Workplace Learning Program is delivered. Workers participate in independent learning, in one-to-one tutoring and in small classes. Learning at the site ranges from core literacy to General Educational Development (GED) preparation and pre-apprenticeship training.
Billiton uses a customized version of the Test of Workplace Essential Skills (TOWES) to assess the Essential Skills of individual employees. The company addresses skill gaps as an operational issue, with employees’ development to a workplace standard as the desired outcome of Essential Skills training.