Planning A Workplace Literacy Program

The Planning Steps Step 3: Market Your Services To help you decide how to market your services, you'll want to meet with representatives from the private industry council, chamber of commerce, manufacturers and business associations, personnel management associations, labor unions, Office of Employment Security, other education providers, and social service agencies involved in job placement. All of these contacts are possible sources of contracts and referrals. Describe Your Services To promote your workplace literacy program you will need business cards and a brochure. Include in the brochure general information about your organization and a description of your workforce services. Emphasize your organization's strengths and track record. Be specific and avoid literacy jargon. Describe the benefits of a workplace literacy program for both the company and workers. Keep the focus on these benefits rather than presenting a negative picture of the community's economy and business world. Present general information about the workplace literacy program in your ongoing community relations, efforts, but also develop presentations about the program that are specifically geared to civic, business and trade organizations. Do Your Homework The best candidates for workplace programs are companies that are involved in retraining of their workers, that have a long-term commitment to their workers, and that have a good working relationship with the unions. In general, be wary of companies that are having management-union problems or that have downsizing in their recent past or in their future. Before approaching a company, find answers to as many of these questions as possible: What products or services does the company sell? Who are its decision makers? What is its organizational structure? What educational requirements does if have for employment? What is the responsiveness/commitment to employees? Is training viewed as essential to meeting its goals? Does if have a training department? Do workers belong to a union? The company's annual report is a good resource here. Keep in mind, however, that you may not be able to answer some of the questions until you have made direct contact with the company. Approach the Company Workplace Literacy: A blueprint for Action A Guide for the Educational Provider presents a helpful way of thinking about how to approach employers with information about your services: Your approach to employers and organized labor is similar to that of a salesperson selling a product. Your product is an educational program, which will benefit both the employer and the employee. Stress the benefits that will result by raising the basic skill levels of the workforce. Increased productivity, better communications, imported attendance and fewer errors all can be translated into monetary gains for the employer. Establish a personal contact within the company. A logical contact person is someone in the training or human resources department who has a first hand knowledge of the need for upgrading workers' skills. It is important that you also contact the president or chief executive officer early. Without an indication of interest by the top decision maker, all other meeting may come to a dead end. Send your contact person an information packet and an individualized cover letter briefly outlining your program and what you can offer to the company. Be certain of the person's correct name, title, and address. Request a meeting with that person and nay other appropriate company people such as human resources staff, labor representatives, or key employees or supervisors. Say when you will follow up with a phone call to set a meeting date and time. This date should be within a week. Prepare the information packet in a manila file folder. Label it with your organization's name and staple a business card to the folder. If information is labeled and ready to file, the contact person will usually keep it; loose papers often get misplaced of tossed. Include in the packet: Brochure describing your program and services Relevant news clippings Brief program history and overview List of your organization's board of directors Program mission statement and goals and objectives List of business contacts with whom your organization has worked, if any Questions for employers to ask themselves to determine if there is a need for your services(see Appendix A) Within a week, follow up with a phone call. Ask if there are further questions you can answer. Offer to come to the company to meet with the contact person and other interested company and labor union representatives. If a meeting is set, send a letter confirming the time, place, and purpose of the meeting. Include a copy of the information packet for each person. Meet with Key Stakeholders The purpose of the initial meeting is to listen to the basic skills training needs of the company, explore with company and labor representatives their interest in offering a workplace literacy program to their workers, and explain how your literacy organization's services can meet those needs. Company representatives could include management, human resources, and key employees and supervisors. Before the Meeting: Prepare well. Define a clear set of meeting objectives: What do you need to accomplish during the meeting? What is the best way to do that? During the Meeting: Observe business protocol. Listen more than you talk. Learn about the education services and training already provided in the company. Be prepared to describe how other companies have gone about providing services to their employees. Ending the Meeting: Find common ground for meeting closure. Get a commitment for the next steps and identify individuals from your staff and the company staff to implement the steps. All parties should leave the meeting feeling that a beneficial process has begun. Use caution if you sense a negative undercurrent to the meeting. Not every workplace is ready for a basic skills program. End a nonproductive meeting graciously and offer to contact the company again in several months. After the Meeting: Write a thank-you note for participants' time and attention. Recap the high points, issues, and results of the meeting. Enclose any materials that you had promised to provide such as an example of a company needs assessment or further information about your program. Workplace Literacy: A Blueprint for Action gives the following recommendation: Do not pressure the employer representative for an immediate response. Usually your contact will have to report to upper lever management to discuss this issue further and obtain final approval. . Also, remember that no matter how enthusiastic and excited the employer representative May be with the concept of a workplace literacy program, not all contacts will develop into actual programs. Be patient. Selling is hard work. Even if the plan is rejected at the initial interview, a thank-you letter should still be sent. A follow-up letter may be sent again in six months, in case the situation has changed. Conduct a Company Needs Assessment If the company does not have a clear sense of what it wants from a workforce literacy program, if should conduct some type of needs assessment, guided by a team of managers, union representatives, and workers. You might offer to provide guidelines about the type of information needed and how to get it, as well as some sample needs assessment instruments. The needs assessment should identify literacy-related job problems as well as job changes and skills upgrading required because of new technology, safety and health regulations, or a new participatory management system involving workers in work teams. According to Workplace Literacy; A Blueprint for Action, both you and the employer need to know answers to these questions: "What basic skills do the employees lack? How many employees lack these skills? How many employees will participate in the workplace literacy program? What basic skills need to be taught?" The book adds: An informal needs assessment might be conducted in the initial planning stages of developing a workplace literacy program. Later, a more extensive assessment should be made to determine the extent of the employee needs. The needs assessment can be general or specific. Workplace Literacy: A Blueprint for Action lists several questions to help you and the company pinpoint the purpose to the needs assessment: Is the needs assessment to be used mainly to establish the need for a particular literacy program, or is it to be used to judge employees' attitudes towards participation in a literacy program? Will a management group determine employees' needs, or will the employees themselves determine their own needs? Will the information gathered be used to develop classes or to help in the evaluation? Will the questionnaires be directed at employees, supervisors or both? Develop a Proposal When a company indicates an interest in working with your organization, develop a proposal. Based on discussions with company and union representatives and the results of the needs assessment, the proposal should include: the credentials of those from your organization who will be involved with the program program objectives plans for a more extensive literacy audit (if not already done) the process for assessing skill levels of potential learners plans for an awareness and recruitment campaign proposed program structure methods and materials evaluation procedures costs Sign a Contract Before beginning the workplace literacy program, sign a very specific contract or memorandum of agreement. This agreement should cover a definite time period. In addition to restating the agreed-upon components of the proposal, the contract includes: identification of an individual who will be the company liaison to the literacy project the roles and commitments of your organization, the company, and organized labor worker participation details: voluntary or mandatory? Note; If voluntary, include the terms of worker participation-e.g., 4 hours a week for 6 weeks with the option to sign up for additional 6-week sessions. If mandatory, name the new skills that must be learned within a given amount of time, and say how those skills related to job performance how confidentiality will be handled incentives for worker participation program duration schedule (At a minimum, classes or tutoring sessions should be held twice per week for one and a half-hours. A good approach is to schedule them around shift changes.) location of classes (If on-site, take into consideration privacy needs. The company needs to provide quiet, well-lit, comfortable meeting areas that are easily accessible to both workers and tutors.) It is important to have one person from the company assigned as the liaison for the workplace literacy program. Often this is the training director or the personnel manager. This person also needs to be given the time and resources to support the program. Workplace Literacy: A Blueprint for Action offers these thoughts on employer commitment: In many cases, employers may be willing to provide [materials and equipment, time off for employees enrolling in classes, incentives and recognition], daycare services, or to furnish space for class sessions. The commitment of each employer will be different, but these factors will give you an indication of how committed they are to this cooperative project. next page