Skills For Life
Skills for Life offers a way forward for employees struggling with reading, writing and numeracy. It can be of particular use for those people who fell through the education gap in their younger years and whose lack of basic skills hinders their performance at work.
Some telltale signs that employees are experiencing difficulties are those individuals not following procedures, avoiding written tasks, regularly miscalculating, lacking confidence, slow in completing tasks or avoiding working alone.
Do you recognise any of these 'telltale signs' in your business?
- Reluctance by staff to take on more responsibility or different jobs
- Absenteeism
- Wastage
- High staff turnover
- Poor customer service
- Low motivation and lack of involvement
- Inefficiency
- Lack of qualifications
Would your business benefit if your staff improved their skills in:
- Customer care
- Using the phone
- Following instructions - written or verbal
- Taking messages
- Writing reports
- Complying with regulations
- Estimating numbers
- Ordering and stock control
- Time-keeping
- Finance or handling money
- Weighing and measuring
The national Skills for Life programme has been developed by the Learning and Skills Council to help people improve their literacy, language and numeracy so they can get the job done and businesses can improve their performance and profitability. Did you know that 80% of all people who will be employed in 2020 are employed today yet 21.6% of adults in Merseyside have no qualifications? In addition to this, the new pool of entrants to the workforce are even less qualified with 57% of young people not achieving five A-C grade GCSEs. This is a serious issue for tourism and hospitality businesses and one which must be addressed if we are to become a premier European destination.
We should also be aware of the potential needs of workers who do not have English as their first language. They may face additional barriers at work and addressing the language issue will help employers make better use of their experience and skills.
Your training partner will help you identify individual needs and find specialised solutions. Delivery can be flexible and short booster courses can be arranged for people who have specific gaps in their skills. Alternatively, the essential skills can be built into other training programmes - for example health and safety, quality control, presentation skills or telephone skills.
100% funding of the cost of developing your employee's essential literacy, language and numeracy skills is available o all Greater Merseyside employers - whether you're an SME or not - through the Learning and Skills Council.
For more information, contact:
Learning and Skills Council Greater Merseyside
14th Floor The Plaza
Old Hall Street
Liverpool
L3 9TD
Tel: 0151 672 3532
Email: merseysideinfo@lsc.gov.uk
Website: www.lsc.gov.uk
or contact the Careers Advice Service on 0800 100 900 from 8.00 am to 10.00 pm seven days a week.