For more information visit
www.skillshighway.govt.nz
DOL 11273.1
Measuring the success of your workplace literacy training programme
Is poor workplace literacy impacting on your bottom line?
Research shows that about a million Kiwis lack the reading, writing, maths and communication skills they
need at work. This can have major eects on your everyday business through mistakes, missed deadlines,
customer complaints, wastage, and time lost through accidents and injuries.
If you establish a workplace literacy training programme in your business, youre likely to see real benets.
These may range from better performance and productivity to lower sta turnover and a better health and
safety culture.
Template for measuring success
Small to medium (SME) organisation
Why measure your programmes success?
Workplace literacy training is a signicant investment, so it’s
important to measure its success.
By setting benchmarks and keeping track of your programme’s
progress and results, you can check that it’s meeting your
business and training goals, identify areas for improvement and
make changes where they’re needed. Its all about having quality
assurance in your business.
About this template
We’ve designed this template to help you measure the success
of your workplace literacy training programme. Once completed,
it provides information on:
· your business and employees
· your workplace literacy training programme
· how you measure its success, and the results of your
measurement.
You can then use this information as a benchmark for future
reviews – to measure how well your programme is doing over
time and where you might do things better.
The template has been developed with help from the Workplace
Literacy Leaders Forum, which is made up of executives from
small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and large corporate
organisations.
How to use the template
The template is made up of three main sections. Each one
requires you to provide specic information. Most questions
include example answers as a guide.
While it’s important that you provide as much information as
possible, you might nd that only certain parts of the template are
relevant. In this case, simply choose the parts that work for you.
For more information visit
www.skillshighway.govt.nz
1. About us
Name
Business type (for example: manufacturing,
horticulture, telecommunications)
Business location(s)
Number of people employed:
· Full time
· Part time
· Casual
· Seasonal
· Total
Our cultural make-up (number of employees):
· New Zealand European
· Māori
· European
· Asian
· Pacic peoples
· Middle Eastern/Latin American/African
· Other
Number of employees who speak English as
their second language
Number of employees who don’t speak
English at all
Template
For more information visit
www.skillshighway.govt.nz
2. Our workplace literacy training programme
Programmes goals:
For our business (for example: improve
productivity, improve health and safety, be seen as
a good employer, improve customer satisfaction,
reduce errors and improve accuracy)
For our employees (for example: improve
condence, improve career opportunities, enable
greater responsibility and accountability)
Programmes t with other programmes,
policies and initiatives (for example: other
training and qualication programmes, health and
safety policy)
Programme participants: Name
Manager/Supervisor
Trainer (in-house and/or outsourced)
Administrative/Support person(s) (for
example: manager, foreman, HR administrator)
Participant(s)
Programme resources:
Teaching materials (for example: laptops,
resource books, lesson plans, online modules,
dictionaries)
Learner resources (for example: notebooks,
hand-outs)
Equipment (for example: furniture, whiteboard,
photocopier, computer, internet, workplace
machinery)
Training location (for example: trainer’s premises,
staroom, outside and on the job)
For more information visit
www.skillshighway.govt.nz
Administrative support (for example: learning
progression database, privacy policy, training and
learner record management)
Time allocated to programme (for example:
three hours per week at trainer’s premises, plus
homework, at times to suit the learner and the
business)
How we assess employees needs
(see example below)
Post-assessment process (see example below)
How we deliver our programme
(see example below)
Example: How we assess employees’ needs
· Learners volunteer for, or are referred to, the training programme.
· They are assessed before (or if impractical soon after) they join the programme.
· If a learner has (or is assumed as having) a need that the programme can’t meet, they are referred to other support services.
The assessment process:
1. The trainer gives a programme orientation.
2. The learner is assessed according to skills such as:
· reading, vocabulary and comprehension
· shape, area and direction (measurement)
· communication
· listening with understanding (comprehension)
· computing
· key skills required for their role.
3. The information is recorded in our learning progression database.
For more information visit
www.skillshighway.govt.nz
Example: Post-assessment process
· The learner’s needs are identied according to their role in the business and the businesss needs.
· The learner and trainer agree on the learner’s goals for the short, medium and long term.
· They decide on the training curriculum.
· The learner signs an ‘individual development plan, which covers their goals and focus areas.
· The trainer creates a record for the learner and uploads it to the database (where it can only be accessed by authorised personnel).
Example: How we deliver our programme
· The trainer works with the learner’s manager and the administrator to establish the training schedule, activities and resources.
This is uploaded to the learning progression database.
· The learner is given their training resources.
· The training includes coaching, reviews of and feedback on ‘homework’, and on-the-job training.
· The trainer assesses learner progress after each session, and records the details on the database.
· The learner is assessed when they complete a module, and receives a summary assessment after six months.
· The trainer records feedback from the learner and other sta, both on the database and in a weekly report to the learners manager.
· The trainer records any other training the learner completes.
· At the programmes end, the learner is assessed on the achievement of their goals. If successful, they receive a special certicate.
3. Measuring and evaluating our workplace literacy training programme
Visit www.skillshighway.co.nz for tools you can use to measure the success of your training programme:
· Five NZQA questions to ask during evaluation: www.skillshighway.govt.nz/UserFiles/Evaluating-your-programme.pdf
How we record learner progress (for example:
informal feedback, interviews with sta and
learners, business and learner records – see also
example below)
Person(s) responsible for evaluating our
programme
For more information visit
www.skillshighway.govt.nz
How we evaluate the programme Key measures (see example below)
The questions we ask ourselves as a result of
the evaluation:
Our answers
· How well is our learner(s) progressing?
· How eective is the training?
· Is our employee(s) guided and supported?
· How well does the training programme meet
our skill needs?
· What value does the programme deliver to
our business?
· To what extent have the programme goals
been met?
How we report the results
For more information visit
www.skillshighway.govt.nz
Example: How we record learner progress
· Trainer reports: updates on progress, topics covered, issues and risks identied, number of tutoring and preparation hours,
number of active learners, number of initial or nal assessments, number of individual learning plans reviewed, objectives for
next session.
· Payroll reports: learner attendance records, signed trainer work records.
· Monthly status report to Managing Director.
Example: How we evaluate the programme
· Statistics on training attendance rates, unit standards and qualications gained, hazard and incident/injury reporting, ACC levies.
· Analysis of errors, rejection rates, delivery timeframes, maintenance and repair costs, resource use, accident and injury rates,
work completion rates.
· Payroll records: sta absenteeism and turnover rates.
· Learner participation in meetings and using computers.
· Peer feedback on learner’s strengths, areas for development and improvement.
· Interest from other employees in joining the programme.
· Business nancial performance.
· Reports from family members about changes at home (eg, learner more involved in their childrens education, buying computers
for the home).
· Complaints/feedback from colleagues, customers and suppliers.