Skills for Work

Pandemic-Proofing Employers and Employees Through Workplace Literacy and Skills Development

(March 2022-March 2023)

Through the Province of Ontario's Skills Development Fund (SDF), Literacy Link South Central partnered with Literacy Link Eastern Ontario and undertook a one-year project to address literacy skills gaps in workplaces. Working with 5 businesses, the project team collaborated with employers to identify the literacy training needs of their employees and implemented the corresponding training. By the end of the project, we had exceeded our goal of training 90 individuals and had addressed the skill building needs of many more employees with various forms of literacy related interventions. This project's objective was to learn from our experiences with an overall goal to increase the ability of Ontario's LBS system to respond directly to employers’ workplace literacy needs in the future.

To learn more about our work supporting employers, please click here to review the report "Meet Them Where They Work" (2023).

The following "Taking Your Place in Workplace Literacy" webinar series was offered through Literacy Link South Central, in partnership with many of our provincial colleagues who also had lessons to share about developing and implementing workplace literacy. Click below to access resources from each webinar, including French versions of the slide decks including the webinar transcript, thanks to Coalition ontarienne de formation des adultes (COFA).

Recorded webinar (English): Taking Your Place in Workplace Literacy: Marketing to Employers

English slide deck: Marketing to Employers

French slide deck with transcript: Markéting à destination des employeurs

Recorded webinar (English): Taking Your Place in Workplace Literacy: Organizational Needs Assessments

English slide deck: Organizational Needs Assessments

French slide deck with transcript: Analyse des besoins organisationnels

Recorded webinar (English): Taking Your Place in Workplace Literacy: Workplace Literacy Training Program Delivery

English slide deck: Workplace Literacy Training

French slide deck with transcript: Formation

Recorded webinar (English): Taking Your Place in Workplace Literacy: Workplace Literacy Evaluation

English slide deck: Workplace Literacy Evaluation

French slide deck with transcript: Évaluation

Meeting the Needs of Modern Manufacturers (2020 - 2021)

Local labour market information makes it clear that manufacturing employers are struggling to find people to fill entry-level positions. Compounding the issue is that some applicants do not have the soft skills they need to be successful in the job. We believe that an assessment that can measure critical soft skills skills before someone starts a job can help. It will support employers in finding applicants that are a good fit, and help both job seekers and skills upgrading programs know what kind of training can help people targeting entry-level positions in manufacturing be successful at work.

Learn how to use our Soft Skills Assessment Tool for Manufacturing by viewing this 22-minute webinar:

• Webinar recording
• Slide deck

Download the Soft Skills Assessment Tool (2021)

French: Évaluation des compétences dans le secteur manufacturier (2021)

Literacy Link South Central's soft skills assessment contains two parts. The first is the Life Effectiveness Questionnaire (LEQ) and it offers 24 statements that should be ranked on a scale of 1 (that doesn't sound like me) to 8 (that sounds like me). It’s an assessment that's used internationally as it is proven to be both reliable and valid. The second part of the assessment is a Situational Judgement Test (SJT), which offers nine real-life workplace scenarios along with possible response options. This style of assessment demonstrates good validity, and was developed in partnership with representatives from the manufacturing sector in the London Economic Region.

Download the Soft Skills Assessment Guidebook (2021)

French: Guide d’utilisation de l’outil d’évaluation des compétences de base du LLSC  (2021)

The Guidebook shares information about this project, outlines each of the statements and scenarios and which soft skills they are measuring, explains how to score the assessment and provides information on interpreting the results.

Note: For each person whose soft skills you plan to evaluate, you will need to print one copy of the Assessment Tool (above) and one copy each of both Attachment A and Attachment B from the Guidebook. Attachement A and Attachment B have been extracted from the Guidebook as a the Assessment Scoring Package (below) to make it easier to print. 

Download the Soft Skills Assessment Scoring Package (2021)

This scoring package contains the scoring key for the Situational Judgement Test along with the overall Soft Skills Assessment scoring sheet. They can be found as Attachment A and Attachment B in the Guidebook (above).

Finding the Way: Building a Stronger Path Between LBS and Manufacturing (2020)

French: Trouver la voie: Renforcer les liens entre le milieu d’AFB et le secteur manufacturier (2020)

The report "Finding the Way" represents a plan - a pathway to better connect the Literacy and Basic Skills (LBS) field with local manufacturers, and vice versa. The goal is to provide employment-bound LBS learners with new pathways to build their skills and prepare for entry level jobs in manufacturing.

Employer Engagement Summary Report (2020)

A key element of this project is the development of a soft skills assessment tool to help manufacturers identify job candidates with the soft skills they are looking for. To inform this work, interviews were held with 11 manufacturing employers representing the largest subsectors in the London Economic Region (LER). This report outlines the process for, and results of those interviews.

Employer Engagement Infographic (2020)

This visual representation of the information gathered through our key informant interviews shares the top skills employers are looking for, education levels they require, hiring methods manufacturers are using, and more.