What to expect during the programme

Undertaking a Workplace Literacy Programme is easy and provides many opportunities for your people to make a positive difference at work. Benefits in the workplace can include improved accuracy, reduced waste and rework, better communication and improved employee morale. Participants usually find their new skills also benefit their personal lives, by better enabling them to support their children's schooling, make more informed purchasing and health-care decisions, and become more involved in their local communities.

Getting started with your literacy programme

We will meet with you to discuss what you want to achieve, how our literacy and numeracy programmes work, and how they might run in your workplace.  After this meeting we will present a proposal that:

• provides an overview of your company and employee requirements
• identifies programme cost options and available government funding
• seeks your agreement to proceed with a needs analysis.

Needs analysis

A thorough analysis is carried out to ensure we fully understand what you want to achieve, and understand the priorities and needs to be addressed in order to meet these goals.  The needs analysis involves:

• speaking with you
• observing day-to-day operations in your workplace
• speaking with employees about how they do their jobs
• identifying the skill requirements for various job roles including the literacy and numeracy tasks, processes and documents
• providing you with a report on our findings and our training recommendations.

If you wish to proceed, this information will be used to design a training programme that uses real content from your workplace.  It ensures training remains focused on your company's objectives, and on equipping your employees with the skills to reach their performance potential.

Choosing and enrolling trainees

The needs analysis helps to identify employees who will benefit the most from a Workplace Literacy Programme. We can help you publicise and explain the training programme to employees, and enroll them. In our experience, employees appreciate the opportunity and are keen to develop their skills.

How the programme works

The programme uses documents from your workplace because people learn best when they are able to use their new skills straight away.

We provide training at your workplace, and usually work with groups of between two and six participants. Training is held in a series of weekly sessions, which enables participants to use their new skills and discuss the experience with their tutor. Small group sessions are ideal for improving communication skills and meeting individuals' specific development needs.

Our tutors will meet with you weekly to discuss the programme's progress, ensuring the curriculum continues to meet your immediate business needs.

Programme funding and costs

The Tertiary Education Commission's Workplace Literacy Fund may be available for your Workplace Literacy and Numeracy Programme and we can determine whether you meet the funding criteria.

Programme scheduling, timing and location

Funded programmes allow 40 hours' training per person.  Depending upon how many hours you want to allocate per training session, the programme can take from ten weeks to a year to complete.
Sessions are timed to fit around your workload and production schedules and we will co-ordinate with you in managing people's attendance.  Training usually takes place at the workplace, in work time, so you will need to provide a suitable training location that ideally has a computer and Internet access.

Throughout the programme, participants are encouraged to study in their own time.

Course content

All Workplace Numeracy and Literacy Programmes are tailored to your business's needs and goals and, if desired, can include NZQA unit standards and contribute to industry qualifications.

Each participant has a personalised learning plan and goals that reflects their own needs in the context of your business objectives. Training sessions focus on the particular demands of each employee's job.  For example, sessions may include the following:

• understanding procedures
• filling in workplace forms
• oral communication skills, such as giving or receiving instructions, and contributing at meetings
• workplace calculations and numeracy
• quality management processes
• health and safety requirements.

Course content can easily be adjusted if your training priorities change during the programme.

Reporting progress

Our tutor will liaise closely with appropriate people in your company to ensure the programme is meeting your needs.  We will keep you up-to-date with progress through weekly meetings, monthly reports, and a final report on the programme's completion. We will also take care of all funding-related reporting requirements to the Tertiary Education Commission.

Where required, training outcomes will also be assessed and reported to the NZQA for unit standards achievement.

Contact us  to find out more about how we can help make a positive difference to your business.