About Skills for Life and why they are important to your business

Skills for Life (also known as basic, core or essential skills) are functional English and maths up to Level 2 (GCSE). The Government’s Skills Strategy, launched in 2003, also identified ICT within this category and as a key enabler for the development of the other skills. Many people associate the term, ‘basic skills’ with being completely unable to read, write or speak English. Although there are many people in the UK who struggle with these skills, very few people have no literacy, numeracy or spoken English skills whatsoever. However, in employment terms any sort of Skills for Life (SfL) limitations have serious implications for the individual and the economy.

The Skills for Life National Needs and Impact Survey of Literacy, Numeracy and IT skills, published in October 2003, estimated that in England, 5.2 million adults aged 16 to 65 have literacy levels below Level 1 (broadly equivalent in difficulty to an English GCSE at grades D-G), and 6.8 million have numeracy skills below Entry Level 3 (the level expected of an 11-year-old). By 2008, we met the 2010 target of 2.25 million adults improving their skills and gaining first Skills for Life qualifications, 2 years early. The long-term goal is 95% of adults achieving functional literacy and numeracy skills by 2020. For the three years from 2008/09, the targets are for an additional 597,000 people of working age to achieve a first Level 1 (or above) literacy qualification, and for 390,000 to achieve a first Entry Level 3 (or above) numeracy qualification.

Up to 7 million workers are estimated to have reading, writing and maths difficulties, which can pose real problems for people wanting to progress up the career ladder. Poor basic skills cost UK businesses nearly £5 billion per year, and the UK economy as a whole £10 billion per year. In line with vocational and higher level skills issues; employers have a key role to play in establishing opportunities through which employees can improve their literacy and numeracy skills. For more information visit www.dius.gov.uk/skills/engaging_employers

In your workplace, you may notice signs that suggest the members of your team would benefit from Skills for Life Support.

These may include:

• Being unsure about answering questions about time (e.g. How long ago? For how long?) or weights & measures
• A limited range of punctuation when writing
• Getting confused between the past and present tense
• Giving out the wrong change
• Reluctance to take on any responsibility with money e.g. petty cash, operating a till
• Struggling with using a calculator or spreadsheet
• Struggling with putting items in ranked order e.g. from the biggest to the smallest
• Wrong spelling of simple words
• Reluctance to take on tasks involving writing things down (e.g. taking telephone messages) or calculations
• Inconsistent use of upper and lower case letters, particularly in the middle of words
• Poor handwriting
• Extremely well developed memory, which may be the flip side of not writing things down

Organisations have found that staff turnover decreases as a result of having a better skilled, more motivated workforce, thus saving on recruitment and training costs.

The attractiveness of the organisation to potential applicants is likely to improve: research demonstrates that in many industries the chance to undertake training is a bigger motivating factor for employees than pay.

If you are willing to offer staff from overseas help with English, you will substantially increase the pool of skilled workers from which you can recruit.

Improving these essential skills builds confidence and motivation. This increases employee loyalty, and can have the effect of ‘unlocking’ other skills, which the employees have not had the confidence to use previously.

Once an employee has had a positive learning experience they are more likely to want to learn more. This is particularly beneficial when the organisation is undergoing change - installing new software, for example, or buying new machinery, on which staff will need training.

See some examples of employees who have benefited from Skills for Life learning in the workplace:
Angie's story
Dean's story

Go to next page 'How Learning at Work Day can support Skills for Life'