What Workers Need

Attachment 2A

in: Wilmington (DE) News-Journal, March 17, 1996, page BZ17 (a special supplement entitled "Business '96: Education and the Work Force").

In 1991, the U.S. Labor Department issues "What Work Requires of Schools", a groundbreaking look at what employers today think workers in the future should know and be able to do.

"The responses they gave were very enlightening and they should be on the desks of curriculum planners and educators", said Douglas Hill, director of the Delaware Business/Industry/Education Alliance at the University of Delaware in Newark, DE.

Issued by the secretary of labor's Commission non Achieving Necessary Skills, the report details the findings from a national survey of thousands of business owners, public employers, union officials, managers, and workers in big and small shops, plants, stores, and companies.

Results of the survey show that new, entry-level workers of tomorrow should have at least five broad competencies and three different foundations.

The competencies:

• being able to identify, organize, plan, and allocate resources ranging from work time to budgets.

• being able to work with others -- from supervisors and co-workers to clients and customers.

• being able to acquire and successfully use information -- from written to computer-generated information.

• being able to understand and navigate the structure of organizations and sysems related to specific work.

• being able to understand and use a variety of tools and technologies, including computers.

The foundations:

• basic skills such as reading, writing, and performing arithmetical and mathematical operations.

• thinking skills such as knowing how to learn and reason, solve problems, and make informed decisions.

• personal qualities such as a sense of responsibility and self-management, integrity and honesty, self-esteem, and sociability.