Now it's back to basics at work

With workplace learning the new buzz-phrase, companies are being urged to introduce training for everyone - from the chief executive to waiters and cleaners. Robert Nurden reports

When Abu Thottathil, a Keralan waiter at Cafe Spice Namaste in London, was given the chance of free English lessons in work time he leapt at it. So did eight other catering staff at the upmarket Indian restaurant near Tower Bridge. Now they can explain complex menus to customers and how to deflect the racist jibes they occasionally receive from drunken City bankers on Friday nights.

But, as owner Syrus Todiwala explains, the course, provided by a local training institute, threw up some surprises. "I quickly realised that I needed training too – in how to operate the computerised order system more effectively, in the best way of implementing health and safety regulations and in human resources management. As a result, we're now more of a team and a happier workforce."

This is the kind of practical example of successful holistic training involving every level within a company, from the chief executive to the cleaner, that Lancaster University's Workplace Basic Skills Network has been advocating for a long time.

The network is one of a growing number of organisations responding to the urgent call of the Government's Skills for Life strategy for better language, literacy, numeracy and IT aptitude at work. Most of this is a response to the 1999 Moser Report, which bemoaned the fact that seven million people in the UK, if given the alphabetical index to the Yellow Pages, could not locate the page reference for plumbers. Nor could one in three adults calculate the area of a room, 21ft x 14ft.

"This is a shocking situation and a sad reflection on past decades of schooling," says the report. "It is one of the reasons for relatively low productivity in our economy, and it cramps the lives of millions of people. We owe it to them to remedy at public expense the shortcomings of the past. To do so should be a priority for government, and for all those, in the business world or elsewhere, who can help."

Calling the teaching of basic skills a Cinderella service, it advocates halving the levels of functional illiteracy and innumeracy within 10 years and making major progress by 2005. In response, the Government has pledged £1.5 billion over three years to upgrade basic skills levels among the workforce. In July, the Chancellor pledged even more money to achieve the next target: 1.5 million adults with better skills by 2007. Clearly, workplace learning is the current educational buzz-phrase.

While accepting Moser's findings, Lancaster University's Workplace Basic Skills Network, a membership organisation that disseminates good practice and encourages continuing professional development, believes this is only half the story. "To be really effective, we must get away from 'remedial action' associated with literacy," says Fiona Frank, the network's executive director. "Many practitioners are unaware of the different professional skills you need to develop successful provision in the workplace."

Basic skills teachers should be consultants and collaborators, too, she says, with analytical and negotiation skills, knowledge of business and industry, and an awareness of other stakeholders such as government bodies and unions. After all, bosses are usually reluctant to release workers for training in work time unless the benefits are clearly spelt out.

In the UK, basic skills have generally been offered as a "bolt-on" provision, separate from other training. To counteract this, the provider must help companies develop whole organisational needs analysis, taking into account how verbal, textual and electronic communications are practised.

Literacy and numeracy need to be made relevant to the demands of the modern workplace. That can involve meeting health and safety requirements, using metrication and the euro, introducing and using new technology, new international standards and working practices, new demands for quality and flatter management structures.

Sceptical and time-conscious managers are often persuaded of the argument by being reminded of how information, communications and tecnology (ICT) has radically altered the workplace in the past 10 years. The impact has been no less for them than for their workforce. Being literate and numerate means more than writing good English and adding up accurately; it also means being conversant with an often baffling range of electronic equipment.

Prescott Powell Ltd, a Birmingham manufacturer, was going through a difficult time, caused partly by losing clients after problems with wrong measurements, specifications and orders. Managing director Bob Whittock responded to approaches by City College Birmingham to arrange basic skills classes.

This involved sessions in ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) and IT for staff, also attended by management, on the company's premises. "The managers, team leaders and supervisors are now better equipped to recognise and support people with basic skills needs, themselves included," says Mr Whittock. "The skills base of the workforce is improving and has had a direct effect on efficiency by saving money on faulty production."

According to Linda Marklew, head housekeeper of Mercure London City Bankside Hotel, whose staff underwent basic skills training, ICT skills can have more of a knock-on effect than literacy or numeracy. Her staff are now using the internet to access other subject areas.

Basic skills projects are taking place in prisons, hospitals, councils, bus and rail stations, in the fisheries industry, among street cleaners, hostels for the homeless, and ceramics and ice-cream factories.

The holistic approach extends to the individual as well as to the company. While feeling happier professionally, Mr Thottathil says he feels more at ease in personally, too. "Now it is better being a foreigner in Britain. I can understand street signs, which I couldn't before. I can help my son with his English homework. One day I want to set up on my own."

The network's emphasis on the positive aspect of basic skills, rather than seeing it as a problem to be cured, is beginning to make its mark in government. The Adult Basic Skills Strategy Unit at the Department for Education and Skills (DfES), which funds the Network, is taking up the idea of creating a number of "community literacy champions".

The field is expanding rapidly. Organisations such as the Basic Skills Agency, the TUC and the Ufl Learn Direct are promoting literacy and numeracy in the workplace. Funding is in place. And the DfES has produced an educational toolkit for employers to raise awareness of the need for basic skills on the job. "The two key tasks are convincing employers that they have a role to play and ensuring that learning institutions have the capacity and expertise to meet the demand," says Eoin McLellan-Murray, former head of the Employer Initiatives Team at the DfES.

But capacity means teachers. At present there is a massive shortfall in the number of basic skill providers, just as there is in mainstream education. And ensuring that there is enough of them may turn out to be the true test of the Government's resolve.

Failure to do that and these more enlightened views on literacy may never have the chance to create an impact, leaving Britain with one of the least literate workforces in Europe.

education@independent.co.uk