each day, he or she writes a report on how often the machine stopped, for how long, whether it was fixed, and what happened. Paperwork goes in from dozens of mari-flex machines to a manager who decides, “Do we shut down this
machine and recalibrate, or do we run it through two or three shifts?” Management is trying to cut out the middle- level manager. They want a qualified worker to decide when to shut down the machine.
For promotion, a worker’s next job is on the second shift where the he cleans the machine. The worker measures acids and bases and must read a forty-eight point set of directions on how to clean this machine so consumers do not
get salmonella or other sicknesses. Finding employees for this position is difficult. The employer has a hard time promoting capable people from the noncollege, high school graduates they hire. The consumer does not want people
guessing about food preparation directions.
3.4. Quality assurance groups
Industries move toward democratization of the workplace with quality assurance groups. A group of workers without a manager regularly present brainstormed ideas of what could be done to decrease mistakes and improve
productivity. The group problem-solves about half an hour a day, maybe three days a week. They jot down ideas in notes, then consolidate them in one place, where a management pattern is developed. But 20 to 30 percent of the
groups at a major technology company had no one capable of taking notes that could be understood by a person not part of the group.
That productivity strategy is endangered at this technology company, which mainly hires high school graduates. Interviews with workers indicated that many had never been in a small group in school. The remainder said the
college-bound fellow students took the notes. The bottom third were not expected to do the literacy activities. Their cooperation in school was limited to listening and occasionally talking, but never writing. When these people later
need to listen, take notes, read, and write, they often lack the skills.
A similar quality assurance example comes from an international electronics switch-making company in Illinois. They just introduced a Quality Assurance Program they call CEDAC Cause-Effect Diagrams and Cards. The
company has committed to have its entire work force, in a democratic fashion, share quality assurance meeting roles. This involves rotating note-taking tasks and writing on the newsprint tasks. Teams of eight to ten workers
involved in producing micro-switches develop diagrams of what would cause this defect or would cause that slowdown. They outline the steps and procedures of production and then draw arrows that show the different causes
and effects of what might be involved in productivity problems. As people meet in these regular half-hour meetings a couple of days a week, they keep these diagrams posted in the room. Everybody is expected to write suggestions
of what they think might be happening on four-by-six cards and put them up on the diagram. Other people look at those suggestions and draw arrows. It is a democratic, group, problem-solving process. Many workers cannot
participate because they cannot write a complete sentence, cannot read to follow the patterns, or are too embarrassed to write on the board. The employer is trying to decide if they can increase profitability and productivity enough to
keep the jobs in Illinois. Their window for this sort of decision-making is never longer than a few years.
3.5. Banking industry
The banking industry spent 32,000,000 on basic skills instruction in the United States in 1988. The amount had doubled since 1985. The American Bankers Association ABA reports that 23 percent of employees in entry-level
jobs experience basic skills problems. Nearly 30 percent of those in training have low basic skills that interfere with training. This is a problem because the banking industry spends 4,200 to train a teller before he or she goes to a
window. That 4,200 is the same as we spend to educate a child for a year, kindergarten through twelfth grade. When trained tellers, customer services representatives, bookkeepers, loan clerks, or secretary-receptionists derive
little benefit from a 4,200 investment in training, the industry faces a financial hemorrhage. This is why the banking industry has invested in the development of a basic skills series customized for banking.
The ABA and Simon and Schuster have available twelve strategic skills booklets based on literacy task-analyses of the kinds of tasks that entry-level bank employees do. The materials are designed to train employees, as well as
teach parallel life-skills tasks. For example, filling out a mail-order catalogue form and checking the computations on it is very similar to checking a deposit slip for a mistake. The banking industry developed other similar tasks for
its literacy training.
These booklets are based on research conducted by Jorie Philippi and me. Basic skills problems were often imbedded in daily problem-solving tasks. A good example is in dealing with an angry customer who calls up
wanting to know why the bill on her home equity loan is not right. Susan, a bank teller from the bottom third of the high school class, answers the phone. The customer is rambling, is unhappy, and it is early in the morning. The
customer is not getting to the point. Susan must figure out what the customer is saying and make some notes. She has to interrupt the customer to make sure she has the correct account number and middle initial because Jones is a
common name. Maybe she even has to get the street address. Susan has to make these notes and then use a computer.
It has been a while since Susan has even looked at home equity loans. She does not remember exactly which function keys to punch on the computer, so she looks on the side of the machine at a little cheat-sheet, technically
called a job aid. This sheet, which she made earlier, lists the keys to punch. She has to read it and figure out which keys to punch to pull up the appropriate screen. Now she has to skim the screen quickly because the customer is
anxious because she has to get to work and is already a little late. Susan cannot take a lot of time to ask coworkers for help. She has to skim over the figures and decide whether she has the correct customer to match with the notes,
and whether the home equity loan is there. She checks to see what the monthly charge should be, which may involve a calculator, and then summarizes the information in a way that does not make the customer angry.
Probably Susan takes so long that the customer hangs up or says, “Well, send me a note explaining this.” This often happens when employees take longer than ninety seconds. If the customer hangs up, Susan must summarize what is
going on in a written note to the customer so it does not anger her so much that she goes to a different bank.
These examples represent current literacy demands in the workplace. Other literacy skills are proofing a letter for mistakes or knowing how to modify a form letter written by someone else for a new situation. Tasks range from
reading transaction tickets, to spotting errors in billing, to balancing a teller drawer. These tasks involve reading several different forms, estimating, and cross-checking work. All this is asked of people who did not necessarily go
to college.
3.6. Furniture manufacturing
