Good worker skills are a shared responsibility.

One of the most troublesome problems currently facing foundrymen is the inability to find qualified workers with the skills and basic knowledge to function as valuable assets to the foundry.

One possible solution to this dilemma is the development of universally accepted skills standards--an endeavor that has occupied many employers, educators and government agencies over the past few years. Projects are being cosponsored by the U.S. Dept. of Labor, Dept. of Education and private businesses to develop these standards.

But what exactly are skill standards? They are the performance measures that specifically identify the abilities, knowledge and skills an individual needs to succeed in a given job. Once defined, skill standards must be embraced by employees, employers and educators in order to ultimately enhance work environments.

The development process begins with the employer, who must accept the task of identifying skill standards for all jobs. These standards can then be used to benchmark hiring and promotion, identification of employee educational and training needs, and as a gauge to set pay levels and evaluate performance.

Educators must then be brought into the loop to foster an appreciation of the proper curriculum development based on skills required for employment. Parents and community groups also play an important role in advertising and facilitating adoption of the concept.

Basic Standards Guidelines 

For skills standards to be of the most benefit to all concerned, they must be:

* Related to the bottom line--employers must be able to realize a pay-back for the cost of training and education.

* Flexible and customer oriented--skill standards must be upgraded regularly to account for technological advances and customer requirement changes.

* Basic and fundamental--keep the process simple and understandable.

* Portable--allowing the skills to accompany the employee on his or her chosen career path.

A current project sponsored by the Foundation for Industrial Modernization and involving employers, educators and organized labor representatives has identified 13 skill standards areas, covering various types of jobs. Some of these include: Communication and Teamwork; Math and Measurement; Workplace Safety and Health; Problem Solving; Quality Assurance; Blueprint Reading; Manufacturing Fundamentals; Business Planning and Operations; Product and Process Control and Workforce Issues. Each of the standards has sub-skills, all of which total more than 200 separate and distinct skills that employers may choose from to properly describe performance measures.

Some examples of standards and their sub-skills are:

Communication and Teamwork--Demonstrate the characteristics of a team player. Interpret and clarify directions prepared by others.

Math and Measurement--Add, subtract, divide four-digit numbers with a calculator. Apply basic math functions to solve problems. Select and use the appropriate measurement techniques and instruments.

Workplace Safety and Health--Demonstrate a positive personal attitude toward safety. Maintain and use protective guards on equipment and machinery.

Quality Assurance--Define Statistical Process Control (SPC). Identify the effects of continuous quality improvement.

A Foundry's Example

Donsco has applied skills standards to its own workforce--with positive results. For example, a muller operator's title is "sand system associate" This associate's job requires math and reading competence, sand technology understanding and the basic principals of SPC. He also functions under the following:

General Manufacturing Process--this includes workplace housekeeping, materials handling, safety requirements and procedures, and basic process engineering.

General Maintenance Skills--including changing fuses, resetting heater disconnects, PC troubleshooting, equipment lubrication and muller cleaning.

The benefits of applying these standard skills and subskills to the workforce are many. They give parameters for hiring, accelerate training by targeting specific, necessary-areas, and make for more efficient performance reviews by setting clear expectations.

Skill standards become the currency used by employees in their employment, translating into pay. At Donsco, the greatest skill level translates into the greatest pay level, and the company has been actively involved in employee assessment, counseling and training, and rewards employees based on a nontraditional pay-for-kills system.

The Payoff

Productivity and learning are enhanced when skill standards are identified and used. Through them, training can be targeted to actual worker need, desire and interest--leading to true job enrichment. The concept can be flexible in implementation. Skills can be standardized in modular units and put together as necessary based on the requirements of the work environment.

As stated above, the primary responsibility for determining and implementing skills standards rests with employers. Once employers come to grips with this task, we are in a position to encourage local educators to join hands and provide the necessary curriculum. If we don't equip educators with information on what students need to know, there is nobody to blame but ourselves when we say the worker is leaving school unprepared to enter the workplace.