If learning is indeed lifelong, then can anyone be surprised to find report cards showing up at work?
The Conference Board of Canada is working on one such soft-skills report card, called the Skills Solutions Net.
Targeted at new workers, primarily those in low-paying service-level jobs, this form of online report-card aims to strengthen soft skills and responsible attitudes among those who don’t always value, or feel valued in, their jobs.
The second objective is to make life easier for recruiters, who have little to go on, especially when it comes to assessing a young job-seeker’s soft skills and work attitudes.
The report card, scheduled for release next summer, would be a free online tool with about 30 to 35 performance criteria, said Kurtis Kitagawa, senior researcher of education and learning at the Conference Board of Canada.
A young worker can ask his former manager to fill it out by granting “marks” for each criterion. Once entered, the marks can’t be changed.
“We feel it’ll encourage students, especially, to treat every work experience as important,” said Kitagawa. “It’s to help them think: ‘It’s true that I’m getting lousy pay, but I’m getting more than just pay. I’m getting feedback from the employer, which will help me improve. When I make a transition into a good job, I’ll have a record that says I have these skills. And there will be a pattern in the database to show I’ve come a long way in terms of teamwork, or that I’ve always been good at it, or there’s a gap here.’”
This credentialing tool is just the third part of a larger effort to identify and develop the right skills, attitudes and behaviours among new workers, said Kitagawa.
The first part of that effort was an extensive survey of employers, whose chief complaint about job-seekers, particularly those new to the labour market, is too many of them lack the ability to identify in themselves the skills, attitudes and behaviours sought by employers.
The second part is a 150-page tool kit that the Conference Board developed for supervisors, mentors or career counsellors. The toolkit aims to help those who are in a supporting role diagnose and develop a young workers’ skills and behaviours.
The toolkit touches on four categories: workplace expectations, how to give and get feedback, how to grow your own talent, and how to build skills with attitude.
“As you can expect, it’s the module on how to build skills with attitude that has attracted a lot of attention, because everybody’s worried about how to deal with someone with an attitude. Quite frankly, attitudes are the link between somebody’s skills and their performance at the workplace.”
Kitagawa thinks the online report-card has potential to become a standard, something that recruiters will come to expect from job-seekers. Small businesses, in particular, seem keen on the concept, he added.
“We want to encourage employers to use this tool as part of their recruiting effort, but also as part of their performance management system in their workplace,” said Kitagawa, adding that he doesn’t expect it to replace an organization’s performance management, but to complement it.
“It will provide a vantage on the soft-skills that have been overlooked. And if you’re an employer that’s prepared to use the credential as a way of raising the soft-skills expectations within your workplace, you may want to brag to someone in your supply chain that all of your employees have these credentials and that they’re very customer-focused people.”
But there’s more to the story here than just developing the employability level of young people, said Kitagawa.
“We’ll have to build a more inclusive workforce so that we can leverage all the capacity that’s there, because we’re going to need it in order to be competitive. In order to do that, we’ll have to be proactive in providing incentives and tools early on,” Kitagawa said.
“There’s a challenge here in terms of utilizing the capacity in the labour market. And part of that is in helping individuals to recognize their skills and what they could do, and get them to take their work experience seriously so that every experience is a potential support for their intended careers.”
The Conference Board of Canada is working on one such soft-skills report card, called the Skills Solutions Net.
Targeted at new workers, primarily those in low-paying service-level jobs, this form of online report-card aims to strengthen soft skills and responsible attitudes among those who don’t always value, or feel valued in, their jobs.
The second objective is to make life easier for recruiters, who have little to go on, especially when it comes to assessing a young job-seeker’s soft skills and work attitudes.
The report card, scheduled for release next summer, would be a free online tool with about 30 to 35 performance criteria, said Kurtis Kitagawa, senior researcher of education and learning at the Conference Board of Canada.
A young worker can ask his former manager to fill it out by granting “marks” for each criterion. Once entered, the marks can’t be changed.
“We feel it’ll encourage students, especially, to treat every work experience as important,” said Kitagawa. “It’s to help them think: ‘It’s true that I’m getting lousy pay, but I’m getting more than just pay. I’m getting feedback from the employer, which will help me improve. When I make a transition into a good job, I’ll have a record that says I have these skills. And there will be a pattern in the database to show I’ve come a long way in terms of teamwork, or that I’ve always been good at it, or there’s a gap here.’”
This credentialing tool is just the third part of a larger effort to identify and develop the right skills, attitudes and behaviours among new workers, said Kitagawa.
The first part of that effort was an extensive survey of employers, whose chief complaint about job-seekers, particularly those new to the labour market, is too many of them lack the ability to identify in themselves the skills, attitudes and behaviours sought by employers.
The second part is a 150-page tool kit that the Conference Board developed for supervisors, mentors or career counsellors. The toolkit aims to help those who are in a supporting role diagnose and develop a young workers’ skills and behaviours.
The toolkit touches on four categories: workplace expectations, how to give and get feedback, how to grow your own talent, and how to build skills with attitude.
“As you can expect, it’s the module on how to build skills with attitude that has attracted a lot of attention, because everybody’s worried about how to deal with someone with an attitude. Quite frankly, attitudes are the link between somebody’s skills and their performance at the workplace.”
Kitagawa thinks the online report-card has potential to become a standard, something that recruiters will come to expect from job-seekers. Small businesses, in particular, seem keen on the concept, he added.
“We want to encourage employers to use this tool as part of their recruiting effort, but also as part of their performance management system in their workplace,” said Kitagawa, adding that he doesn’t expect it to replace an organization’s performance management, but to complement it.
“It will provide a vantage on the soft-skills that have been overlooked. And if you’re an employer that’s prepared to use the credential as a way of raising the soft-skills expectations within your workplace, you may want to brag to someone in your supply chain that all of your employees have these credentials and that they’re very customer-focused people.”
But there’s more to the story here than just developing the employability level of young people, said Kitagawa.
“We’ll have to build a more inclusive workforce so that we can leverage all the capacity that’s there, because we’re going to need it in order to be competitive. In order to do that, we’ll have to be proactive in providing incentives and tools early on,” Kitagawa said.
“There’s a challenge here in terms of utilizing the capacity in the labour market. And part of that is in helping individuals to recognize their skills and what they could do, and get them to take their work experience seriously so that every experience is a potential support for their intended careers.”
