Literacy, Language and Numeracy at Work

Around 40% of adults in the New Zealand workforce have difficulty reading and understanding written instructions in their job. Around 46% have difficulty working with numbers, weights or quantities.

This is a significant issue that impacts many New Zealand businesses, including those in the travel, tourism, museums and aviation industries. Workplace literacy includes the kinds of skills that are the basis for most tasks in the workplace - reading, writing, maths, communication and using information technology.

Literacy, language and numeracy skills are needed to carry out a number of day-to-day workplace tasks:

  • Taking telephone messages
  • Working with schedules and timetables
  • Using equipment and computers
  • Following written instructions
  • Complying with health and safety requirements
  • Completing forms
  • Making sense of graphs and tables
  • Participating in team meetings
  • Communicating with customers and colleagues
  • Completing and understanding training

If there are people in your team who have difficulties in any of these areas this could be contributing to mistakes, lost productivity, health and safety lapses, and poor customer service. Workplace literacy problems can be hard to spot as many people find ways of coping in order to get through their day-to-day tasks, but they affect more people than you think.

You don’t have to be “dumb” or “stupid” to have literacy problems. Many people struggle with these kinds of tasks simply because they have never had the chance to learn and apply them. They may have left school at a young age, not have used a specific skill for a long time, fallen behind advances in technology, or English may be their second language. There may also be barriers in the workplace that cause issues with understanding, such as overcomplicated forms, procedures or signage.

How we can help

As your industry training organisation, ATTTO can assist you to identify literacy issues in your workplace and implement training to correct these. We can put you in touch with other organisations that can help. In some cases we can also offer training options for your staff that incorporate literacy skills.

We can also assist if you have staff members who are having difficulty with ATTTO training due to literacy issues.

Working with your team to help them overcome literacy skills can result in:

  • Increased workplace safety
  • Better customer service
  • Time savings and increased productivity
  • More motivated and loyal staff
  • Staff who take greater pride in their work
  • Improved teamwork
  • Better outcomes from training
  • Increased quality of life for your staff both in and out of work

To find out more about workplace literacy and next steps for employers, visit  www.skillshighway.govt.nz or contact your ATTTO Business Development Advisor/Industry Training Advisor.