By Dennis Quick
Senior Staff Writer

During his address at the third annual Southeastern WorkKeys Conference, guest speaker Keith Bird, chancellor of the Kentucky Community and Technical College System, said that the American work force is in a crisis.

Bird’s assessment came during a work force training symposium held Jan. 31 through Feb. 2 at the Embassy Suites Hotel in North Charleston. More than 500 educators, human resources directors, employers, work force training professionals and others from 23 states attended.

Bird referred to a 2006 report “Are They Really Ready to Work?” conducted by The Conference Board, Corporate Voices for Working Families, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills and the Society for Human Resource Management.

The study surveyed more than 400 employers across the United States and concluded that the U.S. work force “is woefully ill-prepared for the demands of today’s (and tomorrow’s) workplace.”

A strong work ethic, oral and written communication skills, the ability to collaborate and work with others and critical thinking/problem solving are among the most important skills employers said are lacking in the U.S. work force, according to the report.

Bird called the report “extremely disheartening.” In an effort to reverse the work force condition, WorkKeys, a job-skills assessment program created by the Iowa-based American College Testing Program, is “an integral part of the solution,” Bird said.

The conference’s purpose was to introduce WorkKeys to those unfamiliar with the program, highlight updates to those already familiar with WorkKeys and show the program’s benefits, said Paul Connerty, director of the Trident One-Stop Career Center in North Charleston, which, along with WorkKeys and the University of North Florida’s Division of Continuing Education, sponsored the conference.

“WorkKeys not only helps people, it promotes economic development, the key to higher employment, higher wages and a better standard of living,” said Terry Kinder, chairman of the Trident Workforce Investment Board.

With WorkKeys, a certified profiler visits a company’s work site to determine the skills employees need in order to perform their jobs successfully. The fee for the service is about $1,500. Potential employees are then tested to see if they have those necessary skills.

Tests include applied math, applied technology, observation skills, reading for information, locating information, listening skills, writing ability and teamwork skills.

Applicants pay $10 for each test. In the Lowcountry, those tests can be taken at either the One-Stop Career Center, the Venture Industries Adult Center in Summerville or the Berkeley Educational Center in Moncks Corner.

Tests are tailored to meet a company’s specific job needs.

At the conference, representatives from JW Aluminum, an aluminum products manufacturer based in Mount Holly, discussed how WorkKeys helped the company increase employee skill levels, productivity and increase employee retention.

Prior to implementing WorkKeys, promotions and movement to different jobs within the 492-employee company were based on seniority rather than skill. Workers with less seniority often left the company for better job opportunities, said Isaiah Brown, JW Aluminum’s human resources director.

A Trident One-Stop Career Center WorkKeys job profiler visited JW Aluminum and assessed the skills needed for the company’s key production tasks, such as machine, mill and casting operator jobs.

The assessment established that math, reading and the ability to follow charts, diagrams, graphics and other such information were necessary skills. Workers who wanted to apply for different jobs within the company no longer were restricted by seniority but could compete for those jobs if they passed the WorkKeys tests, Brown explained.

WorkKeys helped the company improve its operational efficiency and reduce its employee turnover, Brown said.

“Employees wanted a system that allowed them to compete for jobs,” Brown said.

A challenge for South Carolina and other states is to upgrade the skills of workers in the manufacturing sector, particularly the textile industry, so they can compete in an increasingly automated, knowledge-based market, said WorkKeys conference guest speaker Helen Parker, regional administrator for the U.S. Department of Labor.

Parker, who oversees $2.5 billion earmarked for employment training in the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Tennessee and Kentucky, said that the nation’s economy is now based on innovation rather than industry.

“We have a shortage of people trained and ready for 21st-century jobs,” Parker said.

Dennis Quick is senior staff writer at the Business Journal. E-mail him at dquick@charlestonbusiness.com.

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