Charting a Course: Responding to the Industry-Related
Adult Basic Education Needs of the Texas Workforce
Handbook One: Planning and Implementation Tips
for Program Planners and Administrators

Module Two: Marketing Adult Education Services as Workforce Solutions

Preparing for the Initial Meeting with an Employer

An employer has contacted you to inquire about services.You arrange a time to meet, and you request that the meeting be attended by employer representatives familiar with the company’s work-related educational needs (middle management, human resources, and frontline supervisors who work with those needing to upgrade their skills). As the director of the local adult education program, you may have your instructional coordinator or an experienced ESL instructor accompany you to the meeting. Be sure to brief the coordinator/instructor on the nature of the meeting; ideally these individuals have received some professional development in preparation for delivering work-related English language instruction. Be prepared to highlight their workforce-related qualifications and experience.

Have ready a packet of information about your program’s services and be prepared to provide a brief history of your program, its successes, awards received, and populations/numbers served. Highlight your program’s strengths and the services you believe might be a match for the company’s needs. Your marketing materials might include:

1. A brief history or fact sheet about your program’s accomplishments
2. Statements from adult learners about their personal successes
3. Letters of commendation or testimonials from businesses for which you have provided work-related education services
4. An outline of the services you can provide and the process you would follow in assessing needs and designing a program
5. Copies of the Important Skills for the Workplace Wheel included in this module. It uses language employers understand, and focuses on the workplace skills, knowledge, and competencies adults need to succeed in the workplace.

Before the meeting…
Learn as much as you can about the company. General information is often available on the company’s website or from the local Chamber of Commerce. For example:

• Does the company have education requirements for its employees?
• What does it produce, manufacture, or sell?
• Is prior training or experience required for entry-level employment?
• Are there funds earmarked for employee training?
• What are the company’s achievements?
• Does the company hire workers with limited English proficiency?

During the meeting with company representatives, review the salient points of any prior phone conversation, and then focus on the following topics:

1. Ask them to describe the perceived needs. What is it they want their employees to know or learn?
2. Is English required for employees to perform their jobs successfully?
3. What kind of problems is the company encountering with respect to employees’ language skills and work habits (safety, compliance, communication with supervisors)?
4. Describe what you can provide in terms of services.
5. Discuss offering short courses, in cycles, with a few specific, attainable objectives.
6. Confirm that general management and frontline supervisors support the educational initiative and endorse employee participation. Stress the fact that you will be seeking their input and feedback periodically during the course of instruction.
7. If possible, establish a single point of contact within the company.
8. Discuss early on how often and how many weeks the class can meet, where the class will be held, whether it will be held on company time, employees’ time, or both. Discuss how employees will be recruited, and offer to help.
9. Stress the importance of conducting a language task analysis prior to beginning services if at all possible. Also explain the need for pre/post assessments to identify learners’ needs, establish a baseline, and measure progress.
10. Work with the employer to develop realistic goals. Without using too much academic language, explain what you believe can be achieved, given the parameters set by the company and the nature of second language learning.
11. Discuss costs. Be candid about what you can provide at no cost and contributions the company can make in support of a workplace education partnership. Remember that assessment tools are consumables, that individuals in work-related classes usually expect to receive and keep their own set of instructional materials, and that conducting a language task analysis takes time and manpower. All of these costs are in addition to instructor salaries, which need to take into consideration planning and adaptation (the budgetary worksheet included in Module One should be helpful).

    Note: Employers do not generally want to hear about the cost of preparation. They assume you have included such costs in your budgetary projections and do not expect to see them added later. Make sure salaries are adequate. Workplace instructors will work extra hours.

12. Before the meeting ends, try to make arrangements to return to conduct a language task analysis; this should include opportunities to job shadow, to interview employees and frontline supervisors, tour the facility, and review environmental print with which employees are expected to be familiar.
13. Finally, solicit a commitment to scheduling assessment of employees’ language and basic skill needs.

About the Workplace Foundation Skills Framework Wheel… this wheel is Pennsylvania’s adaptation of Equipped for the Future’s Content Standards Wheel. The adaptation focuses specifically on the workplace skills, knowledge, and competencies adults need to obtain or maintain employment and to advance to higher paying jobs. In addition to using it for talking points with employers and local workforce development stakeholders, it has several other uses:

• in writing realistic goals and objectives for instruction
• in preparing instructors to deliver workforce-related instruction
• in gathering input from learners for instructional planning

More information is available at the website, http://www.pawerc.org.

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