Communication skills for frontline workers

The brief

Reducing mistakes, improving safety and creating a sense of empowerment are all vital goals for a company with a large industrial workforce. Communication skills are the key, and our task was to design and deliver the tools that would significantly improve them.

40% of the workforce had a literacy level, based on the International Adult Literacy Survey, of below level 3 (the level that means you can read the basics on a telephone bill or prescription bottle). 20% had a literacy level below level 2. These lower literacy levels were seriously affecting workers' ability to critically assess, analyse or communicate in a work situation.

The solution

We needed to create a solution that worked for all literacy levels. This entailed a pragmatic, visual learning style for participants with little ability to read or write.

So we designed a communication tool that relied on visual cueing, using an analogy that connected to their everyday jobs and incorporated all the complexity of critical analysis and consequential thinking in an easy-to-apply way. We also used associates who had experience working with those with literacy challenges.

The Learning Wave associates ran over 237 workshops at 57 locations throughout New Zealand to ensure that all 2,600 managers and team members were included.

We were able to assist the organisation with funding from government agencies for this project, and participants earned NZQA unit standards by completing both seminar and on-the-job assessments.

The result

The participants 'just loved' the programme and said how useful and practical the communication tool was. Supervisors told us their frontline workers were now sharing opinions in meetings, contributing ideas, highlighting potential risks, asking for assistance with paperwork, and checking if they had understood correctly before beginning a piece of work.

For many participants with low literacy levels, the NZQA unit standards earned were a significant bonus boosting their self-esteem and making them feel that the company really cared for them as individuals.

Participants said they found they were able to practise the skills and learn because of the way our Learning Wave associates worked with them. A common piece of feedback was that the sessions 'made sense to me and my job'.

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