Improved Human Capital

Employees' skills gains make them better candidates for promotion and transfer to new jobs:

• Higher Success Rate in Promoting Employees Within the Organization

• Higher Success Rate in Transferring Employees Within the Organization

Improved Human Capital
Percentage of Employers Reporting Benefits
(n=55)

Higher Success Rate in Promoting Employees within the Organization

Companies often like to promote from within because it is more cost effective and reliable than going outside to hire — WEPs fit this strategy by increasing the pool of suitable candidates within the incumbent workforce. Over 70 per cent of employers found that they had more success in promoting employees to more responsible jobs, including supervisory and management positions, after they took part in WEPs. Even where openings for promotion were not yet available, employers often observed beneficial improvements in the promotability of employees. The net result is that employers are able to pass more and more responsibility to their existing workforce of employees without having to rely on the often costly and undependable outside labor market for new hires to take on these duties. As such, it can prove an important source of cost savings for the employer.

"When the current dietician leaves, the hospital will not have to fill the position because Lorraine will be qualified to take over much of the dietician duties. This will save the hospital a substantial amount of money."

Employers are able to promote employees to supervisory or management jobs once they gain the skills, especially language and communications skills, they need to direct the work of others. The extent of the change can be significant. At an electronics manufacturing firm, 90 per cent of the inspector positions are now filled internally with former assembly workers; before workplace education 75 per cent of the inspectors were hired from outside. Change on this scale is possible when employees already have most of the skills they need to perform at a higher level and WEP training simply removes the few remaining skill barriers. A case in point is a woman working in the packing department of a company whose skills and education level were high but whose English was poor. She took English and math WEP training and got promoted to assistant supervisor in short order.

"Employees who would have been stuck in a dead end job, are now able to become supervisors and managers."

Many more promotions are made within the ranks of skilled and semi-skilled employees. One hotelier had an 80 per cent success rate in promoting employees, especially front desks receptionists, to higher paying non-supervisory jobs. A mill manager was able to promote an employee from a job in fabrication to the position of sawyer, which includes operating sophisticated equipment, doing inventory control on a computer system, a significant promotion. Employee promotions can come about quickly; examples are numerous. In one manufacturing workplace two of the twenty-one WEP graduates were promoted within a short time, a 9.5 per cent promotion rate. In a hotel environment, 21 out of 55 WEP participants were either promoted or internally transferred. Another employer promoted 10 people from the shop floor to office positions in one year; yet another moved several people from environmental services to higher positions in a similar time frame.

"The training opened up a lot of doors for me. With better skills, the employer is more willing to place you in another job within the organization. You are also more likely to be promoted with the skills you have learned."

"The training allows employees to take on new and more diverse responsibilities. For example, we have an employee who used to saw and cut material. After the training, he was able to receive material, place orders and control inventory. There are new challenges all the time, and he is better able to adapt to these new challenges."

Promotions can move employees upwards at a quicker than normal pace. This was the case with a file clerk who was promoted directly to a billing position, skipping a step in the career ladder, partly because of the skills she gained in a workplace education. As one hospital administrator observed, training helps employees gain the confidence to try for promotions that they wouldn’t have in the past, and to accept advanced training. WEP graduates are more prepared to be promoted to supervisor, quality assurance positions, or other jobs that require additional training.

Promoting incumbent employees has a very positive impact on morale. When fewer people are stuck in entry level jobs, employees feel that they are more likely to be rewarded for their hard work and job performance - this encourages them to work even harder than before.

Language skills play a role in promotions to all levels and are often part of job descriptions. ESL training helps people move up by broadening the range of skills that they have to offer. For example, a manager in a manufacturing company saw a 60-70 per cent improvement and lots of promotional breakthroughs when his employees’ English language skills improved

"Within their own job classification, a lot of people were getting stuck at a level 2 – they hadn’t learned the process or equipment they needed. Their language skills were a part of that. They had reached a plateau. After training, people were more able to understand the jargon. They were better able to understand the documentation. They had the confidence. They were able to take training and take the next step."

WEP training helps employees get promotions. Some employers report that at first, their employees wanted guarantees that if they participated in the training, they would get better jobs. But now they realize that the training positions them to get better jobs, as well as helping them to keep the jobs that they already have.

"Absolutely, the training helps with promotions. And we are tough about promotions, we don’t promote people just for the sake of it. The training gives them the skills to be able to do another job. Some of the employees have gone into management or become crew leaders. I also know of two crew leaders who are upgrading their computer skills and will eventually become managers. One guy tripled his salary moving into the computer group."

Higher Success Rate in Transferring Employees within the Organization

Also valuable to employers in improving the stock of human capital that they can draw on to make their workplaces successful is the enhanced capacity to transfer employees to new jobs and tasks. Sixty per cent of employers said that they had a higher success rate in transferring WEP graduates within the organization. This is an enormous benefit since it means that employers do not have to hire out, they can draw from the good pool of employees within to fill positions. Some employees really blossom after WEP training. People like that are highly flexible and can be rotated into positions as supervisors need them because they will get the job done.

This capability is often crucial in workplaces that are experiencing major change or undergoing re-engineering. Where re-engineering is widespread, WEP graduates often seek out and successfully qualify for re-engineered positions. By upgrading their skills they are able to cope with their redefined roles and take on new or increased responsibilities.

"The need for training came from the fact that re-engineering was paramount in our hospital at that time. Positions and responsibilities were changing on a weekly basis. Skills enhancement helped people to bid for or retain positions."

WEP training can be a key part of a multi-stage training process that develops employees’ skills and attitudes to a point where they can handle all the changes and learning involved in taking on a new job. For example, in hospitals where cross-training is often important, the training overwhelms some employees because they lack basic skills. When these employees take workplace education courses they improve their capacity for cross-training and their ability to sell themselves as more highly skilled individuals to their supervisor or manager. As a result they are more likely to get the chance to transfer to a new job. This greatly benefits the employer who has reduced resources to hire new employees and is increasingly reliant on cross-training to meet the organization’s skills needs.

As with promotions, English language skills are often the key. With better English, employees are able to transfer to other types of jobs and other departments due largely to their improved language skills. Confidence gained through ESL training is also a major factor. Pre- and post-testing of participants demonstrated that their confidence and self-esteem had improved. When participants gain more confidence they can do other types of work and are more willing to learn things outside their specific duty.

Manufacturers note that there is a higher rate of employee transfer to more technical and better paying jobs in their workplaces. More of their employees successfully applied for more technical positions such as engineering support and quality assurance. Better communications skills and increased confidence as a result WEPs are the reason. This translates into a change in employees’ comfort level that makes supervisors more willing to pick up employees from outside their department because of the training. This was the case with one woman from the Ukraine who had very limited English but was able to transfer from production to engineering and has been very successful, largely due to her WEP training. In another workplace an employee who graduated from a WEP moved to a new position and was named employee of the month within a short period.

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Last updated: February 18, 2001 .