Skills for Life - do they matter?
The Government’s Skills for Life strategy has been introduced to ensure that everyone develops their literacy and numeracy skills to a level that helps them function effectively at work and in society in general.

The business case
A strong foundation in reading, writing, language and numeracy skills means:

• More accurate paperwork
• Reduced time wasted through administrative errors – and an increase in accurate customer orders
• Improved calculations on the shop floor and in the office
• Effective communications – with customers, between teams
• Quicker and easier adjustment to changing working practices
• Qualified staff, recognised and valued – by your company and your customers

The benefits
The potential benefits of developing essential skills are:

• Improved performance
• Improved quality assurance
• Improved communication
• Improved compliance with regulations
• Improved customer relations
• Improved recruitment
• Improved staff retention
• Realising existing potential
• Increased profit

Identify the need, organise the learning, plan for the future
The best way to improve skills in the workplace is to use tasks, documents, tools and equipment of your workplace as a vehicle for learning. These could include: wages slips, timesheets, business letters, minutes from meetings, web pages, customer interactions. Any training materials or courses delivered to your staff will be directly and clearly relevant to their job roles.

Ability will arrange support and training to fit in with your timing and to suit your staff’s requirements. Training can be delivered in different shapes and sizes depending on what you need and the time and space available. It could be delivered as confidential one-to-one sessions at the place of work, to small groups in-house or at Ability’s training centre. We will tailor a programme to your needs as a key part of our offer.

What help is available
We will assess candidates skills and design an appropriate programme to their exact needs. Training will be delivered to meet the requirements of the candidate and employer.

Literacy and Numeracy training is ‘free’ funded by Train to Gain.
For information and advice on literacy and numeracy programmes please contact: