Integrating Essential Skills into Training - National Adult Literacy ...

EMPLOYABILITY SKILLS AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO ESSENTIAL SKILLS
What are Employability Skills?
The term Employability Skills was coined by the Conference Board of Canada in 1992 to describe
those skills which provide the basic foundation, the combination of skills, attitudes and
behaviours to get, keep and progress on a job, to work with others on a job, and to achieve the
best results (The Conference Board of Canada, Employability Skills Profile, 1992). The
Conference Board developed its list of transferable skills from the responses of employers to a
Canada-wide survey. The list includes the added skills employers look for before they hire their
new employees (who already have the required technical skills).
In ensuing years Canadians have come to realize that these skills are the skills needed for much
more than employability. They are, in fact, the generic set of skills that are needed throughout all
career and life development activities. They are not limited in their applicability and may be used
in all environments. The term generic also refers to the transferable nature of these skills.
(Michael R. Bloom and Kurtis G. Kitagawa, Understanding Employability Skills, The Conference
Board of Canada, 1999, p.16).
In today’s world there is an increasing need for people to be able to transfer their skills to new and
constantly changing contexts. Therefore, part of the life/work development process must be the
acquisition of skills that can be applied to a variety of situations. These employability skills are
combined in various ways and have several other names, such as: transferable skills, core
competencies, core skills, non-technical skills, essential skills, generic skills, soft skills, basic
skills, and critical workplace competencies. Some people have recently coined the term E Skills
to describe the broad range of Employability Skills, Essential Skills, Entrepreneurial Skills and
Emotional Intelligence.
A key to understanding these generic skills and eliminating the confusion about various labels or
titles is by looking at what people do when they are actually using these skills. Once it is
understood what the skills look like when they are being demonstrated, the actual labels assigned
become less important.
How are Essential Skills and Employability Skills Related?
Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC) and the Conference Board of
Canada have combined their efforts to show the connection between HRSDC’s Essential Skills
and the Conference Board’s Employability Skills. (See attached diagram.)
The Employability Skills–Essential Skills Connection:
• Employability Skills and Essential Skills are, in many ways, the same skills – essential
skills are described from the point of view of competent workers, and the employability
skills, from the point of view of employers.
• The Essential Skills Research Project (now completed) and the Essential Skills and
Workplace Literacy Initiative (launched in April 2003) examine these skills using a
detailed and systematic approach, and provide information on the different ways these
skills are used in the workplace. The ESRP also provided a way to talk about differences
in how skills are used and differences in the skills people have demonstrated.