Essential Skills
Productivity that leads to innovation and growth is the result of people working together effectively. This requires a workforce with a core set of skills that facilitate constructive communication, comprehension of basic tasks, and the ability to learn.
Without a common foundation of skills, work environments suffer significantly from communication breakdown and unproductive workflow.
Essential Skills in Canada
Essential Skills, also called “employability skills,” are the common skills required in all jobs for adequate communication and task comprehension to occur. Essential Skills provide the foundation for learning all other skills and enable people to evolve with their jobs and adapt to workplace change.
The Government of Canada has identified and validated nine Essential Skills, including:
- Reading Text;
- Document Use;
- Numeracy;
- Writing;
- Oral Communication;
- Working with Others;
- Continuous Learning;
- Thinking Skills; and
- Computer Use.
Essential Skills Profiles
Essential Skills profiles describe how the nine skills are used by workers in a particular occupation, and can be used to measure a candidate’s employability into the occupation in question. Essential Skills profiles may be developed for any occupational group within a particular industry, sector or occupation. Essentials Skills profiles can be useful for hiring employees, identifying training needs, and developing targeted training programs.
TCG has conducted Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC) Essential Skills interviews and developed national Essential Skills profiles for a variety of occupations. Our combined team has completed approximately 250 Essential Skills occupational interviews and has written 50 Essential Skills profiles. Five TCG team members are certified to conduct Essential Skills profiling as prescribed by HRSDC.
