GOWD - About Us

What is the Georgia Work Ready Certificate Program

The Georgia Work Ready Assessment Program is a complete solution for making quick comparisons between a person's skill levels and the job requirements, providing a portable skills credential, the Georgia Work Ready Certificate, which is easily and universally understood and valued by employers and certificate recipients.

Benefits of Work Ready Program

With the gap that exists between the skills required in today's workplace and those exhibited by potential and incumbent employees, employers have trouble finding and hiring people with fundamental, trainable skills. Businesses need new hires who can achieve job proficiency quickly in order to meet the demands of an increasingly competitive global economy.

Job applicants with a Georgia Work Ready Certificate arrive with those skills critical to job success, enabling employers to cut training costs and reduce turnover.

Benefits of Using the Georgia Work Ready Certificate Program

Employers can simplify making reliable decisions about hiring, training, and program development needs by matching job profile information with assessment scores of Georgia Work Ready Certified potential and incumbent employees.

Hundreds of thousands of WorkKeys assessments are administered each year to help individuals assess their current skill levels and to determine how improving their skills can lead to better-paying jobs. Students, businesses, and organizations use the WorkKeys tests to improve skill levels and strengthen communication, problem-solving, and interpersonal skills.

Companies that use the Georgia Work Ready Certificate program to assess their incoming and current workforce can achieve substantial benefits, including:

Improved employee selection and advancement procedures
Reduced overtime
Reduced turnover
Increased productivity
Fewer legal challenges to hiring processes
Higher employee morale

To earn the certificate, job seekers must complete the assessments.

Georgia Work Ready Assessments

Georgia Work Ready uses WorkKeys assessments to measure both the work characteristic and foundational skills of a job applicant or incumbent employee.

1. Work Characteristic Skills Assessment

Georgia's Work Ready Certificate, in the near future, will include taking the Work Characteristic Assessment, a personal skills assessment designed to predict job behavior and measure the full potential of individuals. One of the tools listed below will be selected for this assessment after a successful demonstration pilot.

Performance

A prescreening test designed to measure a job applicant's tendency toward unsafe behaviors and attitudes toward work.
Talent

Predict dependability, assertiveness, and emotional stability.
Fit

Find out job applicants' interests and values to determine the fit between a candidate and the job.

2. Foundation Skills Assessment

The Georgia Work Ready program uses WorkKeys foundational skills assessments to measure cognitive abilities in Applied Mathematics, Reading for Information, and Locating Information, providing reliable, relevant information about workplace skill levels.

Foundational skills assessments measure different applied job skills in the areas of communication, problem solving, and communication.

- Applied Mathmatics

In the United States, over 75% of the most rapidly growing jobs demand education beyond high school, often including a strong background in math and science.

The WorkKeys Applied Mathematics assessment helps current and potential employees measure the math skills they have against those the workplace requires. This assessment measures the skill people use when they apply mathematical reasoning, critical thinking, and problem-solving techniques to work-related problems. The test questions require the examinee to set up and solve the types of problems and do the types of calculations that actually occur in the workplace. This test is designed to be taken with a calculator. A formula sheet that includes all formulas required for the assessment is provided. While individuals may use calculators and conversion tables to help with the problems, they still need to use math skills to think them through. More on the Applied Mathematics Assessment here.

- Locating Information

A recent survey found that nearly 25% of hourly employees could not read and translate drawings, diagrams, and flow charts. The ability to locate, interpret, and use information from workplace graphics (charts, graphs, tables, forms, floor plans, maps, instrument gauges) is a basic skill required in today's workforce.

The WorkKeys Locating Information test measures the skill people use when they work with workplace graphics. Examinees are asked to find information in a graphic or insert information into a graphic. They also must compare, summarize, and analyze information found in related graphics. More on the Locating Information assessment here.

- Reading for Information

Today's workplace increasingly requires reading skills, and often workplace communications are not necessarily well-written or targeted to the appropriate audience.

The WorkKeys Reading for Information test focuses on written materials that are used by employees in the workplace and measures the skill people use when they read and use written text in order to do a job. The written texts include memos, letters, directions, signs, notices, bulletins, policies, and regulations. More on the Reading for Information assessment here.

Assessment Levels

These tests include problems at several levels of difficulty. Level 3 is the least complex and Level 6 or 7 is the most complex. The levels build on each other, each incorporating the skills assessed at the preceding levels. For example, Level 5 includes the skills used at Levels 3, 4, and 5. The complexity may also increase as the quantity and/or density of the information increases.

Assessment	Skill Levels
Assessment	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
Applied Mathematics			x	x	x	x	x
Locating Information			x	x	x	x
Reading for Information			x	x	x	x	x

Individuals with sufficient scores on three WorkKeys assessments - Applied Mathematics, Reading for Information, and Locating Information - will qualify for a certificate.

Certificate	WorkKeys Scores
Platinum	6’s and above
Gold	5’s and above
Silver	4’s and above
Bronze	3’s and above

Bronze Level–An individual achieving this level of certification possesses core employability skills for approximately 30% of the jobs profiled by WorkKeys in these skill areas.
Silver Level - An individual achieving this level of certification possesses core employability skills for approximately 65% of the jobs profiled by WorkKeys in these skill areas.
Gold Level - An individual achieving this level of certification possesses core employability skills for approximately 85% of the jobs profiled by WorkKeys in these skill areas.
Platinum Level - An individual achieving this level of certification possesses core employability skills for approximately 95% of the jobs profiled by WorkKeys in these skill areas.

Each 8.5 x 11 certificate includes an individual's employability portfolio on the back, listing all foundational and performance skills they have mastered. Each recipient will receive a certificate by mail, numbered for security and tracking purposes.

Case Studies and Success Stories

1—In a city of 45,000, over 2,000 certificates of work readiness have been issued and 57 businesses have agreed to use certificates in their hiring process…
In Grand Junction, Colorado, employers who couldn't find high-quality job applicants nevertheless disregarded resumes from the Mesa County Workforce Center, while local school district leaders sought a way to prepare students for the workforce. Because employers, educators and job seekers needed a common language that specified the skills needed in local jobs, the school district and the Workforce Center, in partnership with the Chamber of Commerce, developed a certification program based on WorkKeys that enabled job seekers to demonstrate their skills to employers. They included in the program a skills-improvement component. Read the complete story here.

2— Utility company MidAmerican Energy reduces employee turnover by 83 percent.
MidAmerican Energy Co., faced with expensive union-represented trade apprenticeship positions that required from 18 months to six years to lead to journeyman status, needed to ensure that new hires would be able to complete apprenticeships and fulfill job requirements. WorkKeys offered this employer a way to prepare job applicants for a fair selection exam that improved hiring practices, reducing turnover rates from 19% to 3% and enabling the hiring of more effective employees who were able to learn more quickly than past hires. Read the complete story here. Read the complete story here.

3— Defense contractor Northrop-Grumman saves $2 million in employee training costs.
To upgrade a work force lacking foundational skills required by their jobs, Northrop Grumman used WorkKeys to target areas in need of improvement and develop “learning prescriptions” to accomplish upgrades. Results included substantially reduced turnover rates, increased ability of employees to avoid layoffs through cross-training, and lower absentee rates. Read the complete story here. Read the complete story here.

4— Finding it difficult to hire and retain employees able to master the operation of wholly unfamiliar technology…
Nordenia USA used WorkKeys job profiling to identify skills and skill levels demanded by each plant production job. By requiring new hires and employees transferring to new positions to take the WorkKeys tests appropriate to measure necessary skills, they hired workers who could be trained quickly. Read the complete story here.

5— Bradner Village Health Care Center and Retirement Community reduces training costs by 96 percent.
Confronting high employee turnover and frustration, this health care center and retirement community profiled four key positions to identify minimum WorkKeys-related skill level scores required for entry into each job. By making appropriate WorkKeys scores a precondition for employment interviews, the company reduced turnover by 37%, training costs by 96% and reduced time to identify qualified applicants by 55%. Read the complete story here.

6— Where many high school students seek employment before graduation, in partnership with local colleges, community leaders and business partners…
Lake Havasu Unified School District, developed a career readiness certificate based on WorkKeys assessments. As of March 2006, 429 students have earned certificates and several businesses have begun accepting certificates when hiring. The program continues to expand. Read the complete story here.