Improving

Content Delivery

for the Older Learner

The Workplace Context

Crossley Carpet Mills Limited is a carpet manufacturing business based in Truro, Nova Scotia. Crossley can trace its beginnings to England, where John Crossley & Sons produced the first broadloom carpet on a power loom. Founded in 1803, the company has grown to become a world-renowned carpet manufacturer, and successive generations of the Crossley family have continued to be part of the industry. Crossley’s 20-year partnership with Karastan Rug Mills of the United States blended the carpeting skills of two of the leading manufacturers in the world. In 1999 Collins and Aikman Floorings from Georgia, United States, purchased Crossley Carpets.

Today Crossley Carpet Mills Limited remains one of the few North American mills committed to manufacturing high quality woven and tufted carpets. Crossley has a state-of-the-art mill, which is fully integrated with its in house yarn production, dyeing, weaving, and tufting. The company takes pride in employing environmental sound practices, and being the first carpet mill in Canada to be registered ISO 9002. It is also one of largest employers in the town of Truro. This action research project is centred on the workplace upgrading program that is offered to the employees of Crossley Carpet Mills Limited and their family members. Recent participants in this program have been from an older population, which became the foundation for this project research.

Finding a Starting Point

In 1996 Crossley Carpet Mills Limited decided that there was a need for employees to upgrade their education to at least a grade 12 equivalency. Since most of the current workers at Crossley have been employed with the company for 25 to 30 years, many with grades six and seven, the workplace skills education program was started in the spring of 1996. As Truro has a large unemployment rate and lack of jobs, Crossley had their pick of employees from the current job market. Therefore, many of the new employees being hired by the company had at least a grade 12 education — many also had university. This left a sizeable group of older employees at the company at a disadvantage. The younger more educated employees were more able to obtain promotions while the older employees had more difficulty in succeeding at the mandatory math test needed to move upward into some of the higher positions. Crossley and the employees’ union decided that something needed to be done to allow this target group to advance within the company.