While many of the motivations respondents spoke of were particular enough to be categorized, many were too holistic or intangible to quantify easily. Many workplaces are clearly motivated by higher educational and humanitarian ideals.

How do workplaces organize basic skills programs?

The 53 workplaces in this study organized programs in a wide variety of ways. Programs were initiated 24% of the time by the company, 33% by the union, and 29% by the company and the union, together. Fourteen percent of the programs were initiated by an educational group who proposed them to the workplaces.

Once initiated, 50% of the programs are jointly coordinated by labour and management committees. A further 47% are coordinated by the company only, through its training department (in 12% of cases) or by appointed individuals (in 35% of cases).

In 96% of the workplaces, employees enter the basic skills programs on a voluntary basis. Though unprompted, many respondents stressed the critical importance of programs being voluntary.

Over half of the programs are held on a combination of employer and employee time. In 32% of the workplaces, programs are held on employee time alone. The remaining 17% of programs are on employer time. Aside from whose time the programs are held on, 70% of workplaces offer incentives to program participants: books, materials, and tuition where applicable.

Classes are held in a variety of settings (on-site and off-site) and at inventive times (to accommodate schedules). Figure 6 shows how long the classes run. Most typical is an open-ended situation where participants can study on an ongoing basis (69%). The remaining 31% of programs are time-limited, ranging from 20 to 149 hours.

What are the impacts of basic skills programs?

Based on this study of 53 workplaces, it can be stated without reservation, that basic skills programs are having a dramatically positive impact on workplaces in Canada. Regardless of their position–whether company owners, human resources people, labour representatives, or participants themselves – the word is the same: workplace basic skills programs work. Representatives from all levels, and from all types of workplaces concur that basic skills education influences not only soft, "warm fuzzy" factors such as confidence levels, but also hard, bottom line factors as well.