The survey respondents identified today's ‘best practices' as follows:

• Explore and develop all opportunities for community partnerships;
• Form workplace committees involving all the stakeholders;
• Undertake needs assessments to determine program requirements and begin the process of ‘buying in' to the new initiative;
• Design voluntary, employee centered programs, open to all employees;
• Use a multifacted communication strategy emphasizing face to face communications and use of universal message methods, such as pay stubs;
• Evaluate programs on an ongoing basis;
• Record impacts and share results and celebrate successes;
• When barriers occur, take prompt remedial action;
• Adapt programs to meet changing needs.

Municipal Workplace Literacy Profiles

In order to provide a review of a variety of successful models that have been introduced and tested over the past decade, three municipal government workforce literacy programs are described in detail. The programs offered in the City of Victoria, BC, the Regional Municipality of Halifax, NS and the City of Moncton, NB, demonstrate differing approaches to implementing successful workforce literacy training.

Literate Cities 2025 - A Road Map to the Future

The balance of the report attempts to provide a road map to the future of workforce literacy in Canada by promoting the literate workplace of the future by ensuring:

• Development and approval of policies to entrench workplace education;
• Entrenchment of Clear Language policies for both internal and external communications;
• Active identification and elimination of barriers to learning;
• Promotion and encouragement for workers to learn at all levels, including the eradication of the stigma attached to literacy learning;
• Development through training of a workforce with transferable skills.