Drews Sign It Pty Ltd - Food For Thought

Email illiteracy coming to an office near you.....

Simon Kearney, author of a publication titled "Emails, computers making Aussie workers dumb" makes some interesting observations.

According to a report by the Australian Industry Group (AIG), the use of email and computers in workplaces has created a new literacy problem in Australia's workforce, affecting otherwise skilled and educated workers, .

The survey measured the state of literacy and numeracy skills in 338 businesses employing about 56,000 workers.

Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard said "It's something we wouldn't have seen reported by business before, there would be many older professionals that do need assistance to deal with things like email addresses."

The report found that the use of email or web-based communication had uncovered another layer of illiteracy: "employees who have a reasonable level of literacy skill but are unable to complete some workplace tasks to the standard required". "This included tasks like using appropriate email language in communications between employees and external customers. "Some employers reported that employees with high-level technical skills, such as engineers, were poor communicators within workplace settings."

One-in-four businesses indicated they had concerns about the literacy and numeracy of apprentices and technicians that they were employing.

AIG chief executive Heather Ridout said the issue had become a big problem. "The skill intensity of jobs is rising all the time," she said.

The report found the services industry was most affected, with 16 per cent of service companies saying they were highly affected by poor literacy and numeracy, compared with 7 per cent of manufacturing companies and 3 per cent of construction firms.

Simon draws attention to several problem areas of Literacy/numeracy issues in the workplace:

Too much reliance on calculators for simple maths tasks
Employees' fear of giving presentations due to lack of communication skills
Employees unable to complete necessary training due to literacy issues
Inappropriate language used in emails

Is anyone really surprised? In my day, we had to count money back into a customers hand if we worked in a shop. Now they just have to do as the computer tells them to. No thinking required.

When I went to school, we had to re tell a story after we read a book. That apparently helped grow our imagination. Now the kids just watch a DVD. No imagination required.

Of course, without an imagination, we don't amount to anything.

In the modern era, we are now having to learn how NOT to spell.

SMS terms like txt (text), m8 (mate), Howru (How Are You), lol (laugh out loud), roflol (rolling on the floor laughing out loud) and of course WTF (why the face)....

Who talks like that anyway?