Project background

The aim of Foundation Skills in Seasonal Workplaces (FSSW) project was to look at foundation skills issues in seasonal labour industries, particularly the horticulture and viticulture industries, and how improving these skills might impact on productivity. This project is a key initiative in the Towards Innovative and Productive Workplaces: Upskilling Strategy, which aims to lift literacy, numeracy and language skills in the workforce at the low-skilled end. In addition, the Horticulture and Viticulture Seasonal Labour Strategy aims to support these industries to manage seasonal labour demand to achieve sustainable growth. Objective 4 of the strategy is developing skilled workers.

The FSSW project was divided into two phases. Phase I consisted of interviews with representatives from the horticulture and viticulture industries to find out what barriers existed within the industries to engage in foundation skills training and what levers could be used to overcome these barriers.

This report covers Phase II. The purpose of this phase was to conduct a foundation skills analysis of tasks in the horticulture and viticulture industries with a view to understanding:

• the specific foundation skills needs of these industries
• the type of foundation learning programmes that could be potentially implemented
• the benefits and opportunities these programmes offer for improving workforce productivity.

The project commenced at the end of May 2006 and was completed in July 2006.

The project was limited in scope to three enterprises operating in three different geographical areas - pipfruit in the Hawke's Bay area, viticulture in the Marlborough region, and kiwifruit packing in the Bay of Plenty.

1.Foundation skills

Foundation skills are a complex web of interrelated skills. For the purpose of this report, the following foundation skill areas have been targeted - reading, writing, speaking, listening, problem solving, numeracy, and information technology use. This set of skills may also be called literacy, language and numeracy (LLN) skills.

New Zealand participated in the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) in 199This survey showed that 47% of people employed in the agriculture sector have literacy skills at IALS level 1 or level IALS level 3 is thought to be the minimum level of competence required for the demands of everyday life and work.

People use a number of foundation skills at once. For example, pruners listen to verbal instructions from their trainer to gather the technical knowledge they need to make good decisions about which part of the plant to prune. They look at a tree or vine, use their technical knowledge, prune the plant and move on quickly to ensure that they meet their target for number of trees or vines pruned in a certain time. They use numeracy and critical thinking skills to complete this task. The context (workplace systems and processes) in which the skills are used is as important as the skills of individual people. Each workplace will have its own systems and processes.

Employees draw on their foundation skills to perform most aspects of their jobs. If there is a gap in foundation skills, work outputs will suffer. The following are examples of how a lack of foundation skills on the part of a seasonal worker can lead to productivity issues.

• Seasonal workers do not understand specific instructions about the amount of colour on apples to be picked and instead pick apples with not enough colour on them. Apples which do not comply are either discarded or sent for juicing, resulting in a financial loss to the grower.
• A seasonal worker does not fully understand instructions for pruning, and removes good wood as well as weak wood on trees or vines. The pruning compromises the tree's future crop bearing.
• A seasonal worker from a non-English speaking background (NESB) is told to remove apples with a stem - a translator translates the instruction to "when you pick apples make sure there is a bit of stick as well". The seasonal worker pulls off a bit of the spur with each apple, and compromises the tree's future crop bearing.

1.Report aims

Workbase has written this report to:

• describe the methodology used to carry out our research into foundation skill needs for seasonal workforces
• briefly describe the foundation skills required of seasonal workers in three specific enterprises
• summarise discussions with people from the pipfruit, viticulture and kiwifruit sectors
• suggest actions the Department of Labour could take to address foundation skill issues for seasonal workers in these sectors.

Dr John Benseman reviewed literature relating to training, particularly foundation skills training for seasonal workforces. This is included as Section