Building Essential Skills in the Workplace: Producing “Productivity through People” at Minas Basin Pulp & Power Company Limited

This case study on Building Essential Skills in the Workplace highlights the Workplace Education Program at Minas Basin Pulp & Power Company Limited, a highly successful program that is benefiting both workers and the company.

Document Highlights

Minas Basin Pulp & Power Company had expanded its machinery, products and services, and quickly realized that it needed to make a corresponding investment in developing its employees’ skills. It therefore partnered with the Nova Scotia Department of Education’s Workplace Education Program in 1999 in order to identify and create programming to meet its essential skills training needs.

The Workplace Education Program is the result. This voluntary program focuses on essential skills, document literacy, basic upgrading for the workplace, the use of computers and basic math refreshment. It has been well received by the employees, and has paved the way for other company training initiatives that have bolstered Minas Basin Pulp & Power’s business success. For example, efficiencies on the paper machine have exceeded 80 per cent every month during 2004, something never before accomplished.