SCANS Report
WORKPLACE CHANGE WORKPLACE KNOW-HOW FIVE COMPETENCIES
THREE-PART FOUNDATION of SKILLS SCANS Relationship to National Goals SKILL LEVELS
What Work Requires of Schools: A SCANS Report for America 2000. The S ecretary's C ommission on A chieving N ecessary S kills, U. S. Department of Labor, June, 1991.
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WORKPLACE KNOW-HOW

The know-how identified by SCANS is made up of five competencies and a three-part foundation of skills and personal qualities that are needed for solid job performance. These include:

FIVE COMPETENCIES (expanded)

  1. Resources: Identifies, organizes, plans, and allocates resources
    1. Time: -- Selects goal-relevant activities, ranks them, allocates time, and prepares and follows schedules
    2. Money: -- Uses or prepares budgets, makes forecasts, keeps records, and makes adjustments to meet objectives
    3. Materials and Facilities: -- Acquires, stores, allocates, and uses materials or space efficiently
    4. Human Resources: -- Assesses skills and distributes work accordingly, evaluates performance and provides feedback
  2. Interpersonal: Works with others
    1. Participates as Member of a Team -- contributes to group effort
    2. Teaches Others New Skills
    3. Serves Clients/Customers -- works to satisfy customers' expectations
    4. Exercises Leadership -- communicates ideas to justify position, persuades and convinces others, responsibly challenges existing procedures and policies
    5. Negotiates -- works toward agreements involving exchange of resources, resolves divergent interests
    6. Works with Diversity -- works well with men and women from diverse backgrounds.
  3. Information: Acquires and uses information
    1. Acquires and Evaluates Information
    2. Organizes and Maintains Information
    3. Interprets and Communicates Information
    4. Uses Computers to Process Information
  4. Systems: Understands complex inter-relationships
    1. Understands Systems -- knows how social, organizational, and technological systems work and operates effectively with them
    2. Monitors and Corrects Performance -- distinguishes trends, predicts impacts on system operations, diagnoses deviations in systems' performance and corrects malfunctions
    3. Improves or Designs Systems -- suggests modifications to existing systems and develops new or alternative systems to improve performance
  5. Technology: Works with a variety of technologies
    1. Selects Technology -- chooses procedures, tools or equipment including computers and related technologies
    2. Applies Technology to Task -- Understands overall intent and proper procedures for setup and operation of equipment
    3. Maintains and Troubleshoots Equipment -- Prevents, identifies, or solves problems with equipment, including computers and other technologies

A THREE-PART FOUNDATION

  1. Basic Skills: Reads, writes, performs arithmetic and mathematical operations, listens and speaks
    1. Reading -- locates, understands, and interprets written information in prose and in documents such as manuals, graphs, and schedules
    2. Writing -- communicates thoughts, ideas, information, and messages in writing; and creates documents such as letters, directions, manuals, reports, graphs, and flow charts
    3. Arithmetic-Mathematics -- performs basic computations and approaches practical problems by choosing appropriately from a variety of mathematical techniques
    4. Listening -- receives, attends to, interprets, and responds to verbal messages and other clues
    5. Speaking -- organizes ideas and communicates orally
  2. Thinking Skills: Thinks creatively, makes decisions, solves problems, visualizes, knows how to learn, and reasons
    1. Creative Thinking -- generates new ideas
    2. Decision Making -- specifies goals and constraints, generates a lternatives, considers risks, and evaluates and chooses best alternative
    3. Problem Solving -- recognizes problems and devises and implements plan of action
    4. Seeing Things in the Mindıs Eye -- organizes, and processes symbols, pictures, graphs, objects and other information
    5. Knowing How to Learn -- uses efficient learning techniques to acquire and apply new knowledge and skills
    6. Reasoning -- discovers a rule or principle underlying the relationship between two or more objects and applies it when solving a p roblem
  3. Personal Qualities: Displays responsibility, self-esteem, sociability, self-management, and integrity
    1. Responsibility -- exerts a high level of effort and perseveres toward goal attainment
    2. Self-Esteem -- believes in own self-worth and maintains a positive view of self
    3. Sociability -- demonstrates understanding, friendliness, adaptability, empathy, and politeness in group settings
    4. Self-Management -- assesses self accurately, sets personal goals, monitors progress, and exhibits self-control
    5. Integrity/Honesty -- chooses ethical courses of action

    Work involves a complex interplay among the five competencies, higher order thinking skills, and diligent application of personal qualities.

    SCANS Relationship to National Goals

    • Goal #3: American students will leave grades four, eight, and twelve having demonstrated competency in challenging subject matter including English, mathematics, science, history, and geography; and every school in America will ensure that all students learn to use their minds well, so they may be prepared for responsible citizenship, further learning, and productive employment in our modern economy.

    • Goal #5: Every adult American will be literate and will possess the knowledge and skills necessary to compete in a global economy and exercise the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.

    LEVELS OF PROGRESS IN ACQUIRING SKILLS
    Proficiency Level Performance Benchmark
    PreparatoryScheduling oneself
    Work-ReadyScheduling small work team
    IntermediateScheduling a production line or substantial construction project
    AdvancedDeveloping roll-out schedule for new product or production plant
    SpecialistDevelop algorithm for scheduling airline

    CHARACTERISTICS OF TODAY'S AND TOMORROW'S WORKPLACE
    TRADITIONAL MODELHIGH PERFORMANCE MODEL
    STRATEGY: PRODUCTION
    mass productionflexible production
    long production runs customized production
    centralized control decentralized control
    STRATEGY: QUALITY CONTROL
    fixed automationflexible automation
    end-of-line quality controlon-line quality control
    fragmentation of taskswork teams, multi-skilled workers
    authority vested in supervisorauthority delegated to worker
    STRATEGY: HIRING AND HUMAN RESOURCES
    labor-management confrontation labor-management cooperation
    minimal qualifications accepted screening for basic skills abilities
    workers as a cost workforce as an investment
    STRATEGY: JOB LADDERS
    internal labor market limited internal labor market
    advancement by seniorityadvancement by certified skills
    STRATEGY: TRAINING
    minimal for production workerstraining sessions for everyone
    specialized for craft workersbroader skills sought
    Source: "Competing in the New International Economy." Washington, D.C.: Office of Technology Assessment, 1990

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    Posted August 14, 1996
    http://www.uni.edu/darrow/frames/scans.html