About Skill Standards and the ChemTechStandards Database

What are Skill Standards?

Skill standards are a compilation of the knowledge and abilities workers need to accomplish their job tasks. They are specific to a certain category of job, such as automotive mechanic, IT specialist, and chemical technician.

Skill standards must be generated with industry input. This is typically done by performing a job task analysis. Workers currently employed in the job are asked to describe what it is they do. The information is collected and organized into a set of skill standards.

Once an initial set of standards is obtained, the standards are sent back to the workers for validation. The workers comment on how accurately the standards reflect what they do on the job. The skill standards set is edited accordingly prior to completion.

Why use Skill Standards?

Workforce development is an important concern for a range of stakeholders, from education to business and industry to government. In the 1980s there was a growing concern about the lack of skilled workers entering the labor force.

The idea of using skill standards to support workforce development was initiated by the departments of Labor and Education, which in the early 1990's launched 22 pilot projects to incorporate skill standards into various important industries. The American Chemical Society was awarded one of these projects to support the chemical process industry.

How do ACS Skills Standards support industry training needs?

Skill standards provide a model for developing industry-driven training programs that can adapt to suit the industry's ever changing needs over time. Since the skill standards are based on industry input, educators know exactly what skills potential employees require to be productive from day one.

Training programs are implemented at local levels through modification of the skill standards by the local industry. If one aspect of a job is more important than another, the local industry uses the skill standards to guide the training program to provide extra instruction on those skills. If industry's needs change, the training program can determine how to adjust its curriculum using the skill standards.

Thus, skill standards provide a highly flexible method of creating and adjusting workforce development programs to assure industry is getting the skilled employees it needs. This is done by matching what industry states is needed for a job with what the training program teaches in its curriculum. It is important that the skill standards be kept up to date with whatever job type they represent and that both the training program and industry participate in curriculum development process.

Using the ACS ChemTechStandards Database

The ChemTechStandards Database has a wide range of uses, including:

• Aligning academic curricula with industry needs (educators)
• Learning what employers want (technicians and students)
• Creating job profiles and descriptions (employers)
• Conducting workforce assessments (employers and educators)
• Designing career development programs (employers)

The database can also be used within an alliance/partnership between an academic training program and its industrial employer. The appropriateness of an academic program is determined by comparing the standards that industry deems important with the standards that the academic program covers. To do this comparison, an alliance sets up a survey of the relevant standards. The industry representatives rate the importance of each skill for their specific employee needs and the academic representatives rate each skill as to the level of instruction offered in their program.

Once all alliance members have completed this survey, a gap analysis report is generated, which indicates the difference in importance or coverage for each skill. It is these gaps that require attention in the training program. If the program lacks instruction in a skill that industry considers important, more attention to that skill is needed in the curriculum. Coverage of a skill that industry does not require in its employees can be eliminated.

This gap analysis tool may be used as often as needed within a certain alliance to maintain a curriculum's relevance. The ACS Chemical Technology Program Approval Service requires a gap analysis be performed at least every five years, but a greater frequency may be required to suit an individual alliance's needs.