Case Study: St. Louis Carpenters Gain Entry into Trades with Award-Winning WorkKeys Program

December 2006

The Organization:
St. Louis Carpenters Joint Apprenticeship Program

The Challenge:
Finding a job-specific, legally defensible method of entry into apprentice training

The Solution:
WorkKeys^® skill exams and skill profiling of area jobs

The Results:
Lower attrition rates, better training success, and kudos from the state's governor as a top workforce development program in the area of educational innovation

Situation

The St. Louis Carpenters Joint Apprenticeship Program is the largest federally approved apprenticeship program in Missouri, including more than 2,000 carpenters, 400 floor layers, and 50 cabinet makers. Its participants are responsible for roughly 85 percent of home construction in the St. Louis area.

Prior to 1979, the apprenticeship program was "90 percent classroom work, lots of bookwork," said John Gaal, director of training and workforce development with the Carpenters' District Council of Greater St. Louis and Vicinity. "The contractors wanted them to have more hands-on training, more competency-based training. So our labor and management representatives went to the other extreme, from mostly bookwork to mostly hands-on training."

Needs

In 2002, the curriculum was redesigned to bring a balance of both classroom learning and on-the-job training. In designing the curriculum, instructors insisted that apprentices have certifiable basic math and reading skills after six months in the program. Until the late 1980s, the entry requirement was a high school diploma or GED, along with a homegrown math competency exam. But questions arose about whether the diploma, GED and test requirements reflected the skills needed for the job or could be used legally.

Solution

The program turned to the University of Missouri–St Louis' Regional Center for Education and Work, a local provider of the WorkKeys job skill assessment system. St. Louis-area basic trades had already been profiled in the mid-1990s with the WorkKeys system, offering a view as to what specific skills and skill levels were needed. In addition to the Reading for Information and Applied Mathematics skills supported by instructors, job profiles indicated that Locating Information and Observation skills were also of high importance for specific segments of the apprenticeship's population.

Apprentices without a high school diploma or GED can now take WorkKeys exams as an entry-level requirement for training following their one-year anniversary. The new entry program—called "Third Way"—requires that participating apprentices receive qualifying scores on the four WorkKeys exams before entering the final three years of intensive training to obtain journeyman status. The Third Way program also includes skill training for apprentices who want to raise their WorkKeys scores.

Passing the WorkKeys exams gives apprentices access to a program that includes cross-training in several trades: residential building, commercial concrete, interior systems, millwright, and welding. All apprentices get exposure, through training, to these key areas. This wealth of training gives apprentices more career flexibility while also giving them a broader sense of knowledge on the job. "The theory behind the cross-training is that it benefits apprentices' employability down the road and affects their job security, but it also gives them a greater sense of who's doing what on the job site," Gaal said. "It also provides contractors with more opportunities to effectively utilize their skilled workers."

Results

Lower attrition rates—More apprentices are staying with the program through to completion. "Up front, people know what's expected of them," Gaal said.
High success rates—More apprentices are completing the training program on their first try, due to the higher skills they have at the outset.
An award-winning program—The Third Way program was recognized in 2005 at a governor's conference on workforce development.
Expansion of the WorkKeys system to other trades and locations—The St. Louis program has offshoots in Belleville, Ill., and Cape Girardeau, Mo., with a total of more than 600 apprentices. Both sister programs now also use WorkKeys as a six-month retention requirement. In addition, another St. Louis trade union that represents insulators and asbestos workers saw the success of the system and recently implemented it as part of its apprentice selection process.