Essential Skills Needs Assessment
The Essential Skills Needs Assessment (ESNA) tool offers career and employment counselors a tool to engage clients in a discussion about their Essential Skills and the link to their employment objectives. It is focused on three Essential Skills: reading, writing and numeracy and was developed in part to help fill an identified need for assessment resources for those with low skills.
The ESNA is an informal process to be used by employment and career counsellors to:
• raise a client’s awareness of the importance of essential skills in the workplace;
• show practical examples of how these skills are used on the job;
• provide a better understanding of a client’s essential skills strengths and areas that may require upgrading;
• help clients to make more informed decisions about job skills training and job searches;
• help provide clients with guidance on the next steps to achieve their job search and training objectives.
The ESNA tool has two components: A Guide to Conducting an Informal Essential Skills Needs Assessment & Assessment Modules
The Office of Literacy and Essential Skills (OLES) is currently revisiting its publication strategy. Please visit the OLES website for more information.
Office of Literacy and Essential Skills, Employment & Social Development Canada
140 Promenade du Portage, Phase IV Mailstop 515 Gatineau QC K1A 0J9
Initiative Impact
We collect administrative data on the uptake of all of our tools and resources and report on a quarterly basis.
Incorporation of Essential Skills
The Guide explains the purpose of the Essential Skills Needs Assessment, describes to whom a needs assessment is suited, the type of information that can be gathered, and how to use the accompanying assessment modules for reading, writing and numeracy. It also provides a step-by-step process on how to administer the assessment and outlines how to use the results.
There are three assessment modules, one for each of the three essential skills being assessed. Each module has Client booklets with questions about typical workplace tasks at levels 1 and 2. There are corresponding Assessor booklets that include responses for all assessment questions and a section for documenting results.
Project Components
This resource provides a comprehensive assessor guide for practitioners administering the assessment. Therefore, it is not necessary for the practitioner to have any specialized knowledge to use the resource effectively.
| Partner name | Role | Responsibilities |
| Numerous Aboriginal-serving organizations | Pilot-testing | To test the resource with clients and provide early feedback |
| Julie Flett | Designer | Created original PDFs and artwork |
| Julian Evetts | Peer reviewer | Validated the questions |
| HB Group | Design Group | Created accessible versions |