Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

PCC Teams with Intel to Create Worldwide Employee Assessment Tool

Photos and Story by James Hill

by Susan HerefordThe ink is barely dry on a new contract with Intel Corp., yet the college and the company are powering ahead with a new program that will have worldwide ramifications for the company. The project in progress identifies the English language skills required by Intel’s maintenance technicians and also creates an English as a second language (ESL) assessment tool to use at all of Intel’s domestic and international manufacturing sites. The college’s Customized and Workplace Training department developed the new program from a request for proposals sent out last spring and signed the contract in mid-March of this year. The department is implementing parts of the project and work on it will continue throughout the summer. The new project will help Intel determine what English language skills its technicians around the world will need to have greater on-the-job communication success and what their current proficiency levels are."This is very exciting for us,"said Bonnie Starkey, a manager with Customized and Workplace Training. "The challenge is to prepare a tool that will allow the company to administer and score the assessment quickly, and cost-effectively, and to design it for a large population of technicians of several shifts in a number of different countries."It does sound challenging. But the PCC department has achieved high marks of its own, said Starkey, for preparing assessment tools of this type for a variety of companies. What exactly will PCC create for Intel? The product PCC is preparing is a customized technical English language assessment that will be used worldwide by Intel to gauge the reading and writing proficiency of its technicians who speak English as a second language. The assessment tool will determine nine levels of proficiency within three broader categories – basic, intermediate and advanced. Intel manufacturing sites in seven countries will participate in the assessment – China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Costa Rica, Israel, Ireland, and the United States. At each site, the project will be set up with lead colleges or local vendors to help with the implementation. A worldwide study revealed what was needed for greater success on the job, along with a concept for tackling the project. Cheryl Hinerman, Intel workforce development manager for the Pacific Northwest and international, said, "When you look at most ESL education, worldwide, it is at the tourist level – ordering food, making purchases. The instruction is not technical. We wanted to develop an assessment tool for technicians at Intel worldwide that addresses the use of English linked directly to the technician job skills."Starkey said the Customized and Workplace Training department is approaching the project in six phases: preparation of a data collection instrument, conducting a needs assessment at Intel’s Costa Rican site (in April), designing a draft English language assessment tool for technical reading and writing, piloting the assessment (in May), refining it, and releasing it for administration. The department will also recommend a cost-effective plan and format for administering a speaking and listening assessment. "When we did a gap analysis study,"said Hinerman, "English skills development was highlighted as the area to improve. It is exciting that the end result will be improved English language skills worldwide for our technicians – the ability to converse and share information site-to-site with better understanding."