Montana Department of Labor & Industry Rolls out WIN and WorkKeys Pilot Programs

The Montana Department of Labor and Industry announced today the rollout of the WIN and WorkKeys Pilot Programs. These programs are being implemented in select offices to prepare Montana’s workforce through skill development and certification in any of 17,000 different jobs through the National Career Readiness Certificate.

"We are investing in our most precious natural resource, our workers," said Labor Commissioner Keith Kelly. "It is more important than ever for job seekers to communicate to employers that they have the skills needed to succeed at the jobs they apply for. And for employers to be confident the people they hire will meet their expectations."

WIN provides customers the opportunity to develop their skills in 10 specific skill areas from "hard skills" like Applied Mathematics to "soft skills" like Teamwork. It also provides Contextual Modules in which the customer can choose from 19 different career contexts (Business, Healthcare, Information Technology, etc.) and the system will create pre-tests and learning modules pulled from the 10 original topic areas with questions specific to that industry.

WorkKeys testing provides the opportunity for job seekers to obtain a National Career Readiness Certificate (NCRC). The NCRC is a nationally transferrable certification awarded by ACT, the creators of the college entrance exam. The four levels of certification: Bronze, Silver, Gold, or Platinum reflect the individual’s skill as they relate to various fields of employment. As it suggests, the higher the scores achieved the more jobs an individual is qualified for based on WorkKey’s research.

Together, WIN and WorkKeys allow customers to increase or hone their skills and provide certification of their qualifications through the examination process.

Six local Job Service offices are participating in the complete pilot program, they are: Billings Job Service (JS), Havre JS, Kootenai JS (Libby), Lake County JS (Polson), Poplar WoRC Center, and Wolf Point JS. Helena JS (WorkKeys only) and both Helena and Capital High Schools (WIN only) are participating in the program as well.

The WIN courseware, ACT Exams and Certificate generation are all available at no cost to participants.

For more information on the pilot programs contact one of the participating Job Service Locations or log onto http://www.dli.mt.gov.

****** INFORMATION AVAILABLE ON THE INTERNET ******

WIN (World Interactive Network) http://www.w-win.com/

WorkKeys: A workforce development program within ACT http://www.act.org/certificate/workforce.html

Casey Kyler-West

Communications Director

Department of Labor & Industry

444-1520

[email protected]