Teaching the “Culture of Work”: Profiles of Four Job-Training Programs

Hard Work on Soft Skills: Creating a “Culture of Work” in Workforce Development, by Ted Houghton and Tony Proscio, presents case studies of four job-training programs run by nonprofit organizations in Boston, San Francisco, and Brooklyn, N.Y., and a community college in Watsonville, Calif. The report highlights the innovative methods those programs use to impart to students the “culture of work” — a set of largely intangible skills such as courtesy, appropriate dress, self-discipline, and teamwork. Learning those skills, the authors say, is at least as important to students’ success in future jobs as is acquiring the technical skills that many programs emphasize.

Publisher: Public/Private Ventures, 2000 Market Street, Suite 600, Philadelphia, Pa. 19103; (215) 557-4400; fax (215) 557-4469; http://www.ppv.org; 56 pages; free.