SCANS Information

What are scans skills?

These are skills that employers need the most from their workers. SCANS skills are the predictors of success in workplace.

Who defined the skills?

In 1989, the U.S. Department of Labor education jointly surveyed U.S. employers to find out the most important skills and competencies needed by workers.

The results of that survey identified SCANS (Secretaries Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills).

The Computer Information Systems Department at North Lake College is committed to prepare you with the knowledge and skills you need to succeed in today's dynamic work environment. Toward this goal, the following course goals will be addressed. Workplace competencies and foundation skills have been integrated into this course. They are identified in the "Goals" section that follows. Each SCANS skill that is addressed will be listed next to the goal to which it applies.

Throughout a formal program of study (Certificate, Degree, or Transfer Program) each student will have the opportunity to master all of the SCANS skills and competencies.

General Definitions for the SCANS Competencies:

RESOURCES

Manages Time: Selects relevant, goal -- related activities, ranks them in order of importance, allocates time to activities, and understands, prepares, and follows schedules.

Manages Money: Uses or prepares budgets, including making cost and revenue forecasts; keeps detailed records to track budget performance; and makes appropriate adjustments.

Manages Material and Facility Resources: Acquires, stores, and distributes materials, supplies, parts, equipment, space, or final products in order to make the best use of them.

Manages Human Resources: Assesses knowledge and skills, distributes work accordingly, evaluates performance, and provides feedback.

INTERPERSONAL SKILLS

Participates as a Member of a Team: Works cooperatively with others and contributes to group efforts with ideas, suggestions, and effort.

Teaches Others: Helps others learn needed knowledge and skills.

Serves Clients/Customers: Works and communicates with clients and customers to satisfy their expectations.

Exercises Leadership: Communicates thoughts, feelings, and ideas to justify a position, encourage, persuade, convince, or otherwise motivate an individual or groups, including responsibility challenging existing procedures, policies or authority.

Negotiates to Arrive at a Decision: Works toward an agreement that may involve exchanging specific resources or resolving divergent interests.

Works with Cultural Diversity: Works well with men and women and with people form a variety of ethnic, social, or educational backgrounds.

Information

Acquires and Evaluates Information: Identifies a need for data, obtains the data from existing sources or creates them, and evaluates their relevance and accuracy.

Organizes and Maintains Information: Organizes, processes, and maintains written or computerized records and other forms of information in a systemic fashion.

Interprets and Communicates Information: Selects and analyzes information and communicates the results to others using oral, written, graphic, pictorial, or multimedia methods.

Uses Computers to Process Information: Employs computers to acquire, organize, analyze, and communicate information.

Systems

Understands Systems: Knows how social, organizational, and technological systems work and operates effectively within them.

Monitors and Corrects Performance: Distinguishes trends, predicts impacts of actions on system operations, diagnoses deviations in the functioning of a system/organization, and takes necessary action to correct performance.

Improves and Designs Systems: Makes suggestions to modify existing systems in order to improve the quality of products or services and develops new or alternative systems.

Technology

Selects Technology: Judges which sets of procedures, tools, or machines, including computers and their programs, will produce the desired results.

Applies Technology to Task: Understands the overall intents and the proper procedures for setting up and operating machines, including computers and their programming systems.

Maintains and Troubleshoots Technology: Prevents, identifies, or solves problems in machines, computers, and other technology.

General Definitions for the SCANS Foundation Skills:

Basic Skills

Reading: Locates, understands, and interprets written information in prose and documents -- including manuals, graphs, and schedules -- to perform tasks; learns from text by determining the main idea or essential message; identifies relevant details, facts, and specifications; infers or locates the meaning of unknown or technical vocabulary; and judges the accuracy, appropriateness, style, and plausibility of reports, proposals, or theories of other writers.

Writing: Communicates thoughts, ideas, information, and messages in writing; records information completely and accurately; composes and creates documents such as letters, dictations, manuals, reports, proposals, graphic and flowcharts with the language, styles, organization, and format appropriate to the subject matter, purpose, and audience; includes where appropriate, supporting documentation, and attends to level of detail; and checks, edits, and revises for correct information, appropriate emphasis, form, grammar, spelling, and punctuation.

Arithmetic: Performs basic computations; uses basic numerical concepts such as whole numbers and percentages in practical situations; makes reasonable estimates of arithmetic results without calculator; and uses tables, graphs, diagrams, and charts to obtain or convey quantitative information.

Mathematics: Approaches practical problems by choosing appropriately from a variety of mathematical techniques; uses quantitative data to construct logical explanations for real world situations; expresses mathematical ideas and concepts orally and in writing; and understands the role of chance in the occurrence and prediction of events.

Listening: Receives, attends to, interprets, in response to verbal messages and other cues such as body language in ways that are appropriate to the purpose -- for example, to comprehend, learn, critically evaluate, appreciate, or support the speaker.

Speaking: Organizes ideas and communicates oral messages appropriate to listeners and situations; participates in conversation, discussion, and group presentations; selects and appropriate medium for conveying a message; uses verbal language and other cues such as body language in a way appropriate in style, tone, and level of complexity to the audience and the occasion; speaks clearly and communicates a message; understands and responds to listener feedback; and asks questions when needed.

Thinking Skills

Creative Thinking: Generates new ideas by making nonlinear or unusual connections, new possibilities; and uses imagination freely, combining ideas or information in new ways, making connections between seemingly unrelated ideas, and reshaping goals in ways that revealed in possibilities.

Decision Making: Specifies goals and constraints, generates alternatives, considers risks, and evaluates and chooses best alternatives.

Problem Solving: Recognizes that a problem exists (i.e., that there is a discrepancy between what is and what should be); identifies possible reasons for the discrepancy, and devises and implements a plan for action to resolve it; and evaluates and monitors progress, revising the plan as indicated by findings.

Mental Visualization: Sees things in the mind's eye by organizing and processing symbols, pictures, graphs, objects, or other information -- for example, sees a building from a blueprint, a systems operation from schematics, the flow of work activities from narrative descriptions, or the taste of food from reading a recipe.

Knowing How to Learn: Recognizes and can use learning techniques to apply and adapt existing and new knowledge and scale in both familiar and changing situations; and is aware of learning tools such as personal learning styles (visual, oral, etc.), formal learning strategies (note taking or clustering items that share some characteristics), and informal learning strategies (awareness of unidentified false assumptions that may lead to faulty conclusions).

Reasoning: Discovers a rule or principle underlying the relationship between two or more objects and applies it in solving a problem -- for example, uses logic to draw conclusions from available information, extract rules or principals from a set of objects or a written text, or applies rules and principles to a new situation (or determines which conclusions are correct when given a set of facts and conclusions).

Personal Qualities

Responsibility: Exerts a high-level effort and perseverance toward goal attainment; works hard to become excellent at doing tasks by setting high standards, paying attention to details, working well even when assigned an unpleasant task, displaying a high-level of concentration; and displays high standards of attendance, punctuality, enthusiasm, vitality, and optimism in approaching and completing tasks.

Self-Esteem: Belize in own self -- worth and maintains a positive view of self, demonstrates knowledge of own skills and abilities, is aware of one's impression of others, and knows own emotional capacity and needs and how to address them.

Socialability: Demonstrates understanding, friendliness, adaptability, empathy, and politeness in new and ongoing group settings; asserts self in familiar and unfamiliar social situations; relates well to others; responds appropriately as the situation requires; and takes interest in what others say and do.

Self-Management: accurately assesses own knowledge, skills, and abilities; sets well-defined and realistic personal goals; monitors progress toward goal attainment and motivates self through goal achievement; and exhibit self-control and responds to feedback on emotionally and non-defensively.

Integrity/Honesty: Recognizes when being faced with making a decision or exhibiting behavior that may break with commonly held personal or social values; understands the effects of violating these beliefs and codes on an organization, oneself, and others; and chooses an ethical course of action.