As we experience a range of societal changes, people are finding themselves dealing with increased demands on their literacy skills. These literacy demands have not only increased but have become more complex in nature. Many people find that they do not possess basic literacy skills needed to function in today's society, and are much less able to deal with these more complex demands.
Work is one place where people find that literacy demands are more complex than ever.
Several forces have brought about and continue to influence transformations of literacy in the workplace. These include economic, organizational, and technological forces, and they have changed the nature of most work. Among these forces are participation in the global marketplace, democratization of workplace decision-making, synchronous production, and multiple roles on most jobs. Also, new technologies permeate the work activities of nearly half the adult population and create new literacy demands for communication, gathering information, solving daily work-related problems, and monitoring performance. Even students who have mastered traditional school literacy face challenges.