Pitney Bowes Inc.s Spokane customer-contact center knows its business: Answer phone calls from customers across the nation and tell them how to fix Pitney Bowes office products.


The Stamford, Conn.-based company didnt, however, know the best way to teach its 360 employees here how to do those things, says Terri Besenyody, human resources manager at the Pitney Bowes center.


Enter the ACT center, where the Community Colleges of Spokane helps employers identify the skills workers need to perform a job and assess those skills in employees and job candidates. Besenyody says that with the help of that program, and a job profiler who interviewed workers and observed them doing their jobs, Pitney Bowes learned that the customer-service associates at its contact center need two primary skills: the ability to locate information quickly, and the ability to listen well to complex inquiries.


She says the ACT programs staff came up with training modules for both skills, which Pitney Bowes began using in its training program at the center.


When employees are trained with those modules, Besenyody says, I think they get through the learning curve quicker. Theyre up to speed and working more proficiently.


Also, more workers succeed in the job, which has resulted in less turnover at the operation, she says.


The Community Colleges of Spokane launched the ACT center here last October, offering both online distance learning and instructor-led classes at Spokane Community College, says Dan Ruddell, manager of the training center. The center has no building of its own; also, all of the people who do work for the ACT center have other jobs.


Through the center, CCS offers regularly-scheduled classes and customized training services.


The center has curricula for more than 3,000 courses in a broad range of subjects. The classes it offers range from basic instruction in reading and mathematics to professional courses in information technology and business management. Attendees typically are a mix of interested individuals and workers sent by their employers.


In those classes, Ruddell says, the center provides work-force development, continuing education, and testing and certification for a variety of fields, both for those who are seeking employment and those who already are employed. The instructor-led classes usually are taught by adjunct instructors, which Ruddell says typically are professionals from the business community who have expertise in a subject.


Ruddell says the Spokane ACT center already has worked with a number of employers here to devise custom training programs to prepare workers. In addition to Pitney Bowes, other employers that have used the center include the Goodrich Aerospace operation here; Colville, Wash.-based Hearth & Home Technologies Inc.; and Goodwill Industries of the Inland Northwest.


ACT stands for American College Testing. The courses are developed by an Iowa City, Iowa-based nonprofit organization that originally came up with the ACT Assessment test that many high school juniors and seniors take to assess whether theyre ready for college.


To use the ACT curricula, CCS paid an initial setup fee of $2,500, and it pays an annual licensing fee of $1,000, Ruddell says. CCS charges those who take the classes on a per-course basis.


The cost to a business for job assessment and curricula development varies widely, Ruddell says.


An ACT-certified job profiler conducts the job assessments and curricula developments for the ACT center here.


The center recently has developed a skills-certification program for people who have earned a high school diploma and have taken some college classes, but havent earned a college degree.


There wasnt a widely accepted method for assessing the skills of that segment of the work force, which Ruddell says is a large percentage of the labor pool here.


We need to have a portable credential that tells people what these people can do, Ruddell says. Unlike a diploma or a degree, the certificate talks the language of business and industry.


The certification addresses four skill sets: reading for information, teamwork, applied mathematics, and locating information.


Ruddell says those skills sets are necessary for almost all jobs for which that segment of the work force qualifies.


A participant is given a score of between 3 and 7 in each of those categories, and the significance of that score is explained on the back of the certificate, so a potential employer will have a better idea of what that person is capable of doing.


The Spokane Regional Chamber of Commerce has praised the certification system.


Rich Hadley, president of the chamber, says the chamber had participated in a movement to get people in that part of the work force to take their high-school diploma to job interviews.


The certification is hugely more valuable, Hadley says. This actually is a measurement of skill ability in the types of jobs an employer is looking to fill.


He expects the certification to gain widespread acceptance with employers.


Ruddell hopes that happens.


Id love to see employers ask for it when a potential employee applies for a job, he says.


About 50 people a week are going through that skills-certification screening, and many of those receive certification. Some dont score well enough to receive a certificate that would help them in the workplace, but the center advises those people what kind of schooling they need to improve their skills and eventually receive certification.