What are skill standards?
Skill standards tell us what a worker needs to know and do on the job and how well he or she needs to perform to succeed in the workplace. Skill standards define both the work itself and the worker qualifications, specifically the skills and knowledge required to successfully perform the work.

How do skill standards benefit local workforce development boards?
Skill standards serve to evaluate the effectiveness of community and technical colleges and other training providers to develop training programs and establish performance criteria for successful program completion. By ensuring that training institutions use skill standards, local workforce development boards can motivate employers to hire well-prepared graduates of these programs. Qualified job applicants lower employers’ company training costs.

How do skill standards benefit employers?
Skill standards identify the critical knowledge, skills, and performance levels that employees need to be successful in the workplace. Skill standards help employers meet the challenge of being competitive through ensuring that workers possess vital job-related competencies. Through skill standards, employers can communicate their skill requirements to education and technical training providers. Providers can then design and deliver programs that ensure graduates have the skills that employers need. And by hiring graduates of education and training programs built on industry-developed skill standards, employers get the job-ready workers they need – workers with relevant skills, who can be productive and effective and give a faster return on the employer’s staffing investment.

How do skill standards benefit community and technical colleges?
As a community or technical college (CTC) instructor, skill standards can help you address the following kinds of questions:

• How do you determine the content of your technical program?

• How do you know that you’re teaching the current skills and knowledge that will get your students jobs?

• Do you have trouble getting local employers to define specifically the skills and knowledge they are looking for in employees—and how well potential applicants must perform to get and keep a job?

The purpose of skill standards is to document the skills, knowledge and performance standards that employers require in their workers and to communicate that information to education and training providers, such as community and technical colleges. Community and technical colleges can then use the skill standards to develop curriculum that meets the needs that employers have identified.

Who develops skill standards?
Industry groups lead skill standards development efforts. Typically, an alliance or coalition of employers recognizes the need to expand the pool of qualified workers in their industry to meet current or future hiring goals. Often, the organizing body for the effort is the industry’s professional or trade association. The front-line workers, those who actually perform the job, and their immediate supervisors define the skill standards.

What is the Texas Skill Standards Board (TSSB)?
The TSSB is an advisory body comprised of 11 volunteers representing business and industry, labor and education, both secondary and post-secondary. It was established by the Texas Legislature in 1995, and the members are appointed by the Governor. Its charge is to develop a statewide system of skill standards and credentials for sub-baccalaureate occupations with strong employment and earnings opportunities.

What role does the TSSB play?
Skill standards are a tool for communicating industry skill requirements to education and training providers. The TSSB acts as a liaison between employers who develop skill standards and educators and trainers who use them. First, the TSSB convenes industry groups to develop skill standards according to criteria for content and procedural validity and then grants statewide recognition to standards that meet the criteria. Second, the TSSB disseminates and promotes the use of skill standards among education and training providers.

What skill standards have been recognized?
All TSSB-recognized skill standards are posted in the Texas Skill Standards Repository of this web site.

What is the difference between Recognized and Conditionally Recognized Skill Standards?
TSSB skill standards fall into two categories: Recognized or Conditionally Recognized. The “Recognized” category is granted to skill standards developed and validated in Texas by Texas industry and formatted into the seven specific elements required for TSSB recognition: critical work functions, key activities, performance criteria, occupational skills and knowledge, occupational conditions, academic and employability skills and knowledge, statements of assessment. This category applies primarily to skill standards developed by Texas industry. The “Conditionally Recognized” category is granted to skill standards developed and validated by industry somewhere other than Texas, such as skill standards developed by a national group that conducts a rigorous development and validation process. The resulting skill standards may or may not include all seven skill standards elements described above.

The two categories of recognition simply distinguish the two types of skill standards. Conditional Recognition does not indicate a lesser or temporary status. Standards in either category have been “fully” recognized, are equal in value, and are valid, reliable and representative of the work they describe.

How are skill standards kept current?
All recognized skill standards must be reviewed and their content either validated or updated at least once every five years. As occupations change in response to business and technological advances, skill standards need to change. When the industry group applies for TSSB recognition of the skill standards, it submits a review and update plan and time line. The plan indicates how often the skill standards should be reviewed to ensure that they are still representative of the work they describe.

How can you get involved?
Employers can become involved by developing skill standards, participating on an Industry Technical Advisory Committee to oversee the skill standards development process, requesting TSSB conditional recognition for existing skill standards developed outside of the State of Texas, hiring from TSSB-recognized programs that teach to the skill standards, or by promoting skill standards’ use among education and training providers.

Community and technical colleges can become involved by integrating skill standards into curriculum. The TSSB will recognize such programs and post them on the TSSB website, and also provide a gold-embossed “TSSB-Recognized” seal to place on the credential of every graduate of the program.