U.S. Census Bureau trains legion of people for tech jobs

From...

July 20, 2000
Web posted at: 10:05 a.m. EDT (1405 GMT)

by Bryant Jordan

(IDG) -- To carry out the mission of Census 2000, the government had to raise "and train" a small army.

The Census Bureau filled the ranks of data-entry workers by tapping groups largely inexperienced with technology, such as long-term unemployed people, low-wage earners and immigrants.

"We've had many employees for whom this has been their first work experience...and probably the most technical training they've had, even though it was fairly straightforward," said Hank Beebe, the Census 2000 program manager at TRW Inc., the prime contractor for the bureau's census project.

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The workers were drawn largely from the regions around temporary Census Bureau sites in Baltimore; Phoenix, Ariz.; and Pomona, Calif. A fourth center, in Jeffersonville, Ind., is the only permanent facility, and it used regular census employees, according to Cori Asaka, director of training for Troy Systems Inc., a subcontractor brought in by TRW to train the Indiana instructors and to train workers at the temporary sites.

"We trained over 10,000 people in less than two months" at the temporary centers, said Patty Nataro, the Census 2000 project director for Troy. "And of that number, I'd say about 6,000 were people actually doing [data entry]."

Some temporary workers also operated scanners, character readers that converted documents into electronic format, a job requiring more technical training.

Nataro said that many of the workers "were in the welfare-to-work environment. Many had never worked with a keyboard." To address such challenges, "we went with basic design," she said. That involved lots of graphics and hands-on training so the technology "wouldn't scare them," Nataro said.

"We wanted to ensure [that] the materials we used were graphically based because we did experience problems, not only with [computer] literacy but with English being a second language," Nataro said. "In Phoenix, we trained Serbs and Bosnians and others. Some people who had entered the country only six months earlier."

The new employees received classroom training first, during which the software was demonstrated. Then they used computers to try it themselves, she said.

"It was show and do, show and do," Nataro said. "After that, we went onto the floor and did it in a practice environment."

This enabled Troy to track the performance of the trainees before putting them behind a keyboard for "live" data input, she said.

"We set the standards high because we set 98 percent accuracy for our goal. Everyone had to be able to qualify to that level," Nataro said. This requirement included 4,800 keystrokes per hour. But the emphasis was on the quality of the work, not speed, she said.

To further ensure accuracy, Census also called upon community-based organizations to translate material for immigrants, she said.

"We would teach in English, and the community person would translate" as needed, Nataro said.

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