ACT WorkKeys Essential Skills: Work Ethic

Issued by ACT, Inc.

ACT WorkKeys Essential Skills measures skills related to workplace success. Earners of the Work Ethic badge reliably fulfill responsibilities, meet deadlines, and are productive at work. Earners are able to plan, organize, and prioritize work, as well as monitor progress on said work. Earners also take time to evaluate possible solutions to work problems, including possible consequences, before taking action.

Type Validation
Level Foundational

Additional Details

Skills

Earning Criteria

The earner completed an online, research-backed assessment of essential skills. The assessment combines multiple methods into one score to increase the reliability and validity of scores, mitigate against response biases, and make it more difficult to fake.
To earn the badge, an earner must score at or above the 84th percentile. The assessment is norm referenced, which means that the earner is compared to others who have taken the assessment. So, if 100 people were to take the assessment, the earner would do as well as or better than 84 out of the 100 people.

Standards

ACT uses the Big Five and the HEXACO frameworks as the foundation for the WorkKeys Essential Skills assessment. Prior research shows that these frameworks are comprehensive of human attitudes and behaviors, universal across many groups of people, and validated by many studies on work outcomes.