Work Ready Initiative

Oconee County worked with the Governor’s Office of Workforce Development to obtain the “Certified Work Ready Community of Excellence” designation during 2012. The Work Ready Initiative was an initiative started in 2006 by then-Governor Sonny Perdue.

Work Ready was established to quantify the skill level of Georgia residents, enable residents to enhance the skills that they currently possess to make them suitable candidates for better jobs, provide businesses and industries within the state a measurement tool that indicates the skill level of a potential employee before they begin work, and increase the high school graduation rate within the state of Georgia.
Georgia Work Ready
Individuals throughout the community can earn a Work Keys certificate.  The Work Keys certificates are available to all adults within the state of Georgia through the Technical College system, specifically at Athens Technical College.  These skills assessments quantify the individual’s abilities in the areas of Reading for Information, Locating Information, and Applied Mathematics.  Completion of this assessment will “certify” that individual at a skill level that corresponds to their score on the assessment.  This skill level can be evaluated by potential employers to determine if the candidate possesses the skills necessary to perform the job.

Approximately 1,000 Oconee County residents earned a Work Keys certificate through this initiative.