A study of the Railroad Retirement Board (RRB) showed that the RRB was only a microcosm of the problem of unprepared workers being experienced by employers nationwide. Implementing basic skills programs was found to be crucial because corporations and government agencies, like the RRB, found the labor pool to be poorly educated. Research on development of remedial training programs and approaches being used to train and motivate workers led to these recommendations to the RRB for initiating basic skills programs: needs assessment; development of strategies; review of key features of successful basic skills programs; program design, including clear definition of objectives, organization according to employees' level of knowledge and by job tasks, and program structure that encourages participation; use of managers as trainers; application for federal funding for training; motivation of employees to maintain favorable worker performance; and provision of leadership. The literature showed that business could participate in improving education by specifying relevant skills and that schools and businesses needed to increase communication with each other. In addition, schools needed to devise ways to show students the relationship between literacy and acquisition of good jobs. (Appendixes include 45 footnotes and a 31-item bibliography.) (YLB)