The learning and communication styles of front-line literacy workers and supervisors at two national industrial sites served by a national workplace literacy grant were examined to determine whether the front-line workers' learning styles differed from those of their supervisors. A learning styles inventory developed by the Center for Innovative Teaching Techniques of the Wichita Public School system in Kansas was administered to the 195 employees in the study population. Of those individuals, 74% were hourly workers, 26% were managers, 77% were male, and 38% were members of minority groups. Fewer than 10% of the front-line workers had any postsecondary education, whereas more than 50% of the managers had a college degree and more than 10% had attended college for at least 1 year. Of the managers, 73% proved to be individual learners and 62% were characterized as written-expressive learners. Of the front-line workers, 58% were determined to be group learners, 68% were characterized as oral-expressive learners, and 54% were determined to have an auditory/visual/kinesthetic learning style. It was concluded that learners' failures in workplace literacy programs may have more to do with how learners are taught than with their perceived learning deficiencies. (MN)