presents
THE FUTURE OF SKILLS:
Conversations and Insights on 21st Century Skills
Work is changing on a seismic scale and a huge portion of the workforce is going to need reskilling in the next 5-10 years. In the next few years (by 2025 in fact), the World Economic Forum estimates that 50% of all employees will need reskilling.
This shift is driven not only by automation and digitization, but by a reevaluation of which skills, credentials, and experience are most valuable. With this shift, we are witnessing the emergence of a skills-based labor market that represents a significant change in how employers evaluate workers and how workers navigate the need to periodically reskill in order to thrive and compete in the workplace. AARP Research shows that 66% of employers say their organization needs to place even greater emphasis on skills and less on education in the future – but making this change is not easy.
The way forward must be inclusive of workers of all backgrounds and leave no room for outdated myths and biases that have stymied inclusivity in the past. A skills-based labor market has the potential to address inequities in access to opportunity, and to counteract biases such as ageism in addition to other forms of discrimination. Workers that possess the skills a company needs should be evaluated on that basis, whether they are in the middle, toward the end, or just starting their career.
Key Trends - Season Two
As the way we work changes, the following are the key trends we are seeing regarding the future of skills.
Nearly 60% of jobs in the United States require a college degree, but the U.S. Census reports that less than half of the country’s population have one. Shifting from degree-based hiring to skills-based hiring can not only help bridge this candidate gap, it can also increase access to opportunity for those who have been left out of the equation for far too long. College degrees will, of course, remain valuable in the hiring process, but employers and businesses can strengthen their workforce by truly transitioning to a hiring process based on skills and experience.
Maurice Jones, Chief Executive Officer at OneTen discusses how to shift to this mindset with AARP’s Heather Tinsley-Fix. OneTen is a coalition of businesses dedicated to creating one million family-sustaining jobs for Black Americans over the next 10 years.
Insights for Employers: Establishing a Skills-first Culture
While there is a trend toward skills-based hiring, many employers still require a four-year college degree just to be considered for positions. This often creates an unnecessary barrier for highly skilled talent and stymies attempts to address equity imbalances. Currently, 76% of Black Americans who are 25 and older do not have a four-year degree, along with 83% of Hispanic and 66% of white Americans. Degrees will always be needed in certain industries, but many employers can create a skills-first culture where skills are the dominant factor for success across the entire talent journey, including hiring, evaluation, and advancement.
- Moving beyond using the four-year degree as a proxy credential will require a change in mindset. Employers will need to accurately define the skills, knowledge, and experience needed for each position. In addition, an infrastructure will also need to be established for evaluating the skills of each job candidate.
- Making the change requires leadership from the top with CEOs showing that a skills-based focus is what they want for the company. These leaders then must empower champions across the organization who can move their people towards a skills-first culture, eliminating a perceived bias that standards are being lowered as opposed to being expanded.
- Maurice knows this kind of change is achievable because he’s seen it. Companies within the OneTen coalition have shifted their job requirements, reducing the percentage of positions requiring four-year degrees by nearly half – from over 80% to just 48% of positions calling for degrees.
“Skills should be the factor that matter the most and we should be aware of the multiple ways that people can come up about those skills and what we need to do to invest in them… We can’t be great in a sustainable way if we’re keeping great talent on the sideline,”
- Maurice Jones, Chief Executive Officer, OneTen
Expanding Accessible Pathways to Education and Employment
Insights for Employers: Upskilling Employees Through Innovative Hiring and Training
Employers have been exploring a number of methods to adjust to the rapidly changing skills landscape, including collaborations with local organizations like community colleges and nonprofits to establish training programs. This growing realization that employers need to do more to equip their workforce with the skills needed to succeed is also causing a shift away from relying on four-year degree programs to provide a single block of “training” that is meant to last a whole career. Rethinking that equation inspires a number of practical changes that can be implemented in hiring and training.
- Job descriptions have long been the foundation in the hiring and advancement of employees. However, many employers are expanding that focus to a “job design” that not only includes the skills and/or credentials needed for the position, but also how that work can be done. One factor to consider in developing a job design is whether the work needs to be completed in a typical “9 to 5” day or if it can be done around an employee’s schedule.
- Instead of bringing just one employee in and training them individually to take on their new role, companies are using an approach called “cohort-based hiring” where multiple workers are brought in within a certain job title or sector. The training with larger groups helps create a social connectedness that enhances their education and creates economies of scale.
- Apprenticeships have also been transformed and expanded beyond their traditional focus on 19th Century trades to being applicable across all sectors and open to employees along the full career spectrum. Employers are using registered apprenticeship programs to train potential workers of all ages and career phases.
“In general, we need to help people and talent better articulate their formal and informal learning and expose them to open roles in jobs and careers that match that and allow employers to easily and seamlessly make those connections so that we can hopefully upskill and bring people into new jobs and careers.”
- Kristina Francis, Executive Director, JFFLabs
Restructuring Post-High School Education
Adult learners are one of the most untapped resources in the workforce and there are 40 million Americans with some college but no degree. While many want to upgrade their skills and knowledge, they’ve entered the workforce without completing their degree for a whole host of reasons and do not have the time or capacity to return to complete it. The rise of credentialing and other training programs represents an opportunity for employers to evaluate talent based on shorter, more achievable proofs of skill.
Kermit Kaleba, Strategy Director of Employer Aligned Programs for the Lumina Foundation discusses how companies can help credential workers with AARP’s Heather Tinsley-Fix. Lumina Foundation is committed to helping the nation redesign learning after high school.
Insights for Employers: Choosing the Right Post-High School Credentials
The past two years have shown that companies' traditional practice of posting jobs and simply waiting for candidates to show up and apply is over. Workers are being more deliberate about where and how they want to work, and employers are having to adjust how they attract and train employees. To find and foster adult learners who are seeking to re-tool their skills and advance their careers, employers can influence the types of training being designed via traditional avenues like community colleges and trade schools as well as through alternative areas, such as for-profit online credentialing.
- A byproduct of COVID-19 was the acceleration of online education, credentialing, and certification opportunities. However, the explosion of credentialing options means that a framework for validating their usefulness is extremely important. It’s essential that both companies and potential employees know which credentials or certification programs are mutually beneficial and not a waste of time and money. The Lumina Foundation is working with states to establish quality frameworks for credentialing programs.
- Employers should be more of an active partner in defining the kinds of skills they need and make it clear what they value in both education and credentials. They should participate in the selection and design of training programs for these types of skills. For example, some employers have connected with workforce development bodies and educational institutions and built replicas of their factory floor at community colleges where students can be trained in exactly the skills the employer needs.
- To prepare for the future, employers cannot just plan for the workforce they have today and rely on external or traditional educational avenues to supply that workforce. They also must prepare for the workforce they want tomorrow by being transparent and collaborative, investing in the skilling of workers, and shedding outdated assumptions that associate learning exclusively with youth.
“We know for a lot of adult learners, they are not looking to go back to a four-year degree program because they have family responsibilities, and they have work responsibilities. What they need is a quick opportunity to upgrade their skills and get back into the labor market or advance in the labor market.”
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Kermit Kaleba, Strategy Director, Employer Aligned Programs, Lumina Foundation
Season One Insights
This page was proudly developed in collaboration with AARP by the Public Private Strategies Institute team. For more information or questions, please reach out to AARP@publicprivatestrategies.com.
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