California’s Community Colleges Weigh in on Barriers to Work-based Learning

Pam Sornson, JD on October 31, 2022

Pam Sornson, JD

November 1, 2022

One challenge facing many college students is to identify and pursue an educational pathway that ties directly to both their chosen career path and relevant labor demand. The issue may not be that the student’s preferences or resources aren’t appropriate or sufficient; the problem may be that the pathway they seek still needs to be created. The problem is confounded when the student also needs the ancillary resources necessary to assist their educational efforts. Consequently, many college-age students (and especially Community College students) elect not to pursue higher education at all rather than struggle to find something that they want to do, have the ability to do, and can find a job doing.

 

Research. Revelations. Relevance.

Today’s higher education system is grappling with how to appropriately train learners to be truly prepared for their work life. At the November 8th  Future of Work Conference 2022, hosted by the Economic and Workforce Development Division (EWD) at Pasadena City College (PCC), panelists will discuss this concern as it relates to work-based learning and on-the-job training. In too many cases, those learners with the most need for such educational opportunities are also the least likely to find them accessible.

This reality is especially true for Community College students, according to a summer 2022 survey conducted by College Pulse (with support from Kaplan) and Inside Higher Ed. That data revealed that 42% of surveyed Community College students reported having had access (virtually or in person) to internship opportunities, compared to 64% of four-year university students. The frustrated young people voiced several barriers that prevented them from pursuing this sometimes critical career-engaging option:

They couldn’t afford to take a non-paid internship, having financial obligations to support themselves and their families.

They didn’t have the time to “work for free” while also attending classes, working for pay, and caring for others.

They needed supporting resources to back them up if they were to focus on an internship or apprenticeship placement. Some struggled to find reliable transportation, while others were experiencing housing or food instability.

The realities for the Community College student body population are, a significant percentage of the time, decidedly different from those of students who attend four-year colleges. The latter group often is populated by learners from financially stable homes, with a broad range of support services available, and who have had exposure to more – and more varied – employment training options.

 

From the educational and employment perspectives, the reality of lack of access to career-relevant, on-the-job training is equally bleak:

The cultural ‘norm’ of unpaid internships or apprenticeships established this fundamentally inequitable ‘training’ structure decades ago. Wealthier students could afford to work on an unpaid basis because their families supported them during those periods. Not-so-wealthy families did not have the same capacity.

The design and application of today’s “traditional” on-the-job training opportunities were not necessarily intended to benefit the learner. Instead, many existing internships, apprenticeships, and on-site training opportunities are designed to meet the employer’s needs. Without consideration of the influences on the student’s life, employers have no incentive to facilitate flexible work hours or remote work options.

In many cases, the student doesn’t enter the internship position with a fully fledged skill set because their socioeconomic status has not exposed them to conventional work and occupational habits.

Unfortunately, despite these metrics, the overwhelming majority of Community College students surveyed (86%) who had found internship or apprenticeship options declared that their “experiential learning” opportunity was very helpful in preparing them for their future occupations. In contrast, only 62% of students enrolled at four-year colleges had the same sense of success in their on-the-job training position.

 

California’s Community Colleges Come Together to Examine the Concern

The California Community College Chancellors’ Office (CCCCO) has been working on this puzzle for many years. It has focused its research efforts on evolving cultural, industrial, occupational, and business influences to understand the underlying tensions that exist in those sectors. Its data is now driving its decision-making to reverse obsolete, nonproductive strategies while devising new ways of training a complex and diverse workforce.

In collaboration with its curriculum committee, the CCCCO recently (July 25, 2022) revised its “Work Experience Education” (WEE) regulations to align those rules with the current push to develop work-focused, on-the-job training opportunities. The original WEE rules were adopted in 1971, a full 20 years before the system adopted ‘Workforce and Economic Development’ as its third primary mission. Now recognized as archaic, they were changed to fulfill mandates established by the State’s Vision for Success initiative and to build into the educational infrastructure the supports needed by students whose needs extend beyond the classroom.

The evolving perspective from the State level has encouraged college administrators to find ways to integrate work-based learning options into core curricula so students aren’t compelled to choose one or the other as their primary educational process.

The CCCCO also encourages schools to develop around individual students networks of employers and industry professionals to support them as they progress through training and launch their careers.

And it encourages employers or potential employers to consider creating paid internship and apprentice positions so that students from all economic levels can access that critical occupational training.

In its role as a contributor to the EWD initiative, the CCCCO recognizes that the journey to a fully evolved workforce development-focused Community College system is in its infancy stage. However, combining its efforts with the activities of individual schools, businesses, and industries will eventually lead to a constellation of educational and training options that will resolve many of the community’s challenges. It will:

provide students with well-compensated occupational opportunities,

businesses with a highly skilled flavor force, and

the State with a reliable, robust, fully functional economic foundation.

The cumulative economic impact of hundreds of thousands of community college alums working in California totals approximately $109 billion in annual revenues to the State. Removing the barriers to education and training that prevent hundreds of thousands more potential learners from contributing their effort to the community cause can only help everyone – learners, schools, employers, industries, and the State as a whole.

 

Pasadena City College Leads LA County Community College EWD Conversation

Pam Sornson, JD on October 31, 2022

Pam Sornson, JD

November 1, 2022

Pasadena City College (PCC) is not a randomly chosen location for the November 8th, 2022, Future of Work Conference (FOW). For years, PCC leadership has focused on building a ‘workforce development’ campus by designing and implementing programs to support its student body and corporate neighbors. Today’s leaders, Superintendent/President Dr. Erica Endrijonas and Vice President, Economic and Workforce Development Salvatrice Cummo, are carrying that effort forward by hosting events like the FOW conference and engaging with all entities involved in the Los Angeles County and Southern California economic development sector. Their individual and unique histories combine to create an insightful, informed, and inspiring team, fully capable of driving forward the complex network of regional and state-based EWD initiatives.

 

Salvatrice Cummo

Gathering together assemblies of experts to address the hard issues facing Community College constituents is a skill that comes naturally to Salvatrice Cummo, Vice President of the Economic and Workforce Development division (EWD) at Pasadena City College (PCC). Economic growth and corporate development have been her focus throughout her career, and she’s now well-versed in virtually every avenue and nuance of the business and industry infrastructure.

Cummo took leadership of the EWD division in late 2017, having led its Small Business Development Center (SBDC) for four years prior to that, and directing the business development activities of the Montebello Chamber of Commerce for six years before that. With a Bachelor’s degree focused on commerce and a Master’s degree focused on entrepreneurship and innovation, her expertise is fueled by both education and experience.

PCC’s EWD and its connections with local, regional, and statewide economic development partners have grown significantly during her tenure:

The division itself has expanded with the addition of the Robert G. Freeman Center for Career and Completion, the Workforce Training Center, the PCC Extension, the Los Angeles Regional Consortium (LARC), and curricula that fulfill mandates directed by Perkins grants and California’s Strong Workforce Program.

Cummo is an active member of the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC), the LA Tech Talent Pipeline, the Bixel Exchange, and the San Gabriel Valley Economic Partnership (SGVEP).

In partnership with the PCC foundation, she launched the first-ever “Business Council” to bring together leadership from national and international corporations with established connections to the LA industrial community. She is also responsible for launching the “Startup Collaborative,” a group of businesses, think tanks, and economic and workforce laboratories, to contribute to developing and designing labor force-focused educational systems.

Cummo also serves as PCC’s liaison to California’s state government, where she interacts with a network of initiatives and programs, including those centered on Adult Education, Apprenticeships, Economic and Workforce Development, the Perkins grants, and the Strong Workforce Program.

As moderator of the November 8th FOW conference, Cummo will guide the panelists through discussions about how to break down barriers to work-based learning opportunities.

 

Dr. Erica Endrijonas

Optimizing opportunity appears to be a hallmark of Dr. Erica Endrijonas, Superintendent/President of Pasadena City College (PCC). As an alum of Cal State Northridge, she has benefited directly from the State’s commitment to affordable higher education. As the first openly gay president of PCC, Dr. Endrijonas is also uniquely familiar with societal barriers that impede forward progress for marginalized populations. Consequently, she is determined to ensure that California’s community colleges continue their role as drivers for social mobility for all community members.

Having worked through several positions in the California Community College system, Dr. Endrijonas assumed her role as PCC president in the Fall of 2019. She brought with her 20 years of teaching and administrative experience:

While at CSU, Dominguez Hills, she served as Dean and taught several humanities courses (including Literature and the Rights of Women, Success and Values in the United States, and Death and Dying). She continued on at Santa Barbara City College as Dean of Educational Programs and overseer of that school’s Business, Health and Human Services, and Technologies divisions. She served as Executive Vice President at Oxnard Community College and Los Angeles Valley College President before taking her position in Pasadena.

In addition to teaching and administrating, Endrijonas also sat on several boards of directors, including those for the community college system’s Chief Instructional Officers, Chief Student Services Officers, and the Association for Occupational Education. She participated in numerous economic and social organizations, including the Valley Industry and Commerce Association and the Valley Economic Alliance. Her work as chair of the California Community College Athletic Association reflects her love of football, and she was an active advocate and Co-chair for the National LGBTQ Presidents in Higher Education Board.

Her tenure as president of PCC began only months before the COVID-19 pandemic emerged. Applying her usual determination and ingenuity, Dr. Endrijonas was diligent about hygiene and sanitation standards, physical safety standards, and, eventually, vaccination protocols and mandates. By February 2022, COVID testing on campus revealed a positivity rate of only 1.8%, compared to LA County’s 12.5% rate.

As the immediate threat of the pandemic recedes, Dr. Endrijonas is turning her full focus to PCC’s new role as the Coordinator of the Los Angeles Regional Consortium (LARC) and all the opportunities that the new status conveys. The LARC is a collective of Los Angeles County’s 19 community colleges, and its purpose is to coordinate the EWD efforts of all schools to align with local and regional labor and workforce demands. PCC’s role as LARC Coordinator will impact EWD efforts across LA County and influence the lives of thousands of community college students. Endrijonas’s education and experience in workforce development and Community College success will serve her and her school well as that initiative rolls out.

 

Dr. Endrijonas will open the FOW conference with welcoming remarks.

Introducing the Future of Work Conference Panelists, Part Two

Pam Sornson, JD on October 18, 2022

Pam Sornson, JD

October 18, 2022

Of course, there is no ‘workforce’ without workers. And, increasingly, those workers need advanced skills and occupationally directed training to find and secure the jobs they want doing the work they want to do. Global events of the past decade have driven the evolution of skill sets beyond those typically achieved through high school. Technology, in particular, has transformed many occupations, most of which are still highly valued and, in many cases, well compensated. In addition to “soft skills” (critical thinking, active learning, problem-solving, and resilience, among many others), today’s and tomorrow’s workforce must also achieve competency in technological skills, such as digital marketing, automation management, information security, Internet of Things management, etc. To gain these skills and earn a satisfying career, most workers in the future will need to attend some form of post-high school education program. California’s community colleges are building the foundations to provide that strata of educational excellence.

Not surprisingly, the Future of Work conference includes education experts as panelists, two of whom are also featured guests on the PCC EWD podcast, Will Walls and Dr. Su Jin Jez.

 

Academics

Sandra Sanchez, Interim Vice Chancellor, California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office

Ms. Sanchez has a long history of involvement in the workforce development sector, having managed that division at Santa Monica College and in her role as Dean of Economic and Workforce Development at Los Angeles Harbor College.

She is presently serving as Interim Vice Chancellor in the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office. Here, she maintains a vigilant eye over a diverse plethora of workforce development aspects, including entrepreneurial development, adult education, apprenticeships, nursing and allied health, and K-12 partnerships. Her contribution to the conference discussion will ensure that these critical educational avenues are included as fundamental elements of workforce development.

 

Micah Young, M.D., Dean, Health Sciences Division, Pasadena City College

Pasadena City College facilitates a robust catalog of healthcare education programs, each of which is designed to provide the well-skilled healthcare workers that are in such high demand now and will remain in demand for the foreseeable future. Employment in health-related occupations is anticipated to grow as much as 13% between 2021 and 2031, adding approximately 2,000,000 new jobs over that decade. The healthcare sector is projected to grow faster than any other occupational industrial category.

In the role of leader of the Health Sciences division, Dr. Young ensures that appropriately qualified students attain admission to his programs. He also assures that the academic and professional instructors offer training and skills relating to all aspects of these health-related occupations, including mastery of the emerging technological expertise demanded by post-COVID and evolving technology capacities.

 

Learners

One voice that is too frequently left out of the workforce development conversation is that of the student. Significant educational resources are directed toward achieving ‘student success.’ That value is commonly measured by institution-based metrics, such as retention rates, graduation rates, time to completion, and academic performance, to name just a few. From a student perspective, however, educational “success” is measured not by what was achieved in the classroom but instead by achievements gained in the work world.

Will Walls, Student Leader, Pasadena City College

PCC alum Will Walls joined in a podcast with Salvatrice Cummo, PCC’s Vice President for Economic and Workforce Development, to share his Community College experience as a student. Entering Community College after a long former career, Walls was the quintessential “nontraditional learner.” He was older and had already attained success in another field. However, he was also a “typical” Community College student: he wanted to move his life in a different direction. Walls knew he wanted to change his life, but he did not understand what he wanted to do. Inspired by the college success of a friend, he chose to attend their alma mater to achieve a comparable level of success. He not only found a career he loves (using his linguistic anthropology degree to provide sales pitch coaching to small business entrepreneurs), he also gained critical occupational skills working for PCC’s Robert G. Freeman Center for Career and Completion. By his own account, his PCC college experience has indeed changed his life in ways he could not have predicted.

 

All of the Above

Dr. Su Jin Jez, Executive Director, California Competes

Dr. Jez cites her parents’ challenging early circumstances as the drivers of her personal pursuit of higher educational excellence. She is a first-generation college attendee and holds both a master’s and a Ph.D. degree from Stanford University. She’s acted as an Associate Professor of Public Policy and Administration at California State University Sacramento and as the Associate Director of the Sacramento State Doctorate in Educational Leadership program. Her applied research has provided guidance for California’s community colleges, the State University system, and its Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education. She has published extensively and presents across the country on critical higher education and system change issues.

Currently, Dr. Jez is the executive director of open “California Competes,” a higher education think tank working to solve the state’s challenging social and economic problems. The agency conducts rigorous research studies to inform decision-makers and workforce and economic development stakeholders about issues, concerns, problems, and opportunities emerging throughout the state’s active industrial complex. Additionally, the organization embeds equitable and racially just principles and concepts into its work to influence and direct appropriate workforce outcomes. Dr. Jez will offer the opening keynote presentation.

The Future of Work panel discussion will be invaluable and is not to be missed.

 

Keep your eyes on your inbox for the November 1st edition of the Pulse, where we will introduce the education and workforce development experts from Pasadena City College who will be hosting, guiding, and sharing their wisdom with Future of Work conference attendees.

 

Introducing the Future of Work Conference Panelists, Part One

Pam Sornson, JD on October 18, 2022

Pam Sornson, JD

October 18, 2022

The Economic and Workforce Development division (EWD) of Pasadena City College (PCC) is hosting its 4th annual Future of Work Conference on November 8th. This year’s themes revolve around removing barriers to education and increasing job placement and work-based learning opportunities for students of all ages. Panelists come from a variety of economic, industry, and educational organizations, all of whom are working together to rebuild the economy to meet 21st-century goals and aspirations.

 

The challenges are daunting. The country and the state are experiencing an odd combination of a low unemployment rate and a high volume of unfilled job positions. The factors contributing to those situations are many and varied, as well:

Low unemployment indicates not just that people have found work but also that people are no longer looking for jobs.

The high number of unfilled job openings reflects that at least some of those jobs are unappealing (low pay, challenging schedules, inflexibility) while others require emerging new skill sets that potential workers do not have.

Overlaying both situations are the regulatory, cultural, and bureaucratic barriers that permeate society. The Future of Work conversation on November 8th will address these realities and more.

 

The Who’s Who of This Year’s Panel, Part One:

Los Angeles County has prioritized workforce development to broaden its industrial and economic foundation. There are seven target industries in the County, which, together, employ hundreds of thousands of workers. These industries and their constituent businesses will drive a significant percentage of the County’s economic growth over the next decade. They will need not just more workers but also well-trained and highly skilled workers. Several leaders actively engaged in LA County’s economic development efforts will be sharing their insights.

 

Kelly LoBianco, Executive Director, Economic and Workforce Development, County of Los Angeles

In 2021, the Los Angeles County council began developing an internal department directed specifically at workforce development. The then-existing “Workforce Development, Aging and Community Services” department (WDACS) was divided into two branches, and Ms. LoBianco is the inaugural Executive Director of the new workforce development branch. Ms. LoBianco brings 15+ years of government and public sector experience to this newly created role. Her work encompasses aligning the activities of several different county agencies under the auspices of the “workforce development” label, including the departments of strategic economic development, economic and workforce advocacy, small business assistance, and workforce development. She will also lead the County’s effort to connect education, business, and industry resources to the labor force they need to succeed and grow.

Martin Hernandez, Senior Program Associate, Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture (LADAC)

Los Angeles County and its 88 cities support a thriving economic and culturally significant nonprofit, artistic, and international community, in addition to being home to the global film, music, and television production sector. In fact, cultural and creative organizations comprise the 4th largest business sector in the County, generating annual revenues of over $110 billion. The LA County Arts and Culture department supports and fosters these thriving enterprises by providing grants, technical assistance, and professional development supports for nonprofits, community programs, and county-wide arts education initiatives. The department’s Cultural Equity and Inclusion Initiative (CEII) ensures that the cultures of all LA county residents are included and celebrated at all levels of all of its activities.

In his role as Senior Program Associate for the LADAC, Mr. Hernandez manages the arts internship program, which is the largest paid internship organization in America. College students earn 400 hours of paid work experience at art-based nonprofits in the region, gaining the expertise and skills they need to lead their own creative organizations into the future. Additionally, he implements and oversees educational and professional development efforts for each cohort group.

 

Stephen Cheung, Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President, Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC)

While not technically a “county” organization, the nonprofit LAEDC provides research, advocacy, and leadership to LA county’s industrial and business communities. Using company, labor force, and industrial data, the membership of the LAEDC contributes knowledge and resources to enhance and grow countrywide economic opportunities. And the agency is always focused on establishing and maintaining equitable and sustainable systems throughout its economic advocacy programming.

Perhaps its most important contributions to the County’s economic situation are its industry cluster initiatives, which survey and assess an overarching industrial sector’s market and labor demands to create needed connections and solve the problems that develop within and beyond the perimeters of those systems. LAEDC leadership shares its information with business and industry agencies and government departments to ensure all stakeholders can recognize and address both existing and emerging challenges and opportunities. The roster of current LA EDC industry councils includes the E4 Mobility Alliance, the Bioscience Council, the Digital Media and Entertainment Council, and the SoCal Aerospace Council.

Recently installed as the CEO of the LAEDC, Mr. Cheung previously served as that agency’s Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President, as well as the President of the World Trade Center Los Angeles, the Secretary General of Foreign Affairs for Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, and the Director of International Trade for the Port of Los Angeles. He brings his extensive economic, trade, and social services experience to his new role as leader of the LAEDC. He will be offering the closing keynote address at the conference.

 

Future of Work conference in-person and online attendees will gain deeper insights and a broader perspective about LA County’s economic future because of the depth and bread of the knowledge base shared by these three panelists.

 

Searching for Solutions to Declining College Attendance

Pam Sornson, JD on October 4, 2022

Pam Sornson, JD

October 4, 2022

None too soon, colleges are convening with economic and workforce development partners to discuss declines in student enrollments. On November 8th, beginning at 8:00 AM, Pasadena City College will host its 4th annual Future of Work Conference to engage with industry, government, and business leaders who are focused on the higher education sector. Among several relevant topics, they will be discussing the significance of declining enrollments in community colleges and strategies to address that concern.

 

Community Colleges Affected

Community college enrollments dropped significantly at the beginning of the COVID pandemic, as schools closed to protect against spreading that disease. The declines in enrollment in fall 2020 and through 2021 were expected as the pandemic continued. However, having access to vaccines and as a growing percentage of the population was vaccinated, colleges were hoping for an upturn in enrollments for on-site attendance by spring 2022. Many, if not most, industry observers also expected that enrollments would rise again throughout 2022 as the world returned to its “new normal.”

That did not happen. In previous years, when events such as economic downturns caused comparable public distress, college enrollments typically rose as newly unemployed people looked for new avenues of employment. Circumstances specific to the pandemic interfered with that typical enrollment trajectory:

Students or potential students who were parents had children at home who needed care.

Those who relied on public transportation elected not to mingle with potentially unprotected strangers.

And many elected to pursue opportunities for newly available employment instead of returning to school. Employers who desperately needed staff to recover their business were paying higher wages and offering better benefits than they had in the past. For some people, a higher paycheck immediately was more valuable than upskilling or retraining for a new occupation.

The current decline, now at 7.4% since spring term 2020, is continuing a trend that began in 2012. Community colleges have absorbed the majority of that decline, with their enrollments accounting for 5% of that loss. The challenge for all participants in the Community College arena – schools, businesses, and governments – is to find ways to attract those students back to school.

 

Reversing the Decline

How to slow or reverse the enrollment decline is the main topic of college conversations these days. Schools have implemented successful student engagement strategies for many years, so they already have systems and protocols in place. However, the potential student landscape has changed due to the pandemic and the workforce and economic evolutions that it caused or affected. Student engagement staff now need to modify their practices to reflect their future students’ new expectations and demands. Suggestions about what those modifications might be are many and varied:

Expanding options for attendance will be key to the success of any outreach project. Students now expect at least some part of their educational journey to be through online learning and/or work-based learning.

Provide solutions to their challenges. Potential learners who understand college-based support options for financial aid, child care, and transportation, to name just three, have more tools available with which to craft their college journey.

Emphasize the value of a college education. While, yes, many jobs and occupations currently pay well without requiring any level of higher education. However, the majority of college graduates will earn significantly more than their high school graduate colleagues over the course of their career, in some cases, by $500,000 or more.

Open the strategy to include non-traditional learners, too. In many ways, the pandemic has already created a “non-traditional” college experience. Where students typically attended classes and sometimes lived only on campus, today, they can participate from virtually anywhere and access program materials at virtually any time. Consequently, the “potential student” population is significantly larger now than it was before COVID hit.

One entity focused on non-traditional college activities is Modern Campus, a think tank of higher education professionals. Through its online publication, The evoLLLution, the organization invites its members to contribute their personal and professional perspectives about obstacles and expansions in today’s higher education markets. Its Editor in Chief, Amrit Ahluwalia, shared his invaluable insights in a podcast conversation with Salvatrice Cummo, the podcast host and PCC’s Vice President of the Economic and Workforce Development Division.

 

Perhaps most importantly, educators and education administrators must engage with all participants in the economic and workforce development spheres of influence. The members of the National Governors Association advocate developing pathways for education, industrial, and economic development constituents to work together to achieve a well-educated and well-employed population. Their strategy pursues three critical objectives through ten articulated pathways:

The Objectives:

Build a lifelong learning ecosystem

Ensure technological resiliency

Fund and maintain comprehensive support.

The Pathways:

Align leadership in all sectors toward the same goals.

Develop a data infrastructure to track progress and direct decision-making.

Build a “credential bridge” to connect industry to education.

Focus on funding workforce needs and training.

Build technology resources to increase and maintain digital literacy.

Access employer, business, and industry participants as teachers and consultants.

Be a model employer – demonstrate through leadership and practices how the modern workforce should work.

Focus on funding life-long learning opportunities.

Discover and remove barriers that prevent access to higher education.

Encourage flexibility throughout the workforce development and employment systems to accommodate the changing needs of the evolving labor force.

Of course, the actual process of creating these pathways will be a collaborative endeavor encompassing the efforts and contributions of all sector participants. Each pathway will reflect the specific nuances, resources, and expectations that are unique to the people and entities involved. And the pathways themselves will continuously evolve as new resources and evolving expectations emerge.

 

The global community is struggling with many significant challenges. However, from those challenges, opportunities are materializing. The higher education sector has the capacity to address its declining enrollment problem while building an even better, more productive, and more successful workforce training environment. The Future of Work Conference on November 8th will explore these and other options and opportunities to entice new students to college and develop the new labor force that tomorrow’s economy requires.

 

Barriers to School = Barriers to Growth

Pam Sornson, JD on October 4, 2022

Pam Sornson, JD

October 4, 2022

While understanding how “Future of Work” (FoW) concepts impact industries, businesses, and educational institutions, it’s also critical to comprehend how those concepts apply to and impact the individual. The FoW terms “high-quality jobs,” “upward mobility,” and “career education” refer to occupational outcomes for society’s workforce, the millions of working individuals whose efforts contribute to and build the economy. When those workers are un- or underemployed, they suffer personal losses while the community suffers economic losses. Consequently, it’s important to recognize, measure, and remediate those non-employed losses as systems design strategies to reclaim economic success following periods of financial calamity.

 

The High Costs of Un- and Under-employment …

A myriad of economic, climate-related, and public health crises has thrown millions of people out of work over the past decade. While many have either returned to their old job or found a new career in the new economy, others have not fared so well. For a variety of reasons, some people have not yet returned to the workforce and remain unemployed or have returned in an employment capacity that does not reflect their qualifications or skill set – they are underemployed. The reasons former workers stay on in these economically suppressed situations vary. “Unemployed,” for example, can mean many things. Federal standards define “unemployed” as those who haven’t found work in 15 weeks of searching and those who’ve stopped looking after many weeks of not finding employment (‘discouraged’ workers). The “underemployed” class includes marginally attached workers (seasonal or gig workers) and those who are employed only part-time due to adverse economic conditions in their industry or occupation.

Both classes of restricted employment create challenges for the person and their community:

Unemployed people tend to spend less, so they contribute less to the overall economy. Additionally, that lack of employment also signals a lack of tax payments, which causes the loss of government revenues.

Many unemployed people also draw unemployment insurance benefits, which are financed primarily by taxes on businesses.

The un- and underemployed classes also suffer personal setbacks because of their situation. Research indicates that these distressed workers express more negative job attitudes, lower job satisfaction, and overall lower life satisfaction. The suppressed economic and career situation can also contribute to the deterioration of physical and mental health.

Additionally, being underemployed causes long-term restricting career effects, too, that can last for a decade or longer.

 

… While Job Openings Remain Unfilled

Even though many people remain unemployed, the number of unfilled job positions in the country has been growing. As of August 2022, companies posted more than 11 million job openings across America in virtually all sectors of all industries. Studies show that two job openings were available for every unemployed person. Further, survey respondents also shared why they were not taking available work.

For some, available positions didn’t pay well enough to sustain their lifestyles; some of them commented that they earned more monthly income from unemployment benefits than they would earn if they were working.

Others indicated that there were no jobs available near them.

Many claimed a lack of career advancement or development opportunities was also preventing them from finding the work they wanted.

Still others indicated that they did not have access to well-paying jobs due to employer bias and discrimination.

However, in many cases and because of evolutions in the global industrial complex, many un- and under-employed workers lack the skills that are now in demand in many emerging occupations. The “state” of work is changing as technology replaces human labor or renders entire workforces obsolete. Companies struggling to fill open positions also struggle to provide training for potential employees to learn the new skills those positions demand.

Making things more problematic is the fact that, in too many communities, there are no educational facilities or schools prepared to provide ‘just in time’ training for emerging skills. In many cases, the skills required are considered the “middle” skills related to vocational activities, and the number of dedicated vocational training schools has declined steadily for decades. Even when colleges and vocational schools are available, too many potential workers don’t understand what they offer or can’t overcome long-embedded institutional barriers that prevent them from gaining access.

 

Unnecessary Institutional Barriers to Education

Unfortunately, unlike the private sector, which was able to pivot quickly toward new ways of working as the COVID-19 pandemic continued, the schools best suited for providing middle-skilled training facilities, notably America’s Community College systems, were mired in legacy protocols due to outdated regulations and bureaucratic rigidity.

Outdated Regulations

Most often, institutional administrations are mandated to pursue and apply articulated rules and regulations. These regulations emerged over time as the school encountered a need for a specified policy and protocol in specific situations. At the time, the asserted framework made sense because it responded directly to a pain point experienced by the school, its students, or its community. However, the global application of a rule, regardless of the situational context of the moment, can often cause difficulties. For example, many Community College programs sometimes require full-time attendance or mandatory participation in program elements. Standards such as these two can prevent learners from engaging with those programs because they can’t attend when commanded by the school rule.

Bureaucratic Rigidity

Compounding the difficulties caused by outdated regulations are administrations that refuse to respond to emerging situations. Instead, they fall back blindly on long-established procedures as the only appropriate action to take at any time. For example, even while millions of teachers and students were compelled to embrace “online” learning, school boards and administrations were still tracking student “seat times,” “instructional minutes,” and “teacher contact hours.” The leadership at the Community College level isn’t immune to the pressure of maintaining bureaucracy. Their hesitation in innovating in the face of workforce and labor demands has caused many potential students to look elsewhere for their future.

 

These topics – institutional barriers to higher education – are the subjects of the upcoming “Future of Work Conference” to be held at Pasadena City College on November 8, 2022. Panelists from industry, government, and higher education will be discussing how their element of the workforce development initiative can innovate beyond rigid bureaucracy to meet the needs of learners who need help.

 

Renewable Energy Industry Driving Workforce Innovation

Pam Sornson, JD on September 20, 2022

Pam Sornson, JD

September 20, 2022

It was a brief moment in time but a significant milestone in California’s long-range strategy to transition to a 100% clean energy-based economy. In spring 2022, the power demand consumed by the state was comprised of 100% renewable energy. The accomplishment validated the state’s investment in its renewable energy sector and underscored the urgency of developing a workforce capable of building and maintaining that resource.

 

California’s Burgeoning Renewable Energy Sector

For about one hour on April 30th, 2022, the state generated sufficient quantities of renewable electricity to achieve more than 100% of its total consumer demand. California’s renewable energy industry has grown significantly over the past 20 years. Solar power, in particular, was eagerly embraced by millions of individuals and businesses, while the hydroelectric, geothermal, and nuclear energy sectors continued their expansion. The development and use of these carbon-free energy sources were slowly making inroads into the fossil-fuel-driven energy grid and accounted for 63% of California’s electricity retail sales in 2019.

Increasing the production of renewable energy sources is just one avenue the state is pursuing to reduce its carbon footprint. It is also considering viable alternatives to traditional fossil fuel resources that can act as replacements within systems for those resources. One example is the emergence of renewable propane as a substitute for petroleum-based propane. Renewable propane is chemically identical to petroleum propane, except that it’s not made from fossil fuels. Instead, its chemistry is comprised of vegetable and meat fats and oils that typically end up in landfills. And its ultra-low carbon conversion process facilitates its use as a non-petroleum carbon resource. Tucker Perkins, President and CEO of the Propane Education and Research Council, shared his insights on the significance of the renewable propane industry on the PCC EWD podcast.

California is also deeply invested in using all of its energy resources as efficiently as possible. In 2019, while California ranked second of all the states in total energy consumption, on a per capita basis, its residents consumed less energy over the year than the populations of all other states except Rhode Island.

And it’s building on those successes to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels even more:

In 2021 California produced more electricity from solar, geothermal, and biomass energy resources than any other state.

Also in 2021, the state was 4th in hydroelectric energy production, dropping two places from second due to increased demand and drought.

It is ramping up its investment in wind energy. In summer 2022, the California Energy Commission approved a strategy to develop offshore wind resources capable of serving up to 25 million homes by 2050.

California is also investigating wave energy as a reliable energy resource. Unlike wind and solar resources, wave energy (harnessing tidal movement for power generation) is constant and promises the potential to pick up the slack as a power resource when the sun sets and the wind dies down.

All these efforts contribute to California’s long-term goal of achieving 100% of its energy use through clean energy resources by 2045. They are also driving the growth of economic and workforce development initiatives across the state that are focused on renewable energy.

 

Industrial Efforts Toward a Greener Economy

Of course, transitioning from a petroleum base to a renewable energy base is an industry in itself. Industry experts predict double-digit growth in the renewable energy sector over the next decade to make that change across the state. That growth is achievable if industries can overcome several significant barriers:

Their targets keep changing. Energy demand is rising due in part to climate change. The wildfires, droughts, and floods across the state generated by the changing climate require new energy resources to ensure that people can stay cool, dry, and fed. For example, traditional hydroelectric systems are struggling to meet the electricity demand of numerous industries in the face of extreme drought and low river flows. Regions that rely on hydroelectricity to drive their systems and economy are struggling to continue as their primary energy resource dwindles.

Continued reliance on oil and petroleum will also impede progress in the renewable energy industry. However, recent global conflicts, the COVID-19 pandemic, and supply chain disruptions have demonstrated to the world’s population that such heavy reliance on a single fuel source is ill-advised. The international research firm McKinzey and Company now suggests that demand for petroleum-based fossil fuels will peak between 2024 and 2027, after which time new fuel resources will instead fill those tanks.

The cost to develop alternative fuels that are capable of sustaining a global economy is also daunting. Underwriting those initial capital costs is challenging because of the extended length of time before a company sees a net payback from that expenditure. These financial barriers are formidable.

Not least, it will take time for the global workforce to attain mastery of the emerging technologies capable of facilitating and accelerating the adoption of renewable energy resources.

Most of today’s energy infrastructure was built years or decades ago and is not equipped to incorporate digital processing capabilities.

Many in the current global workforce, including California’s workforce, do not have the technical skills or abilities to step immediately into a newly digitized enterprise.

The technology regulatory sector also lacks comprehensive standards or procedures for renewable energy sources and how to integrate those into the traditional energy grid. In many cases, organizations are reluctant to expend funding on research and development of new resources without that framework in place to guide initiatives and innovations.

 

Despite these barriers, whole industrial sectors, including the renewable resource sector, have begun engaging in a complex and complicated migration process, transitioning from legacy procedures and equipment to digital and technological resources. In doing so, their participants are discovering new occupations, skill sets, and expectations for their labor force. It is those expectations that are driving growth and innovations in the workforce development sector. Combined, these expansions of industry and workforce will lay the foundation for California’s future economy.

Five Questions Answered About the Future of Work

Pam Sornson, JD on September 20, 2022

Pam Sornson, JD

September 20, 2022

Why do we talk about the future of work? We talk about it because, on a grand scale, ‘work’ – human labor, technology, industry, etc.- drives the economy, which is the platform upon which a society is built. From a personal perspective, work provides the resources upon which a happy, successful life is built. A thoughtful and comprehensive workforce development strategy that supports both industries and individuals will optimize and maximize the success of both. So, when we’re talking about the ‘future of work,’  we’re talking about what that strategy could look like and how we might implement it.

 

There’s No Better Time

A variety of influences over the past decade have created chaos in the workforce development sector. Changing political perspectives, climate variations, social unrest, and global health crises combined to compel an overhaul in thought processes about how work gets done and even the considerations about what work needs doing. The phenomenon is experienced at a global level and a personal level, as industries innovate to accommodate supply chain challenges and workers re-educate to gain newly emerging skills. Consequently, the responses to those phenomena are also occurring at both the global and personal levels. The challenges posed to industries and individuals involve how to embrace new ways of working that also optimize the success of businesses, employees, and society as a whole.

Human resource experts have been tracking these trends for decades (although it’s arguable that they’ve never encountered as full a constellation of workforce disruptions as those that are occurring now). A 2020 report from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) asserted that 85% of the occupations expected to exist in 2030 had not yet even been invented, and that was before the world experienced the full brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic. The rate of change in industry and workforce development is continuing to accelerate. That unbridled momentum makes it more imperative than ever that all participants in every economy understand the reality of the “future of work” and can make appropriate decisions to embrace those evolutions.

 

There’s No Wrong Way

Every company will approach its future workforce and economic development processes with a unique strategy to achieve its proprietary corporate goals. To achieve those goals, the organization must coordinate its workforce, its technology, and its productivity efforts. These five questions explore how that coordination might play out.

 

What work needs doing both during the transition and in anticipation of future production ambitions?

Getting from today’s standards to tomorrow’s innovations will take a defined strategy that accounts for investments, effort, and the attainment of interim goals. Most companies should by now recognize how present circumstances are impacting their production, revenues, and markets. Their next step is to assess where within their organization they are unable to meet these developing demands. That information will inform their decisions regarding production line innovation, product restructuring, supply chain needs, and more. As the C-Suite approaches these changes, it should consider its next steps as bridges to its future configuration and design its strategy with those long-range goals in mind.

 

How will work be accomplished and measured?

The proposed future of the full scope of organizational productivity assets includes human workers, of course, but also robots, automation, and artificial intelligence. The mandate for isolation drove the explosion in technology adoption to perform tasks that were no longer safe for human workers to do. That rapid transition continues to grow, and some experts see a significant trend of transitioning labor-intense but mundane tasks to technological resources. The trend itself will not necessarily replace workers because the machines doing the work will, themselves, need oversight and management.

 

Where and When Will Work be Done?

Technology is also evolving the fundamental nature of productivity. Today’s workforce has become significantly more dispersed throughout communities, as businesses and their employees gain value from the opportunities presented by the remote work option. The consequence of this evolution for many companies is the development of a “colocated workspace,” where dispersed teams of remote workers contribute their individual assets to a single monolith organizational project.

Further, those workers who can remain productive and contribute to the quality and success of their employers while working remotely are also gaining more control over their own personal activities. Remote work allows flexibility in scheduling and eliminates the cost and time involved in commuting to an office, all of which enhance the employee’s satisfaction with their work. In fact, employee satisfaction and “the employee experience” are becoming more significant as employment benefits in the eyes of both current and future workforce participants.

Adjunct to the ‘where work is done’ concept is the companion concept of ‘when work is done.’ Many occupations lend themselves to a deadline-driven schedule as opposed to an hourly measure of productivity. Again, this concept of employee control over time and activities is growing as an influence over who they work for and the labor they sign on to do.

 

Who will do the Work of the Future?

Of course, no work gets done without some worker somewhere contributing that effort. However, what’s changing is the tool set employees will use to pursue corporate projects. Also, employers are experiencing a wider range of worker options than they’ve had in the past:

Innovations in and adoption of technology are changing how to perform ‘work,’ and many existing workforces either are trained in or need training on the use of technology in the performance of their job. Organizations that prioritize technology to enhance workforce performance are fast becoming leaders in their market.

In addition to the dispersed workforce, companies can now also access disparate labor pools by engaging with “gig workers” or accessing “crowdsourcing” resources. Both employee alternatives gain productivity from specially trained contractors as individuals (the gig worker) or a crowd of specially trained, well-informed industry consultants. Technology typically affords access to these workforce enhancements.

 

So, What Does the Future of Your Work Look Like?

In theory, these concepts offer insights and guidance for every enterprise in exploring its future workforce and corporate success. In practice, however, today’s corporate leaders can learn from the professionals who do this work every day.

On November 8th, 2022, Pasadena City College will host its 4th Annual Future of Work Conference in Westerbeck Hall from 8:00 AM to noon PST. Attendees will hear government, industry, and education professionals discuss the conference theme – Removing Barriers to Increased Job Placement and Work-based Learning – and its nexus to regional policy, productivity, and workforce capacity.

 

California Competes: Higher Education for a Strong Economy

Pam Sornson, JD on September 6, 2022

Pam Sornson, JD

September 6, 2022

A new report by California Competes: Higher Education for a Stronger Economy (California Competes) discusses the barriers and opportunities for building partnerships between higher education providers and regional and local employers. The scholastic think tank coordinates the efforts of government, education, business, and policy experts to forge partnerships that develop solutions to solve California’s economic and social problems. Leadership bodies across the State rely on its research that connects common goals across higher education, equity and equality goals, and industrial ambitions to build solutions and develop as-yet unrealized potential.

 

Broad Reach + Inclusive Action = Student Success

Launched in 2010, the California Competes organization has experienced notable success in its advocacy for inclusivity and enlightened practices across California’s community college environment.

One population of California Community College (CCC) students that is gaining increasing attention from both this group and the California Community College Chancellors Office (CCCCO) is its growing cohort of nontraditional learners. Typically, nontraditional learners are over the age of 25, enter school after military service, work history, or other civic activities, and often have previously achieved credentials and awards. Currently, they comprise 43% of California’s Community College student population, and more than half of those are people of color. Additionally, another six million potential learners in the State have high school diplomas but no further degree or certification. The collective skills, talents, and capacities of these populations offer highly valuable resources for many industries and businesses but are overlooked because of the lack of official recognition.

The California Competes panel contemplated that these populations bring with them existing and valid learning successes that can or should be recognized within their CCC academic transcript. The challenge was to quantify them in ways that accomplished the institutional requirements for their diplomas. In its “Credit for Prior Learning Initiative,” the CCCCO determined that students with previous life skills and abilities could apply those as college credits to their transcripts. Doing so helps them complete their programs faster, increase the value they receive from the school, and underscore the significant economic and equitable benefits that flow when a person’s achievements are appropriately recognized. While the initiative is still in development, the CCCCO already recognizes those individual college campuses that accept military and workplace training as authentic educational experiences, as well as the procedures they follow to validate those claims.

 

 

Other California Competes initiatives assist different nontraditional student populations in achieving the education and credentialing they seek:

For students who don’t have the time or opportunity to complete a regularly scheduled college course or program, California Competes advocates utilizing a “Competency-Based Education” (CBE) strategy that accepts demonstration of knowledge or skills mastery as evidence of course comprehension. The organization provides guidelines for schools with which to measure varying competencies in appropriate CBE programs.

Students who are also parents fall into the nontraditional learner cohort, as well. These learners include students on parental leave, pregnant students, and students with dependent care responsibilities. Hundreds of thousands of CC learners have dependent children and, therefore, have a greater financial need than their non-parenting colleagues. Further, they are less likely to persist at school from year to year or to graduate with a diploma, degree, or certification.

To address the very specific needs of this group, California Competes recommends using a dedicated pathway both to and through the higher education system to support both the student parent and their child. Recommended activities at each CCC include, for example, enhanced childcare opportunities, reduced fees or improved affordability for student parents, and facility design that accommodates the needs of these families.

 

Driven by Data

Another ambition of the California Competes organization is to (finally) bring the State’s educational data collection system into the 21st century through its unique “Cradle to Career Education Data Initiative.” Currently, California is one of just a handful of states that have no post-secondary education data links to either workforce information or K-12 educational data. Yet, like other states in the nation, California recognizes that connecting educational data with workforce data is the only way to fully understand how its educational system is supporting its industrial and economic foundations.

Of course, developing, implementing, and managing such a complex data collection and organization strategy presents immense challenges:

At present, the State permits its K-12 system and each of the three public higher education segments to report their student outcome data in the format of their choosing. None of these four systems coordinate with the others, so there is no way for any organization to accurately track a student’s activities through its organization and into either another school or the work world.

 At the same time, there is no system in place to track what happens to students who leave school prematurely. These students may attend other schools, find successful employment, or both, but none of the educational entities they attended previously have a way to know where they went or what they may have achieved.

 Not insignificant is the fact that the current system does not track those graduates of the two-year school who continue on and achieve a degree at a four-year school. The lack of this information means that the two-year school does not know about the long-term success of their graduate.

The “Cradle to Career” data collection system seeks to remedy these situations by coordinating language, structure, collection points, and other relevant data across all four educational sectors as well as the workforce sector to follow the progress of individual students from kindergarten to college graduation and beyond.

 

The system will also track data to inform the educational sector and its ancillary social services agencies, financial aid providers, and employer partners about relevant education and workforce drivers that require attention, including but not limited to:

the breadth and scope of supports students need to stay in school, graduate, and obtain work;

information helpful for teachers, parents, advisors, and employers regarding opportunities and decision-making capacities;

 providing agency information to ensure educational, social services programs, and workforce initiatives respond to emerging education and workforce demands.

The aggregated data will inform policymakers about services, education and workforce trends, education budgeting, and other critical social service incidentals so that State, regional, and local budgeting reflects and supports those economic foundations.

 

California Competes is led by Dr. Su Jin Jez (listen to her podcast here), who brings her years of California-focused Educational Leadership experience to this critically important education and public policy enterprise.

College to Career: Engaging Employers in College Success

Pam Sornson, JD on September 6, 2022

Pam Sornson, JD

September 6, 2022

The push to reform America’s higher education system is evolving as technology drives the transformation of our global society. Today’s colleges are changing their strategies away from traditional values and dictates and towards more fundamental economic directives. Their goal now is to facilitate career and job training that supports local and regional economic growth. To attain that goal, universities and colleges must engage with local and regional employers to ensure that students get the occupational training they need to find work and that employers have the well-skilled workforce they require.

 

A Reconsidered Culture

Perhaps the most significant reason colleges aren’t yet known as ‘workforce development engines’ is that, until very recently, that hasn’t been their role.

The country’s higher education sector began as a series of evangelical schools designed to train missionaries in specific religious doctrines. Over decades, the industry evolved through phases that correlated with the morals and standards of the day, from the development of moral character appropriate for democratic citizenship, to training opportunities for specific professional occupations, to a place where learners could achieve personal economic advantages. Through these years, there were few, if any, interactions between school leadership, policymakers, or even faculty and the local businesses and industries in the communities with which they shared a community.

That communication gap between education and occupation also created a rift in society’s economic foundation. Over time, the skills instilled by university degrees evolved further and further away from the occupational needs of the business community. In turn, the divide has been driving a drop in college enrollment that began early in the 21st century. The National Center for Education Statistics asserts that enrollments in America’s post-secondary institutions grew by 19% from 2006 to 2010 but then fell by 7% from 2010 to 2016. It appears that the overall value of a college education (specifically a four-year university degree) has declined over time as those institutions turn out graduates who are often overqualified for the jobs they ultimately land. (As many as 35% of workforce laborers are considered overqualified, according to Forbes education experts.) In fact, between 1992 and 2010, the number of jobs requiring a bachelor’s degree grew by only 2%, while the percentage of university enrollees grew by 45%. The statistics beg the question, “why is there such a disconnect between the skills needed on the job and the training programs provided by universities and colleges?”

 

The Short and the Long Answers …

One (of many) short answers is “because employers haven’t yet fully engaged with the higher education community to explain or share their knowledge and occupational standards.”The long answer is “that the disconnect is dissolving as the country’s college system scrutinizes its curricula and community relations practices to achieve better communications with the future employers of its student body.”

This enhanced and growing focus on employer engagement is good news for those business owners, college students, and the economy of their region. The value proposition that such an extensive partnership promises offers each constituent benefits that they cannot gain without the involvement and effort of the others.

According to California Competes, a California State think tank that envisions thriving communities fueled by racially just and equitable workforce outcomes, students, employers, higher Ed institutions, and local economies all benefit greatly when they all focus on achieving common goals.

Students enrolled in occupationally directed training programs receive enhanced clarity about career pathways, readiness skills, and job opportunities and outcomes.

Businesses that contribute to college curricula gain access to larger, better-informed cohort groups of talented students, as well as expanded workforce development programs for their existing staff.

Colleges that actively engage with local businesses achieve a stable enrollment pipeline for students, improved outcomes for their students, and an optimized capacity to contribute to the economic growth of the entire community.

Local economies benefit from these collaborations as the workforce supply and demand gap shrinks, the demand for social safety net services also shrinks, and enhanced civic engagement activities improve local, regional, and state revenues.

 

… Build True Solutions

Understanding the barriers to communication among these disparate populations helps leaders in each group to forge responses that overcome those hurdles.

In addition to addressing challenges to students (which are many – affordability, access, language, etc.), the Dean’s office must also contemplate how these changes will affect teaching staff contracts, existing curricula, labor and demand statistics, industrial standards, and future growth possibilities.

At the same time, businesses must articulate the skills and abilities they need to perform the workflows that generate their company’s value. Recent technological advances can make these “job descriptions” more difficult to craft.

Finally, local, regional, and state governments must evaluate current rules and regulations that govern but may also inhibit businesses, workforce and labor capacities, and industrial activities.

Dedicated communication practices can help all understand the challenges the others face and collaborate on responses that can address those individual and joint concerns:

Navigating through the varying demands, opportunities, and expectations is easier when the group can identify shared goals and interests and build initiatives based on those common factors.

 At the school, leadership should note that full engagement must include more than just upper-level and administrative staff. The faculty, in particular, is a critical player in developing occupationally relevant curricula. Engaging the teaching staff in these conversations is almost mandatory if the “employer engagement” project is to be successful.

 Governments can contribute to the work by facilitating readily accessible spaces where these collaborative conversations can occur. Business leaders, industry leaders, school leadership, and even economic development groups can engage in convenient locations to grow communication and economic capacity across them all.

 All engaged groups can further the greater project by clarifying and tailoring their individual messaging throughout the community to showcase these shared goals and the values they offer. Joint communications that span multiple media across multiple industries and community sectors build widespread awareness and inclusion and encourage further engagement by the greater community itself.

 

The emerging community conversation about employer engagement, Community College curricula, and economic development promises to provide solutions to the economic and social challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, un- and under-employed workers, and inequities and inequalities that exist in today’s workforce landscape. At the same time, participants in these collaborations are building a stronger, more resilient, more robust economy that will support today’s and tomorrow’s workforce demand.

 

Upskilling the Future: Employee Learning and Development

Pam Sornson, JD on August 15, 2022

Pam Sornson, JD

August 16, 2022

The past two decades have ushered in profound workplace changes, as technology absorbed many menial tasks while facilitating the previously unthinkable but now globally accepted ‘work from home’ standard. Employers struggled to accommodate drastic workplace disruptions and are still struggling to reorganize as those disruptions evolve into the ‘new normal.’ While many companies may be looking at new technology or infrastructure investments to take them to their next goal, others are looking closer to home to an asset they may have disregarded in the past: their existing workforce. The world is seeing a shift to an ’employee-centric’ workplace, and businesses that embrace both the concept and their current staff may be the farthest ahead in the game. 

 

A Global Phenomenon

A World Economic Forum report issued in 2021 (WEF) suggests that ‘upskilling’ today’s existing workforce has the potential to boost the global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by as much as $6.5 trillion by 2030. Those investments in workforce training, learning, and development would close the current skills gap by ensuring that all available workers have the training (or access to training) needed to succeed in the increasingly technical world economy. In addition, augmenting existing skills with new capacities will boost worker productivity, leading to enhanced corporate success. 

The report surmises a surge in ‘upskilling’ will bring several benefits to individual countries and the world as a wholly connected economic system:

China will most likely achieve the highest gain within that time frame, potentially increasing its GDP by as much as 7.5%. The United States is second, with a potential yield of 3.7%.

Around the world, the business services, manufacturing, and consumer services sectors will gain the most return on those investments, all growing by close to 5% over that decade.  

And there could be a net of over five million new jobs created by 2030 in occupations that require innovation, creativity, and so-called ‘soft’ skills like empathy, collaboration, and partnering. 

Based on its research, the WEF recommends that all stakeholders in any economic system review their specific sector to discover emerging occupations that can enhance current corporate fortunes and then invest in integrating those jobs into their future workforce strategy.  

  

Connecting Worker/Employer L&D Needs

Other research indicates that employers, too, can retool their existing training programs to be more productive, both for the business and its individual workers. According to NYUC LearningHub, a Singapore-based workforce development think-tank, there’s often a disconnect between the training the business offers and the skills and abilities that workers want to attain – the training the company provides might not address the needs of either group. While almost all employees and employers (99% and 98%, respectively) agreed that continuous employee learning and development (L&D) is critical to company success, significant percentages of both populations aren’t satisfied with the content of those learning opportunities. Thirty-eight percent of employees and 45% of employers classify their current occupational training opportunities as ‘fair,’ ‘bad,’ or ‘very bad.’

Further, while most of the workers polled (88%) agreed that their employer fully supported worker training programs, almost one in three (32%) also said they weren’t offered enough support to access those resources. Workers cited three major concerns that interfered with their ability to obtain additional work training:

    1. They were too busy in their job to take the time to learn more.
    2. Their productivity would suffer if they were to leave work during the day. Workers who were expected to achieve certain daily milestones weren’t comfortable trusting someone else to attain those benchmarks in their absence.   
    3. Their personal obligations outside of work prevented them from accessing additional training while off work.

These disgruntled employees shared, too, their thoughts on what their boss could do better to ensure they got the training they wanted:

They wanted to be paid for the time off work they’d take to attend training courses. 

They also wanted to be sure their work obligations were appropriately covered while they were away. Some suggested their immediate supervisor would be an appropriate interim substitute.

They also suggested changing the training format into shorter refresher courses that didn’t take much time out of the day but still offered new learning capacities. 

While these comments may be specific to those workers polled, they may also be relevant to workers in other sectors and industries, and, therefore relevant throughout the global economy.

 

Enhancing Employer Effort 

There are several steps employers can take to enhance the skill set of their existing labor force, each of which will provide the data needed to determine the optimal type and style of learning required by each employee:

Assess current skill levels, especially digital skills. Approximately one in three American workers still have no comprehensive digital skills, even though they may be using computers in their occupation. While these workers may be able to manage their occupational programming on a day-to-day basis, they don’t know how to repair or address computer glitches that may crop up, nor would they be able to advance to a higher occupational level. Not surprisingly, most organizations these days prioritize digital skills as critical assets in their new hires. 

Upskill or Reskill? 

Upskilling enhances existing skills by building on them to achieve new goals and capacities. Upskilled workers frequently also advance faster in their careers.

Reskilled workers learn new skills to perform new and different types of work. A computer programmer, for example, can obtain training to become a systems analyst, which is a separate occupation even though it’s based within the same technical environment.  

Think ahead. Most companies have long-term goals, and their employee L&D initiatives should encompass the skills that will be needed to attain those long-range plans. In many cases, emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning are on a company’s radar, even though they don’t as yet have the equipment to implement those strategies. 

The work world is decidedly different now than it was just two years ago. Workers are willing to provide better service to their employer when that employer facilitates the L&D opportunities they need. As the global economy evolves through the pandemic and beyond, companies that invest in maintaining and enhancing the skillsets of their existing workforce will be more stable and, therefore, more successful than those that don’t.  

 

What Works in Workforce Development Programs

Pam Sornson, JD on August 15, 2022

There’s a reason why ‘economic’ and ‘workforce’ development initiatives are so closely aligned: they individually address complementary sides of the same challenge. ‘Economic’ development focuses on increasing the growth of regional economic activity. ‘Workforce’ development focuses on the skill sets of workers whose efforts will generate those financial gains. When pursued strategically as a single goal (building both simultaneously), extending capacity in one should result in increased capacity in the other.

 

Workforce Development as Economic Driver

These days, ‘workforce development’ (WFD) is the primary focus of many communities, and multiple WFD programs have materialized to provide topical and timely training for both unemployed and employed people. While it may be too soon to assess the success of any one of them individually, there are certain elements to a WFD program that have proven their worth over time. It is likely that programs that incorporate some or all of these elements into their practices will also demonstrate success when those assessments do occur.

It’s important to note, too, how the COVID pandemic has transformed the work world. By forcing isolation on almost all populations, the coronavirus eliminated those jobs that required human interaction. But the digital response to the health crisis also introduced new ways of doing traditional work, opening new and as yet unfilled job opportunities. Consequently, many workers lost their jobs and now need to find both new skills and new work. At the same time, currently employed people may find their skill sets no longer match the post-COVID demands of their occupation. They may also need additional training and skill building to remain competitive in the job market. Incorporating efforts to address all these variables (in addition to those otherwise required for any WFD effort) will be necessary for a WFD project to fully and truly thrive.

 

What Makes a Successful WFD Program?

In 2012, the Federal Department of Labor (DOL) commissioned a survey to understand how and why some WFD programs were successful. Using data gleaned from the evaluation of several Chicago-based WFD programs, the survey assessed both the program activities that resulted in trainee/employee success as well as the data used to track that information. While the report is a decade old, its conclusions still resonate in today’s WFD sector.

According to the survey, a range of factors influenced program success, including program and practice elements, individual participant circumstances, and training provider organizational components. Another field of factors related to individual participant success was also influential, including their social and economic situation, barriers to employment, and their ability to access and acquire support resources. Cumulatively, the survey tracked how the programs managed the realities of individual people on their path through occupational training to successful employment. Successful participant outcomes (people becoming employed) were more likely in programs that checked both personal resources and occupational development practices as integrated elements of the overarching strategy.

Data

Data on WFD efforts are even more critical now than in 2012. This study parsed out four data-related recommendations to clarify not just what researchers should look for but also why and how gathering that information is of value.

    1. A well-defined common set of WFD performance measures is needed to establish community-based standards, with a subset of criteria that facilitates flexibility for both program providers and funders. Measured factors can include, for example, the number of participants who complete the program (not just attend it), the impact of social support on the success of program graduates, and the number of graduates finding relevant employment, to name just three.
    2. Follow subpopulations as they progress through the program. A well-implemented Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) strategy can provide support tailored to specific subgroups (i.e., previously incarcerated, ESL, etc.). Tracking their activities through the program will also show how well those systems are working.
    3. Tracking individuals through hiring and beyond based on their particular circumstances will reveal how well the social support systems and the training program elements work together to achieve WFD goals.
    4. Collect data across the entire WFD enterprise, including organizational operations, individual program activities, individual client successes, and external engagements outside the program. Analysis at each level can help researchers and WFD professionals understand not just what works but also how to replicate it in other communities.

Outcomes

In terms of specific activities, the survey also identifies several distinct program initiatives that proved to achieve better participant outcomes in most WFD organizations:

Organizations that developed comprehensive intake assessments and built programs around meeting those criteria were most likely to have successful participants. Those organizations that remained flexible, too, in the resources they had available (or were willing to obtain) were also superior in responding to their client’s needs. Perhaps the most critical revelation here is that successful programs are designed to meet their participant’s needs; participants aren’t asked to try to fit into an organizational structure that doesn’t suit their situation.

Collaboration among program providers, area and regional employers, and other WFD partners is also key to participant success. In some cases, employer partners and other WFD entities were treated more like customers, with the organization working to achieve a satisfactory ‘customer experience’ similar to that found in the retail sector. In other cases, success was had when incorporating the labor force needs of program system ‘end users,’ those entities that hire program graduates but can’t participate in the program itself. Enhanced collaboration among these WFD leadership populations to meet all their ‘customer’s’ needs also reverses the value stream by facilitating the sharing of industry and occupational insights by industry insiders with program developers.

Not surprisingly, the most successful WFD program providers had strong organizational leadership and administrations that were dedicated to pursuing the ultimate goal of a well-trained, economically beneficial workforce. These programs maintained their focus on participant and ‘customer’ goals while also planning for future growth and advocating for more and better public policies and funding.

Programs that pursued these types of initiatives and collected data relevant to all of them demonstrated solid WFD program success while generating the information needed to prove that point, which can be used to build on for future iterations.

 

If this were a ‘cart’ and ‘horse’ analogy, then WFD efforts would be the horse, while economic growth would be the cart. Communities looking to improve their economic situations can learn how first applying sound WFD principles can help them achieve that goal.

 

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