By 2025, there will be a job surplus. As organizations seek to close workforce and skills gaps, a balance of training and higher education is needed. Recruiting and retaining an engaged, competitive employee base requires a forward thinking, well-rounded, cost-effective approach to workforce development.
Over the next decade, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projects a total of 50.6 million jobs will become available. Two-thirds of these openings come from retiring Baby Boomers with decades of work, knowledge, skill, and leadership experience. As a result, BLS projects a surplus of 5 million jobs, many of which require candidates with managerial skills and post-secondary education, even though college graduation is projected to remain stagnant.
Compounding the issue, a Leadership IQ survey found that 46 percent of new hires failed on the job within the first 18 months. The most troublesome issues included soft skills, such as the inability to receive coaching, lack of ambition, problematic disposition, and insufficient emotional intelligence.
When hiring, many Human Resource (HR) managers look for talent with deep technical expertise and soft skills. Balancing these is critical to professional development, so HR professionals, talent officers, and training managers are seeking strategies to ensure stability, effectiveness, and workforce success.
Strategically Closing the Skills Gap
Finding viable talent is a process by which HR managers solicit, review, and hire candidates. However, this process is time, labor, and financially intensive with no guarantee the hire will integrate well into the enterprise.
To improve the hiring process, organizations are exploring methods to grow existing talent and leadership from within. Workforce development seeks to prepare current employees to take the place of retiring ones, adapt to evolving technologies, and grow in their profession, but this requires a comprehensive workforce management strategy to close the skill gaps.
Many organizations have leveraged corporate training programs to ramp up workforce capacity. These use ontological methods to tell employees what to do in certain situations and are effective for onboarding, conveying new protocols, products, concepts, methodologies, and other transfer of information processes. However, while training serves a vital purpose, it differs from higher education, which instills distinct, but lasting, returns on investment for similar costs. Interestingly, the first choice of many organizations is often training as opposed to education, with the assumption that education can take longer to accomplish similar ends. But many times, that is not the case.
The Power of Higher Education Instruction
Higher education uses an epistemological approach, focusing on the method in which problems are solved. In other words, employees learn how to think as opposed to what to think. It also helps students hone important soft skills such as project management, teamwork, interpersonal communication, and critical thinking, necessary in a connected and diverse workplace.
Higher education plays this role so well, because soft skills are not easily gleaned from a manual and must be exercised in real-life settings. Higher education provides a platform for these abilities to be cultivated over a longer time span, allowing professionals to apply and refine new techniques and skills. Because leadership roles and synthesizing new strategies require both the ontological and epistemological approach, workforce development tactics also require this dual methodology to establish robust talent.
Quality higher education is a comprehensive, synergistic model providing subject matter depth, establishing contextualized knowledge, and building capabilities crucial for leadership roles. These programs allow leaders in organizations to approach problems holistically and systemically.
Government agencies and organizations increasingly are partnering with higher education institutions to develop well-rounded, capable workforces, and enterprises are noticing the benefits to employees, business goals, and mission objectives. These partnerships allow enterprises to offer employees access to forward-leaning degrees required in highly competitive and complex fields and industries.
Firsthand Account of Higher Education Benefits
Dealer.com, part of Cox Automotive Inc., is a leading provider of streamlined and intuitive solutions for managing car dealership marketing. Recognizing the need to ensure a sustainable workforce for the future, management began looking for personnel and leadership development tools and explored higher education options for employees.
“Our workforce is emblematic of what Fast Company calls ‘Generation Flux,” says Sean Collins, senior director, Organization and Leadership Development at Dealer.com. “Our employees are a blend of Millennials, Boomers, and everything in between, but they are united with the desire for a strong work-life balance while also possessing intellectual curiosity and career goals. We see higher education as a strategic imperative for both company growth and employee satisfaction. Partnering with Champlain College Online has changed the way we approach our employee recruitment and retention strategies.”
Through Champlain College Online’s truED program, Dealer.com chose degree and certificate programs geared toward helping employees excel and thrive in expanding technological and leadership roles. Enrolled employees became more engaged, productive, and intellectually vibrant, changing the workforce culture. Students refer to classroom experiences to examine and resolve issues in the workplace, tap into uncharted regions, and improve fiscal efficiency.
Many students pursue MBAs, project management degrees and certificates, and information technology degrees. Dealer.com is seeing significant interest in the program with nearly 200 employees enrolled and projects enrollment set to increase by 25 percent in 2016.
The Workforce of the Future
One important question leaders ask is, “What are the challenges and opportunities for my organization over the next five or 10 years?” Just as organizations are strategic in addressing that question, so, too, should they be in planning for their future workforce. Embrace this question as an opportunity to reshape your organization’s talent management strategy and to commit to both your employees and the future organization. Leaders must consider what threats loom ahead, what skills they will need to address those threats, and whether or not higher education plays a role in addressing that gap. Doing so can help an organization sail smoothly through the turbulent waters of changing skill demands, mergers, leadership shake-ups, and whatever else the future brings. While 2025 seems far away, in reality, it is just over the horizon. It’s time to begin thinking about it today.
Dr. Mika Nash is the Academic Dean for the Division of Continuing Professional Studies at Champlain College. Dr. Nash has more than 20 years of experience in higher education and 12-plus years of experience in online education. She holds an Ed.D. in Higher Educational Leadership and Policy Studies.
