The Chronicle of Higher Education's To Solve the Skills Gap in Hiring, Create Expectations in the Classroom, highlights The Business Roundtable's 2009 survey of employers, who identified concerns about ‘soft skills’ gaps, such as work ethic, accountability and self-motivation.
Much of that data supporting this claim is provided by research taken from Why Good People Can’t Get Jobs, by Peter Cappelli. The author argues that the much discussed skills gap is largely a result of hiring practices. According to the Chronicle's commentary, "Many people have the competencies to learn new techniques if provided with work-related training. The Business Roundtable agrees, arguing that employers would find greater success by focusing on hiring competencies. Are the applicants organized? Self-motivated? Punctual? Do they present a strong work ethic"?
This survey did not identify any skills deficit associated with specialized IT, management, administrative, or mechanical work. "People know how to do jobs; they just don’t act like it", according to the commentaries' author, Charlotte Kent.
How are you addressing the soft skills gap through work-related competencies with learners in your program?
Mike Cruse
Career Pathways Moderator
michaelcruse74@gmail.com
Comments
Thank you for sharing the article. I read it and the comments, too. Interesting to see the debate. Two things I would like to share. The first is a real life example of one of Dr. Kent's rules in action. My brother-in-law was hired at a company that makes kitchen cabinets. All new employees were scheduled for an orientation. When the time came for the orientation to start, the meeting room door was locked and anyone who was late was no longer considered for employment.
The second thing I'd like to share is the link for the Employability Skills Framework. Some nice tools and resources for use in the classroom http://cte.ed.gov/employabilityskills/