Future Employer: Planning and Preparing for Employee Skills Gap in the Post-COVID Future of Work

A. The Changing Workplace: Why Will There be Employee Skills Gaps and Why Will Employee Training be Necessary after the COVID-19 Pandemic?

It is hard to argue that the COVID-19 pandemic has not permanently changed the workforce.  We have all felt these changes: teleworking and working from home; changes to traditional interview processes; new privacy and data privacy concerns; and the need for “talent agility”[1] and flexibility to respond to fluctuations in business demand brought on by the pandemic; among other things.  Employers are also faced with addressing the needs and wants of Generation Z (also known as “Gen Z”) employees and prospective employees, who are the most tech savvy, risk averse, independent, and competitive of any generation.

On top of the changes in how and where we work, employers must consider what jobs or sectors may not come back as robustly as they were before the pandemic or those that may not come back at all.  For example, consider jobs in the service and hospitality industries, certain jobs affiliated with office building “perks” such as a building concierges, gyms, and in-building food and beverage offerings. Further, manufacturing and distribution employers have faced a host challenges as a result of the pandemic, including decreased efficiency because of COVID-19-related protocols, which were compounded because of the pre-existing manufacturing skills gap and the shortage of skilled production workers.^[2]

Additionally, workers furloughed or laid off as a result of the pandemic may have changed careers or occupations instead of advancing in their pre-existing fields.  In fact, workers are changing jobs more now than ever before.  Some workers may have used a furlough, lay off, or time working remotely to reevaluate their careers, jobs, and futures, including sharpening their existing skills or learning new ones, particularly because it is harder for employers to keep employees engaged while working remotely.  Not to mention, the constant changes in industry and technology-related displacement make it harder for workers to envision long-term career plans, particularly with their work and/or work environment upended.

  The impact these changes in the workplace will have on low wage workers is worth special mention.  Low wage workers are more vulnerable to technology-facilitated displacement and may be the least well positioned to afford the time and resources to acquire new skills.  Low wage workers often do not work in a traditional employee-employer setting, meaning that the employer-centered model of work and training – where an employer provides on-the-job training to employees -- does not necessarily apply.  As the New York Times posited: “What will janitors do if fewer people work in offices? What will waiters do if the urban restaurant ecosystem never recovers its density?”[3]

On top of these recent and imminent changes, according to the World Economic Forum, 40 percent of the core skills in the average job will change in the next 5 years.[4]  As a result of pandemic-related hiring freezes, layoffs, and furloughs across industries, talent supply conditions are favorable for employers.  Employers who can envision, plan, and prepare for their talent needs in a post-COVID world can take advantage of these conditions if they are willing to invest in their current and prospective talent.

B. How Do Employers Address these Changes and Prepare for this Future? Job Training.

In order to ensure that workers have the skills necessary to perform the jobs that employers need filled, employers need to take responsibility for employee training – both on-the-job training and training prospective employees -- in a way they never have before. 

A first step for employers is to ensure that they have an internal skills training program that is designed to provide training at all levels across the company and at all stages of an employee’s tenure with the company.  “Training” in this context should also include ongoing, one-on-one manager coaching – not reserved only for disciplinary or remedial action – and a meaningful performance review process that identifies particular skills that can be developed through training.

Importantly, training should not just be about specific mechanical, digital, or technological skills.  Rather, one constant for employers, regardless of technology or industry, will be the need for employees with strong social and emotional capabilities, and communication, collaboration, leadership, and time management skills. 

Training should also be ongoing in order to help “new hires and long-standing employees to develop evolving skills.”^[5]  Indeed, if nothing else, training should be viewed as a constant, ongoing process of ensuring workers have the skills necessary to both meet the changing needs of the employer and be successful in their position.

Further, training itself needs to adapt along with the workforce, and employers should consider, for example, whether digital training could be as effective as in-person training, or whether in-person training is better suited for the particular skill or competency to be taught.

C. How Do Employers Train Their Prospective Employees?

Employers do not always think about training prospective employees.  After all, prospective employees do not yet work for the employer, and the employer could be thinking that it is to their advantage to hire someone already trained to do a particular job.  This mindset however, causes employers to miss out on untapped talent and resources in their communities.  What if employers could train their local workforces to do exactly what the employers need workers to do?  With this hyper-local mind set, employers should consider how to leverage their presence in the community and local relationships, coupled with the make-up of the local talent pool (using, for example, relationships with staffing agencies and employment and unemployment data), to develop their training programs.

First, employers should consider partnerships with public entities – such as community colleges and state and local government workforce development and training programs – to establish a trainee-employee pipeline.   Employers should communicate “their needs to workers and the training providers who support them.”[6]  These partnerships allow employers to “shap[e] available training options  . . . to ensure [training] offerings are continually updated to reflect current and future marker needs and convey relevant skills and experience.”[7]  These partnerships also ensure that the training providers’ “offerings evolve to match changing labor market demands in as close to real time as possible, providing the highest value and greatest chance of success to adults relying on them to advance their careers.”[8]  Relatedly, employers should be engaged in their local communities and serve on local workforce boards so they can be involved and keep their fingers on the pulse.  Employers should also consider committing to hire trainees once they have completed the training.^[9]

Second, for unionized employers, unions will play an important role in employee training.  One example of this is labor-management partnerships.[10]  “These partnerships comprise grounds of regional or sector-based employers and unions” and, “[t]hrough a cooperative relationship” between the unions and the employers, train workers for the jobs that are needed in a particular region and/or sector.  For example, “[t]he SEIU 775 Training Partnership – a partnership between Washington state, private sector employers, and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 775 . . . prioritizes training [in the home care industry], working in tandem with policymakers to raise pay, improve health and safety conditions, provide health care, secure retirement and job-matching benefits, and increase standards across the hone-care industry.”[11]

Third, employers should recognize the role of apprenticeships in employee training – which may or may not involve partnerships with unions.  Importantly, apprenticeships are not necessarily just for the trades, and employers should consider the expansion of apprenticeships to emerging, high-growth sectors and in-demand industries.  Indeed, apprenticeships are one component of multiple efforts to help employers scale back up and redeploy their workforces to the new economic realities and pressures.  Apprenticeships guarantee a pool of talent and a pool of workers for today and tomorrow's skill talent needs.  Further, there is certainly flexibility across industries to design apprenticeship programs that meet specific industry and employer’s needs.[12] 

D. Conclusion

Employers must think creatively about attracting new talent and should consider that employee and prospective employee training is a key way to do that.  While this is no doubt an investment for employers, there is certainly a large payout: reduced employee turnover, employee loyalty, employee engagement, and developing a workforce that is equipped to meet to the employer’s particular demands.

 Join us for Part Two of The Future of the World of Work Webinar Series on October 13, 2021. This webinar will focus on the legal implications and issues that organizations should consider as workplaces evolve. 

[1] Sandhya Karpe, COVID-19 and the Talent Agility Imperative, Conference Board (June 2020), https://www.conference-board.org/publications/covid19-talent-agility-imperative-ES.

[2] Dan Restuccia with Bledi Taska & Scott Bittle, U.S. Chamber of Com. Found., Different Skills, Different Gaps: Measuring & Closing the Skills Gap 10-11 (Mar. 2018), https://www.burning-glass.com/wp-content/uploads/Skills_Gap_Different_Skills_Different_Gaps_FINAL.pdf.

[3] Eduardo Peters, Reinventing Workers for the Post-Covid Economy, N.Y. Times (Dec. 4, 2020), https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/01/business/economy/workers-jobs-training.html.

[4] World Econ. F., The Future of Jobs Report 2020 6 (Oct. 2020), http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Future_of_Jobs_2020.pdf.

[5] The Pub. Policy Ctr. of the Conf. Bd., The Future of Work: How America Can Meet the Upskilling Challenge 7 (2020), https://www.conference-board.org/pdfdownload.cfm?masterProductID=20557.

[6] Restuccia et al., supra note 2, at 18.

[7] The Pub. Policy Ctr. of the Conf. Bd., supra note 5, at 7-8.

[8] Id. at 8.

[9] Peters, supra note 3.

[10] Jonathan F. Harris & Livia Lam, Is There a Right to Job Quality? Reenvisioning Workforce Development, 11 Cal. L. Rev. Online 339, 345-346 (2020), https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3644346.

[11] Id. at 346.

[12] Peters, supra note 3.