Tag Archives: Training & Development

Being Valued on the Job

Posted on by Bill Ryan

So here you are putting the best you have into a job you have had for several years. The compensation is decent, but not great. However, other of your work preferences are in place such as hybrid work settings, respectable collogues, manageable work volume, and most importantly you are largely able to exercise your strengths with minimal time spent on dealing with your weak areas. On balance, it is a good job, which is why you have stuck with it this long.

But as time has gone on you find yourself wondering if your bosses really care about you. You recognize that positive feedback is important to you. Confirmation of some sort is desired in order for you to continue putting your maximum effort into this endeavor. The fact that you are questioning this at all seems to be an indication something is lacking in the rapport you have with management. Yet, you just can’t put your finger on what is missing. It leaves you feeling somewhat unfulfilled with your job.

We can look at workplaces as falling into two possible camps which I will call the traditional camp and the emotive camp. The traditional workplace has an inherent expectation that employees are there to follow the direction of management — period. Employees either fit into this assumption or they don’t. It is not the job of the employee to question the instructions they are given. If they have issue with management decisions, then the the door is just over there. The message is to shut up and do your job.

The emotive camp on the other hand is characterized by a management style that believes employees need to be heard and respected. This stems from an ethic which attaches value to having the workplace be a place of learning, adaptability, and growth. This style of manager sees the incursion of contemporary business trends like globalization, technological change such as artificial intelligence, and consumers desiring personalized brand loyalty as game changing requiring employees who can function effectively in this new normal.

As an employee it is appropriate to ask yourself which of these camps is best suited for you. In some situations and for certain personality types the traditional culture may be fine. It offers a hierarchical structure with little ambiguity concerning whose place belongs to whom. However, for increasingly more employees, especially from the Millennial and Zoomer (Gen Z) generations, top-down my-way-or-the-highway supervision is unlikely to attract and retain the talent needed to meet the demands of today’s consumers.

What are some specific practices we can expect from managers in an emotive workplace? Margaret Rogers, a business consultant with a “human-centered methods” focus cites several ways. It begins with managers accepting as a priority the need to understand their employees at a more personal level than was expected in the past. The goal is to merge conditions which accentuate optimal employee performance with the needs of the organization. It is assumed each employee has career wishes aligned with related learning goals. Arranging these objectives such that company and employees both benefit can reduce turnover.

A resiliency must be worked into the decision making process of both manager and employee so that shifts can be made which satisfy fulfillment of on-the-job opportunities. Managers must have the flexibility to make good on the matches they find to bring about enhanced employee to organization interactions. As an employee, you can feel your contributions matter to the degree that you are upskilled in ways you want to be.

Integrating varied on-the-job occasions can broaden the range of skills employees develop while also expanding the talent pool from which organizations can draw as needed. Additionally, as with any high quality learning setting, superior communication among all stakeholders is required. Constant feedback, like constant data, is useful for fine-tuning the improvements all parties rightly demand.

An emotive workplace is often an organization that puts out a product or service in an always competitive marketplace. This culture realizes that by being a learning organization and sensitive to employees’ hopes they are more likely to have an employee base committed to adaptable people management.

We left you earlier wondering why your current job is leaving you feeling unaccomplished. Maybe the above analysis will help you determine where the rub may be occurring. And if you decide a change needs to happen, don’t put it off for too long. Lasting improvements are sweeter in the near term rather than indefinitely delayed.

 

 

Strengths and Weaknesses Revisited

Posted on by Bill Ryan

As I write this piece the calendar is about to flip to the year 2024. Therefore, my thinking is that this is a good time for careerists to revisit the perennial topic of how to communicate one’s strengths and weaknesses in the context of their professionalism.

How one self-perceives their strengths and weaknesses factors significantly into the impressions left upon others whose opinions of you may matter in how well you achieve success on the job. Typically, we think of the strengths and weaknesses question as one that comes up in job interviews and to be sure it still does. More on that later. But there are other instances during which an authentic and well delivered message about your capacities and limitations is pertinent.

Supervisors, colleagues, customers, and other stakeholders want to know what they can reliably expect from you and in what areas they should adjust their assumptions about you. We are called upon on a daily basis to promote ourselves on the job. How we perform is always being assessed by someone. The more consistently we are able to capitalize on our strengths and manage our weaknesses the more likely we can control the construction of our professional reputation and benefit our careers.

The narrative we deploy to reinforce our daily demonstrations of strengths and weaknesses builds both our prospects among those who entrust in us and our professional credibility. Getting these statements right matters.

It is during job interviews when a well formed response to the questions of what are your strengths and weaknesses is traditionally most anticipated. So, let’s take a look at how best to craft your reply in an interview situation.

First to strengths: As counterintuitive as it may seem, take the focus of your strength proclamations away from you as a person and instead direct them toward the needs of your employer, customers, and any other concerned parties who desire your expertise. Your goal is to solve people’s problems not pump up your ego.

How do you discover what the needs are of an organization to which you are applying? Study the job description. The specifics you require to align your skills with their demands should be right there. Executive communications specialist Joel Schwartzberg suggests that you convey each strength in four parts:

  • A label for your strength
  • A factual example of that strength being applied
  • The result of that application
  • How much you are energized by utilizing that strength

Now to weaknesses: Again, referencing Schwartzberg, he proposes to reframe the negative term “weaknesses” into “challenges”. This alternative name redefines what might be thought of as an innate characteristic flaw into a difficulty which can be remedied through purposeful interventions such as training or dedicated practice.

When selecting weaknesses/challenges to disclose to the interviewers be careful to not pinpoint a job requirement which is fundamental to the position. If you see yourself drawn to such a job essential as a challenge example, then rethink whether or not you should be applying for this position. Once you have settled on two or three challenges, present each one in three parts:

  • A label for your challenge
  • Relatively low-level effects that might result from the challenge
  • How committed you are to improve

Keep in mind that the interviewers, and by extension your colleagues, managers, and customers, are most interested in whether you can meaningfully collaborate to augment the operation. If you can use the strengths and weaknesses questions to drive home an understanding about your areas of expertise, leave the impression that you are earnest about professional growth, and communicate that you are candid and forthcoming about what motivates you, then you will have done your career a big favor.

You do not need to be thought of as perfect. Rather, you want to be deemed as dependable and trustworthy.

 

 

The Need for Versatile Leaders

Posted on by Bill Ryan

There is no shortage of disruptions to our workplaces and to our careers. They come in two styles, one transient and the other sustained. There are the short-lived perturbations, for example our current experiences with inflation, Covid, the war in Ukraine, and spotty supply chain shortages. Then there are the disturbances which have roots in recent history and continually transform, such as the evolutions of globalization and technology, including the advent of generative AI. Taken as a whole, it can seem as if there is little time for complacency or work that is of slow tempo. 

Managers seem especially exposed to the fluctuations and inconsistencies of the modern workplace. They are called upon to guide direct reports through turbulence and insecurity while attempting to follow strategic policies. This can be quite challenging. The way leaders handle threats and turmoil matters for the health of their careers and of the careers of workers who are impacted by managers’ approach to volatility. 

Versatile leaders have been identified as valuable resources for a workplace to have during times of upheaval. They can be beneficial when the need arises to manage resources efficiently to remain productive. Maintaining employee engagement and adaptability during periods of uncertainty requires a special kind of leader. Organizations are increasingly aware of how important it is to have versatile leaders. 

Rob Kaiser of Kaiser Leadership Solutions and Ryne Sherman and Robert Hogan, both of Hogan Assessment Solutions, have been studying versatility in leadership for twenty-six years. They note how from the late nineties to the mid-2000s co-worker ratings of leadership identified the trait of versatility as an important leadership trait 35% of the time. By the time of the Great Recession in 2008, versatility was seen as a significant leadership attribute in 50% of the ratings. And by the time of the pandemic, it shot to 63%. The demand for versatile leadership is growing in recognition. Given the rate of change expanding as it is, it is easy to see why. 

Kaiser et al define versatility as the leadership ability to function effectively in a context characterized as volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. Within that setting, versatile leaders can quickly adapt by applying a range of appropriate skills and behaviors that reshuffle and redeploy resources to preserve productivity. This type of leadership manifests in two distinct ways. One style is more forceful and direct as in a single point of command tasked with making the hard choices. The other approach reaches out to employees in an empowering and supportive way to provide tranquility and to ease concerns. The skilled practitioner of versatility knows how to shift between these modes as the situations dictate. 

In fact, a leader who may be well versed and experienced in one of these modes, but unable to adroitly shift to the other does not qualify as a versatile leader and indeed may be a lower quality leader overall due to their situational limitations. However, the good news is that versatility can be an acquired capability. Counterintuitively, versatile leaders are not correlated with any specific personality type. To the contrary, versatile leaders are represented across multiple personality types. Given that the research of Kaiser et al identifies fewer than 10% of the leadership workforce as versatile, the incentive is there for increased versatility training. 

Although personality alone may not be a strong predictor of versatility other background elements are. It has been documented that leaders who have had many kinds of work experiences requiring the development of a diverse range of skills in circumstances for which they were not already highly qualified can be de facto versatility training. The more a leader finds herself or himself faced with assignments that are a stretch, combined with an innate attitude that sees these duties as learning opportunities, then versatility is enhanced. Potential leaders who want to be relevant in today’s world should take note. 

Facing Incivility on the Job

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Many have noticed an unpleasant change in recent years when doing our jobs, especially for those who perform customer-facing work. This deterioration comes in the form of an increase in incivility among the general public. Discourtesy, rudeness, and disrespect directed at frontline service providers by customers, clients, patients, student parents, airline passengers, and many other service recipients have made working to assist and benefit the public unnecessarily difficult and disheartening. 

This observation is not just anecdotal. Christine Porath is an author, consultant, and management professor at Georgetown University specializing in optimal workplace conditions. Earlier this year Dr. Porath surveyed 2,000 workers and people who had witnessed workers on the job. Twenty-five industries were represented in the study. Here are some of her findings from respondents: 

  • 76% deal with incivility at least once per month on the job 
  • 70% see and hear incivility two to three times per month on the job 
  • 78% claim customer bad behavior is more frequent than five years ago 

Dr. Porath has been conducting surveys of this sort for some time. In 2005 approximately 50% of employees reported they were treated poorly at work at least once a month. In 2011 this number rose to 55% and in 2016 it jumped again to 62%. 

Our careers cannot flourish amidst a barrage of atrocious behavior delivered from the very individuals we are trying to help. Most jobs present plenty of inherent challenges with which to contend as it is. Work is rarely an easy and carefree endeavor even under the best of circumstances. Piling on impertinent and ill-mannered behavior risks making our jobs unpleasant and unsustainable. 

Given this situation, two basic questions come to mind. What is causing the increase in incivility? What can we do about it? 

I will go out on a limb here and make the claim that very few people, if any, are natural born jerks. Further, I think people are basically social, want to be nice to others, and want to be treated kindly in return. Fundamentally, we all understand that to make it in this world we need the help of others and the best way to receive assistance is to be agreeable with one another. 

What goes awry in a word is stress. Too many of us are mentally frazzled. There are countless reasons for our stress from unmanageable pressures at work and home, to uncertainty about the future, to the unceasing flood of bad news from media, to our politics, to coping with pandemics — the list goes on and on. 

Stress is bad for our personal health and the health of our society. It deprives us all of living fruitful lives. Getting a collective grip and learning how to manage our stress levels and their injurious consequences is critical. Life is too short to be consumed with the amount of anger we are experiencing. 

Leadership is needed at times like these. We may not be able dictate how the public should always behave, but we can have leaders help our workplaces to better cope with the burden of incivility facing frontline employees. Prepare workers for when incivility happens, not if it may happen. We need leaders to coach, train, and lead by example how their workforces can best handle the repercussions of stress from among the very customers the business or organization relies upon. 

Best practices can be identified from those industries that deal with stress all the time. Police officers, health care workers, teachers, and many others have had to learn over time how to manage the unmanageable. There are techniques, attitudes, and lessons we can learn from them. Such interventions are no longer an accessory. They need to become an essential part of any job that deals with the public. 

Instead of the workplace reeling from bad behavior maybe it can be the place from which more acceptable social interactions are derived. Alleviating incivility on the job is a great place to start. 

Strengthening Knowledge Sharing Online

Posted on by Bill Ryan

The news is not that we are continually shifting most of our knowledge-economy work time online, but rather that we are learning more over time about what works and what does not work when doing so. Take the Training & Development (T&D) field. Here is an industry which experienced a head start long before Covid in providing digital and distance learning opportunities. By designing and preparing virtual and hybrid instruction programs for a relatively long period it is reasonable to expect there are lessons which can be derived by this industry informing other business sectors about how to disseminate intelligence in an online environment. 

Another area sharing distance learning, admittedly more than they want to currently, is the education arena in both K-12 and higher ed. Like T&D, their shared mission is to leverage the power and ubiquity of computers and similar devices, along with the public’s basic tech literacy abilities, to deliver teaching and learning possibilities when it is impractical to house students in traditional classrooms. Here too, best practices are being identified as teachers, schools, and communities face the challenge of providing quality education online. 

Together T&D and education are revealing methods and conditions to consider establishing when the online workplace involves information sharing, change management, customer engagement, and staff development. An analysis of peer-reviewed literature, the T&D/education marketplace, and anecdotal reports from distance learning practitioners suggest key practices when formulating and implementing remote instruction courses and programs. However, it is insightful to understand the finest of these procedures are not merely disjointed techniques produced through trial and error, but rather rest upon a philosophical foundation. 

Lev Vygotsky was a Soviet-era psychologist renowned worldwide to this day for his scholarship on how humans make meaning, in other words, cognitive development. His theory in short is that people acquire cultural values, beliefs, problem-solving strategies, and practical knowledge through collaboration with others, especially more knowledgeable people. Comprehension and meaning, according to Vygotsky, is derived in a social context, which makes community the fertile ground from which people learn. 

Today, Vygotsky’s theory compels developers of online educational and training curricula to migrate characteristics of in-person community to the digital environment. In doing so, instructors and trainers are better able to facilitate concept and knowledge acquisition among their students and trainees. 

We need therefore to trust in the interconnectivity and interplay possible through virtual contact. Although still a novel concept for older generations, society is clearly moving toward a norm characterized by remote connections with others, whether through our use of social media, FaceTime, or online short-term credentialing courses.  

Three ideal practices which take advantage of social cohesion include: 

Being Present – This can range from presenting direct instruction in a synchronous or live-time manner to being available for individual student/employee questions to mentoring. There will be occasions where asynchronous (non-live time) communication, such as message boards, forums, and course policies, need to be visible for all participants, but in general being directly available or on call during set hours leaves participants feeling less abandoned and insecure. 

Interactions – Encouraging participant interaction advances information sharing and social learning, which leads to literacy. Three key dialogues to learning involve teacher to student, student to student, and student to content. Promoting such exchanges generates effective growth-oriented connections among teachers and students; purposeful explorations conducted within a student-to-student context; and investigations between a student and the topic areas’ facts and concepts. 

Discussion – Promoting opportunities for students to participate in synchronous and asynchronous discussions creates substantial educational value. Encounters involving questions, reflections, responses, and decisions support participant growth. Thanks to digitization, well-structured discussions and deliberations can strengthen any course. 

When tasked with planning for distance training and teaching opportunities keep in mind the importance of generating social coherence. You may find less has been lost going virtual than you initially feared. 

The Good and Bad of Personality Testing

Posted on by Bill Ryan

I’ve always been fascinated by personality tests, in particular the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). As a young education major many years ago, focused on the psychology of growth and learning, it seemed natural to accept a need to categorize people, whether students or employees with all their variability and complexity, into types, identities, and groupings. I came to believe that this knowledge could be used in many organizational ways including team building, workplace efficiency, student body cohesion, leadership training, personnel development, and general hiring to name a few. 

Today, there are many personality tests on the market with the MBTI remaining among the most popular in use with HR departments and management/training teams. DiSC, Color Code, CliftonStrengths, and Insights Discovery are also well known tools in this field. Other personality inventories are continuing to come on the scene as the science of type and application of AI becomes more refined. 

We are now looking at a $500 million industry with future growth rates estimated to be robust. Corporate, and in some cases small business America, are always in search of higher efficiencies. Some see personality testing as a means of achieving such an outcome. 

Business leadership may ask themselves, “Why wait for organizational culture to evolve when it can be shaped and structured according to my wishes?” As flippant as this sounds, there may be a sound rationale embedded in the question. Throwing a group of people together in the hope that company goals will be realized based on the strengths and experiences as seen on resumes and evaluations alone may be strategically weak. 

Individuals bring a myriad of personality characteristics, some of which may translate into positive contributions, while others may interfere with business processes. Applying tools that assist management in assessing their direct reports’ strengths and weaknesses more effectively could potentially result in more efficient sorting and assignment of talent. 

A doctrine underpinning personality testing is that there are no bad people, only bad fits of people. Someone who fits well with kindergarten students will probably make a lousy state trooper and vice versa. Cooperation, collaboration, and camaraderie are critical soft-skill practices for any workforce. Establishing conditions to encourage developing these soft skills can be a worthy management goal. If the edges of chaotic interpersonal dynamics can be smoothed and negative workplace politics mitigated, then why not intervene with data internally yielded by widespread use of personality inventories? It stands to reason productivity will be improved within a more satisfying work environment. 

A powerful criticism leveled for years concerns the lack of scientific validity of personality tests. Indeed, the MBTI is the least scientific of them all despite its prevalent use. Based on type theory developed by Carl Jung, a psychologist contemporary of Sigmund Freud, it can be said to be more art than science. Despite the MBTI’s uncanny ability to accurately identify a range of personal attributes as noted by the many people who have used it satisfactorily, including myself, there remains a persistent skepticism of its applicability due to a lack of experimental stringency regarding its claims. 

Additionally, there are claims by workers of being denied promotions, hiring, or leadership opportunities because of personality instrument results. Is it reasonable to expect there will be misapplications of these tests by managers whose skills lie in areas outside of psychology? As one who was trained in the interpretation and administration of the MBTI, I can attest to the deep levels of complexity and nuance to be considered in its use. Worth mentioning also is the likelihood of having employees who simply are uncomfortable with the ‘hocus-pocus’ of anything based on psychology. 

Whichever test is used, there should be trained professionals involved in an appropriate application of results. Regardless of potential downsides, personality instruments can occupy a favorable and constructive place in organizational management. 

Thoughts on Career-Long Learning

Posted on by Bill Ryan

As has been frequently reported, the nature of work is undergoing profound changes due largely to automation, technology, artificial intelligence, and globalization. This exacerbates fears among students and workers of how to succeed in an ever-transformative economy and contributes to the current and expanding situation of a workforce not possessing the skills required by modern and future-oriented employers. 

To keep up with groundbreaking changes in employment requires an educational approach to training and learning that is flexible, relevant, and targeted to the capricious and volatile state of the economy. At present, traditional education institutions of high school and customary higher ed bachelor’s degrees appear to be lagging behind innovative industry methodologies like short-term credentialing and user-responsive professional development. Businesses recognize the value in foresight and pliable learning strategies necessary to uphold a workforce prepared for unpredictability. 

Education systems are not known for their elasticity and capacity to adjust to change. Take a typical public high school curriculum, the stage through which most American workers first pass on their way to employability. Has there been much reorganization in the basic course load or method of earning a diploma since the mid-twentieth century? I think not. This is an area where increased pressure to innovate is warranted. 

Beside a reassessment of curriculum relevance, another key concept we can hope for from high schools is that the message is getting through loud and clear to students that education does not stop with a diploma. The modern world is one in which continuous learning needs to be embraced if there is any hope for enjoying the fruits of professional mastery and robust compensation. Linking the pursuit of happiness with the pursuit of learning is a valuable lifelong lesson. 

To this end, workers will benefit from a more accommodating and welcoming world of pathways designed to prepare entry-level professionals, upskill existing workers, and assist career changers in a manner consistent with the metamorphosing economy of work. In addition to an acceptance of the importance of career-long learning is to realize credentials matter. 

From a college degree to a professional license to an industry-specific certification, possessing evidence from a reputable instructional source, in which a worker can demonstrate training and education within an area of expertise is critical to advancing one’s career. The challenge becomes how to best earn pertinent credentials in a time effective and affordable manner. 

Career, employment specialists, and economists are suggesting several practices to ease credential acquisition. Kelsey Berkowitz is a Policy Advisor for Third Way’s Economic Program and has looked closely into this issue. Among the suggestions she makes is to: 

  • Increase the amount of credential stacking that is available. In other words, design short-term credential modules that can be combined into larger certifications or degrees. This could provide highly relevant on-demand training while also providing a means for adult workers to achieve higher education goals in more easily managed steps. 
  • Develop more apprenticeship programs. Evidence exists, particularly in Europe, of the effectiveness of industry-based programs that onboard entry-level workers and within a year or two produce trained and credentialed employees committed to the profession. 
  • Recognize prior experiences related to work by offering credit. It is not unusual for individuals to gain skills and insights applicable to their current jobs from events that occurred before being hired. Examples include acquired knowledge from the military, school programs, previous jobs, or other situations where pertinent learning took place. 
  • Streamline onerous licensing mobility. Twenty-five percent of all workers today are in fields requiring a professional license. However, in too many instances licenses are not reciprocal across state lines, creating burdens to reacquire licenses for those pros relocating to a new state. 

The need for instructional and training flexibility will become increasingly necessary in order to keep a nimble and ready workforce. Let us reform learning to better address this imperative. 

Weaponizing Employment Against the Poor

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Albert Einstein elegantly once said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly but expecting different results. This adage comes to mind when we see that yet again work requirements are being used as a bludgeon to combat Americans who live in poverty and who need safety-net programs like Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), HUD housing assistance, and if President Trump has his way, even Medicaid. 

The White House Council of Economic Advisers has recommended work requirements for the most extensive welfare programs and the current administration has mandated that federal agencies alter their presumably lax welfare program standards. These moves are premised on the continuing notion that the poor are a drain on federal resources due to their laziness, recklessness, and lack of ambition. So here we go again, concluding that the poor are so, solely because of their own deficient behavior and must be made to work harder to receive assistance from this government. 

It is not that simple. 

Is this work requirement approach fair that those recipients of aid (excluding children, elderly and disabled) should be made to show an attempt to earn their government supports, which allegedly incentives people to not be poor, or is this a kick to the poor and disenfranchised when they are already down? 

It is worth examining a few of points about welfare work requirements: 

  1. According to the US Census Bureau the 2017 poverty rate was 12.3%, a 0.4% decrease from the year before. Since 2014 the poverty rate has fallen 2.5%. So, if the current trend line is a declining poverty rate why is a harsh condition like work requirements for the poor necessary currently?
  2. This effort was last tried under Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich with their 1996 welfare reform legislation. We have had a couple decades to see how that has gone and studies like those from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and in the book Making Ends Meet (Edin and Lein) show that despite short term marginal improvements in employment they were not sustainable, mostly due to necessary and increased living expenses, absorbing any work generated financial gains.
  3. Where are these jobs that the poor are supposed to get? If you have spent most of your life in poverty, chances are quite low you can pick up a knowledge-economy job quickly. We have all heard how the traditional manual labor jobs are drying up, so what is left? Lousy-waged part-time jobs with unpredictable and changeable hours is what’s left.
  4. If the government feels the need to pick on somebody shouldn’t it be the employers of vast numbers of unskilled and low-skilled who pay their workers, including the working poor, insufficient wages that in turn need to be underwritten by the American taxpayers?

Now one place where there could be political agreement is in the government providing subsidized high quality work training requirements targeted to helping the poor get the knowledge and skills needed for a globalized and digitized economy. Currently, training requirements can be in lieu of work requirements, but their effectiveness remains questionable. 

The causes and cures for poverty are varied, complex, and far beyond the scope of this piece. But if we as a society are truly interested in ameliorating the condition of poverty (as we should be!) we need to be looking for demonstrably beneficial interventions that measurably make positive differences. Requiring the poor to get a low-end job that increases their childcare and transportation costs just to prove they are not milking the system or making them pay unreasonably for a hand-up from those of us with tax paying means is not a humane way to go about it. 

Is an MBA Worth Pursuing?

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Earning a Master’s in Business Administration or MBA has long been considered both a difficult challenge to confront, but also a career boosting achievement. An MBA has been shown to increase promotion and employment opportunities and to jump start compensation. However, by the time most business professionals consider returning to school to earn the degree chances are good there is a family with children in place needing considerable attention and a mountain of bills to juggle, including a mortgage. Not to mention, MBAs can cost from $25K up to $100K in tuition, fees, and transportation costs. 

The inevitable question business managers ask themselves is, “Is this worth it?”. Don’t you hate it when someone answers such a question with, “Well, it depends.” So here goes, the answer to whether an MBA is worth pursuing or not is, “Well, it depends”. 

The value of an MBA should depend on more than compensation and promotions as alluring as those are. To obtain the most benefit from the work and expense of earning the degree largely comes down to if you think it is in your career’s interest to develop your talent in several key areas. And it turns out, these are the same attributes many executive managers look for when considering whether to hire a candidate who holds an MBA. 

You probably think I’m talking about astuteness in topics like organizational behavior, finance, accounting, supply chain management, enterprise IT systems, and economics. Of course, these and other subjects comprising an MBA curriculum are important, but what really sells the executive hiring managers are competencies like leadership, communication ability, strategical thinking, interpersonal relationships, and entrepreneurial spirit. These traits can be thought of as the building blocks to managerial excellence. Therefore, it is important to select an MBA program that assists you in developing these strengths. 

Some other useful facts about MBA programs can assist one in their decision making about whether to take the plunge or not. MBA programs most often occur over 18-month to 2-year time periods with students typically earning approximately 40−60 credits representing about 500−600 class hours of graduate-level work. Some programs allow up to 6 years to complete the program. 

A full time student must be dedicated to a concentrated approach but given that many mature MBA students are full time employees there are several alternatives. These include: 

Accelerated: Fast-tracked program with a greater course load and more condensed class and examination schedule over one year. 

Part-Time: Taking three or more years students attend classes after usual working hours, including weekday evenings and/or weekends. 

Modular: A tightly prescribed approach involving a progressive curriculum of class components presented in one to three-week segments. These programs seemed most often to be aligned with EMBA degree programs (see below) or Accelerated programs and are most often to be completed within one to two years. Also, modular often means on-site residency for the length of the given module. 

Executive MBA (EMBA): Designed for working professionals with 10 or more years of management or executive experience. These programs allow earning the degree in two years or less while working full time. 

Distance Learning: Involves classes held off-site from a campus and can include courses held via correspondence, broadcasts, videos, teleconferences, videoconferences, and online formats. 

Hybrid: Also known as blended programs these are a fusion of distance learning with traditionally styled face to face classroom instruction. 

Mini-MBA: This method combines on the job training regimens and requirements that can also be counted as credit-earning coursework toward a university MBA program. Typically, this requires a partnership between a work setting’s training program and a university MBA program. 

Finally, it is important to make sure the program you select is reputable within your industry. Not all MBA programs are of the same caliber, and you do not want to work hard only to find out later that your degree is not enthusiastically embraced by your superiors. 

It is a lot to consider but seeking this level of mastery may just lead to the breakthrough your management career needs. 

Employment Skills Gap or Lack of Fit

Posted on by Bill Ryan

During the Great Recession and ever since we have heard about a skills gap in America. This is in part responsible for slow productivity, and by extension, slow economic growth. There does seem to be evidence of an employment gap. There are currently 6.2 million jobs unfilled, up from 5.6 in 2016 (Forbes); 45% of small businesses cannot find work-ready candidates (National Federation of Independent Business); and the results of a January 2018 survey of 500 senior executives found that 92% think the candidate pool is not as skilled as it needs to be (Adecco). 

There is plenty of finger pointing going on. Some of the principal criticisms include: 

The education system is outdated and is poorly adapted to preparing students for a fluid economy — one that is heavy on technical and math-based skills. 

Employers at both the corporate and small business levels are not allocating adequate resources to training and apprenticeship programs, leaving workforces skill deficient. 

There is a growing cultural bias against the machine and tool-oriented skills useful in construction, manufacturing, and the trades, discouraging younger workers from selecting those careers. 

Increased automation is creating demand for a more technically proficient job candidate than the current labor market can supply. 

Old jobs are becoming obsolete while newly created ones are being generated at a brisk pace which the economy struggles to keep up with. 

Soft skills, such as those which emphasize collaboration, communication, and teamwork are not being acquired sufficiently at home, school, and in the community. 

Job creation is so fast and unemployment so low given the robust economy that labor does not have the time or means to adjust. 

The problem is unmotivated workers who do not want to take menial jobs or work the night shift, or who like their drugs more than work, or who are spoiled youngsters used to having everything handed to them. 

It is likely that all these factors play some role in why there are so many unfilled jobs. One would think this is a simple supply and demand problem to remedy. Identify the specific skills needed by most employers and then have the education and training providers upskill students and workers to learn and master the required competencies. But apparently doing so is not so simple. 

What strikes me in the research on this topic is that there are practically no lists of specific skills that are in short supply. We can find the career areas where there are shortages, for example in nursing, industrial technicians, computer network specialists, and so on, but exactly what the elusive skills are appears to be largely a mystery.  

This suggests to me that there may not be a skills gap at all, but rather a failing in the way individuals are aligned with work for which they are best suited. In other words, there may be a lack of fit between too many workers and employment opportunities. 

This lack of fit problem is not new. Over the past century or so it has been a challenge to match increased numbers of workers with burgeoning career options. Indeed, the career development field arose out of a need to address this issue.  

What is new, perhaps, is the escalating scale and scope of unprecedented numbers of prospective workers and career opportunities. The degree of guidance, counseling, and training by schools, businesses, professional associations, and other stakeholders to better improve aligning available labor with employment demand may need greater attention than has been accessible to date. 

If true full employment is to be achieved, and with it the benefits of economic growth and widely spread prosperity, then it seems it is in everyone’s interest to insist on refining the processes whereby workers can access high quality counseling and training to best meet employment scarcity. Government, education, and business could partner more effectively to forge solutions. 

The gap we are now facing may be more of shared commitment and engagement rather than of skills. 

Educating for Impending Careers

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Many of us in the United States were educated as children and young adults so that we could succeed both as citizens sustaining our democratic way of life and as productive workers able to sustain ourselves and our families economically. For the most part, the combination of public and private K–12 schools and higher education universities and colleges has served us quite well. We are by and large a well-educated and constructive populace. 

But can we rely on the old-school methodologies to sustain us for a world of work that will be characterized as mercurial and erratic calling for agility, adaptability, and rapid evolution? There is reason to think not. An economy that is experiencing increased speed and transformation will not be well served by an educational structure and model designed to prepare students for a relatively static and predictable work world. 

Let us examine the existing paradigm that traditionally and currently defines most American high schools and colleges. There are two patterns at play based on the concepts of liberal education and career-focused education. By the time a student reaches high school they select or have selected for them one of these persuasions or the other. 

Liberal (or liberal arts) education refers to an approach that encourages a broad and diverse exposure to fundamental and diverse subject matter with the goal being to educate a student for a complex world requiring a variety of perspectives, skills, and areas of knowledge. When and if college is reached, the student fits into this mix a concentrated focus in one or more disciplines. 

A career-focused or vocational path on the other hand focuses much more on preparing the student for a relevant job that is in demand in the workforce. Breadth gives way to depth in that a craft or skillset demonstrably employable is chosen, studied, and eventually mastered by the student. 

To be clear, I am not suggesting that there is anything fundamentally wrong with these models. My concern is in the traditional modes of delivery of the designs. We are still under the assumption that a high school diploma and/or college degree program that terminates upon graduation is enough to provide a student for a lifetime career. It used to be. However, projections are that it will not be enough going forward. 

The workplace and its career needs are becoming increasingly digitized and globalized, resulting in an urgency for malleable, resilient, and entrepreneurial workers to address the ever-vibrant economic demands across the planet. To maintain these attributes workers will need to accept and embrace continuous lifelong learning, upskilling, and training to keep up and stay ahead. Schooling will never end. In fact, it will become an integral and ongoing part of any advantageous job worth having for most people. 

We will likely see a time when liberal and career-focused methods become more of an as-needed hybrid with a greater proliferation of skill and knowledge-based certification and training programs not necessarily tied to slow moving traditional education settings. Students, employees, and educators will begin migrating more intentionally into online, virtual, and yes, brick & mortar learning facilities that offer the highest quality, data driven, short and long-term instruction essential to the requirements of the emerging economy. 

As an educator myself with 31 years in public schools and 5 years as a part time college adjunct I can say with some certainty that this industry will not on its own move in this direction without a lot of resistance. There are many entrenched interests compelled to resist such changes.  

A more responsive and pragmatic instructional delivery will likely arise from a combination of innovative educators and demanding students and employees requiring relevant reactive instruction. We can all begin by getting our heads around the concept of lifelong learning. I predict it will be far more energizing and efficient and much less stuck and draining. 

The Continued Evolution of LinkedIn

Posted on by Bill Ryan

The professional, business, and employment social media online platform LinkedIn is at it again, but in a bigger way this time. As individuals who regularly use LinkedIn to source talent, post jobs, display professional profiles, or network with other users we know that LinkedIn frequently tinkers with the interface to “improve” usability. It has always been a dynamic and growing service and one must assume they are doing something right with $3B+ in annual revenue and 460+ million user accounts worldwide. Not bad for a novel concept that first went live in 2003. 

The latest big set of changes has been rolling out for the past couple of months following the completed acquisition of LinkedIn by Microsoft in December 2016. Time will tell of course if this will be a good move for both parties. Let us hope this deal does not go the way of doomed Microsoft ventures like Nokia’s handset and aQuantive software. However, given the financial heft and prominent position in the digital services market Microsoft enjoys it is reasonable to expect that this takeover will boost LinkedIn’s standing and influence in the career and employment services space. 

Without getting into the weeds of all the many new minute interaction changes of the website, and there are enough, so that a new learning curve has appeared to get familiar with the site, it nevertheless appears to someone like me that I am increasingly finding LinkedIn to be my digital place to go to work. And I am not alone, Logging into LinkedIn.com is becoming my virtual commute to a real job. 

As in a traditional workplace there are those I work with frequently and closely on a project, those I know remotely, and those I am reaching out to as potential sources of value and opportunity. It is in these areas of taking connectivity among professional people to a more functional, transparent, and far-reaching level where LinkedIn holds great promise. 

The effects of globalization have thankfully become a hotly debated issue politically, but in the world of e-commerce impacted as it is by the powers of social media and crowd sourcing, the players are not waiting around for slow moving governments to set the rules. Global inter-connectivity and commerce is just starting to get ramped-up via international platforms like LinkedIn. It looks like we are heading into a world in which small-scaled and remote outreaches among millions of entrepreneurs, freelancers, microbusinesses, and small businesses across the planet can be exchanged 24/7. 

LinkedIn, and now by extension Microsoft, are betting on this proliferation of e-business, so much so that there is a mission to “economically graph” the world through its site. What does this mean? As Jeff Weiner, LinkedIn’s CEO puts it, they are committed to digitally mapping the global economy by building a profile for every member of the international workforce and for every company in the world. 

Further they intend to digitally list every available job in real refreshed time, list every skill needed to perform those jobs, and identify every school or training facility providing the skill instruction needed to perform these jobs. Facilitating an efficient, timely, and rich flow of information that connects these dots completes the goal. 

Given this infrastructure the potential for enriching current employment, business development, and career needs while also fulfilling the talent requirements for the innumerable jobs of the future seems highly likely. 

An expansive vision of the possibilities e-commerce and e-networking can deliver should be embraced. Many new careers can be made from leveraging a dynamic global economy. Engaging in international business does not any longer have to just be reserved for large multi-national corporations. If one can get a higher quality business or career solution from New Zealand rather than from New Hampshire no matter where in the world one lives, we should expect that to be the new normal and compete appropriately. 

Seven Must-Have Transferable Skills

Posted on by Bill Ryan

As career adjustments and job switching pick up pace, resulting from a somewhat improved employment picture and with the trending migration from long-term employment with one employer to a more free-lanced economy, the need for establishing and cultivating transferable skills becomes more important. 

Transferable skills are those capabilities one develops in one employment context that has currency in another. For example, a teacher may find that her or his skill in curriculum instructional delivery translates well to a training & development position in business or that a police officer’s ability to confront behavioral conflict situations with the public translates well to managing order and productivity among a large retail workforce. 

Transferable skills are most often not specific and discreet competencies, such as being able to make a metal forming roll in a tool and die shop, but rather more general qualifications that lend themselves to a variety of expressions. Convertible skills describe proficiencies that have value across a diverse set of employment situations and for this reason are skills the aspiring employee should know about and develop. 

Here is my list of seven transferable skills each worker with a proclivity for a lattice rather than a linear career should work to expand and refine to increase their chances of customizing their career the way they want. 

  1. Making Quality Decisions — Knowing how to make high impact and consistent decisions that take into proper perspective and consideration relevant information and that balances risk appropriately is a strong skill appreciated almost anywhere. Decision theory is like game theory, involving a durable ability to rationally reach an optimal outcome. If you are making decisions based mostly on fear and inertia, then you have something to work on.
  2. Solving Problems — Name me a business or organization that does not have a significant need for someone who can find resolutions to perplexing problems both big and small. Refining a problem-solving approach that is orderly and technique-based with a track record of success is best. Being able to cite examples of accomplishments as performance evidence of your steady problem-solving methodology is even better.
  3. Persuasion and Negotiation — What is the thing most workers hate about their boss or irritating co-workers? It is when they bully and intimidate to get their way rather than engaging in a thoughtful and genuinely persuasive argument. And yes, although it does not appear to be practiced by members of Congress anymore, reaching compromise through good-faith negotiations usually yields outcomes that satisfy the greatest number of stakeholders.
  4. Analysis — Being able to examine a task, phenomenon, procedure, or problem can go a long way to interpret the meaning of data or to determine the best course of action. By reducing complexity to constituent parts, a better understanding and new prospects can result. This can be useful when trying to assess and grasp the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of a venture, business, or mission.
  5. Synthesis — Conversely showing the skill of combining, mixing, and merging ideas or materials into new and novel concepts and products is the basis of innovation and creativity. Sometimes perspectives need to be reframed so that new and different viewpoints can emerge, from which a competitive edge can arise. Freeing up and training the mind to develop unusual, but valuable means of expression allows organizations to provide improved ways of doing things.
  6. Collaboration — Working in concert with colleagues and stakeholders increases productivity, more efficiently achieves quality outcomes, and effectively reaches shared goals. The process of sharing knowledge and reaching consensus is essential at a time when the means of production grow ever more complex. Let’s face it, having a workplace where people get along and work together is energizing and spiritually uplifting, dare I say even fun.
  7. Networking with Talent – Ambitious and competitive employers know that having talent in their organizations is a good thing. Now, if that talent frequently interacts and learns from other gifted individuals then there is a value-add. When you fertilize your career with esteemed people who you respect and who respect you there comes an increase for the mastery of your career and perhaps even the bottom line for your employer.

Six Characteristics of Success in the Modern Workforce

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Entering this twenty-first century, post-Recession, globalized, and digital workforce can be daunting. Whether you are young and just entering the job search fray, middle aged and trying to maintain or build upon your competitiveness and value, or mature and desperate to stay relevant, securing meaningful work that is well compensated is still a major challenge. 

Just look at the principal obstacle facing us. Job creation is anemic. Sure, it is better than a few years ago, but way too many workers are either underemployed or have given up looking. While Wall Street booms, employment lags. Anxiety remains high for even the employed who still seem reluctant to leave jobs they have, but do not like, for fear of not finding anything better. Why is this? I see several reasons at play. 

  • More and more wealth and power are continually concentrating on the very rich and they do not appear incentivized to be creating many jobs with it. 
  • Perhaps because of #1 the incomes and purchasing power of the middle class is shrinking, which depresses both demand, supply, and jobs. 
  • Globalization has increased competition and innovation, meaning if you are not an over-caffeinated go-getter, you are finding yourself at the back of the line. 
  • Technology expands productivity with fewer workers needed to produce than in the past. 
  • The nature of many jobs is changing. New and ever-changing skills and knowledge bases are in increasing demand. 
  • Government is being constrained to help. There seems to be nothing government can do anymore that is welcomed. Imagine trying to start a Roosevelt-like CCC program today? There would be a revolution from the political Right. 

What’s a job seeker to do? To begin with realize it is tough, but not hopeless. There are characteristics I believe it is wise to possess that will increase your chances of being seen by employers as valuable and desired. These traits transcend most careers and specialty areas and have as much to do with attitude as with training and education. Here is my list of must-have work style attributes for the times in which we live: 

  1. Stay Connected: Build and cultivate your network however you can. Meet face to face, connect on social media, join and participate in groups, volunteer, email and text, and outreach, outreach, outreach. Isolation can be a career killer.
  2. Stay Optimistic: Project hopefulness and positivity. Downers are a turn-off for people, especially co-workers and bosses. Sure, there is a lot going on to depress us, but being angry and negative rarely builds dreams or improves challenging situations.
  3. Stay Confident: Showing a can-do spirit prepares a person for difficulties and inspires others. Confidence, along with its cousinsself-motivation and goal-orientation, generates an energy that leads to high quality outcomes.
  4. Stay Technologically Current: Be curious about the skills and products surrounding us and which define our times. Keep an eye on the latest innovations that will shape our future. Resist the urge to be a luddite who thinks the old ways were always the best ways. Truth is the good old days were not in many cases.
  5. Stay Diverse: Accept and thrive on a multiplicity of ideas and perspectives. Get energized by all the richness inherent in different viewpoints. Varying ideas come from the mixed gender, ethnic, racial, and multigenerational makeup of workforces. The more sources of input the higher the likelihood of success.
  6. Stay Educated: Embrace lifelong learning as a key to staying abreast of current trends, best practices, and what works in your field. Continuous training and education enrich you professionally and will make you more of an asset to employers both current and potential.

Reframing the dismal jobs picture as an opportunity to better your employability and improve your position as a valued employee is one way to cope and perhaps succeed in the modern workforce. 

The Changing Face of Workforce Talent

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Finding and retaining talent for your company or organization used to be relatively straightforward. You inquired about availability of valuable workers from your network, posted job descriptions on widely disseminated job boards, or hired recruiting firms to provide you with temporary or temp to hire personnel. Chances were that eventually the talent you desired was discovered and incentives were applied to keep them with you for the long haul. 

But today we notice forces are at work modifying this process and causing those who source talent to change their game plan. The makeup of the workforce is becoming more global, mobile, independent and less local or rooted in one spatial location. Also, and critically, their long-term loyalty to any one employer is more tenuous. To find the expertise employers need to remain productive, innovative, and competitive means having to adjust methods for finding such moving targets. 

And it is not just the workforce that is changing. Employers’ talent demands reflect the shifts occurring in business driven by the rapid expansion of global and technical interconnectivity. Businesses increasingly need to dial up and down budgets, priorities, and the size of their workforces quickly and efficiently. Agility is a survival skill. 

With that in mind new types of employee-employer relationships are being formed which are often characterized by highly valuable, short-term, project-based connections that are mutually beneficial. The organization gains profitable contributions from their talented associates and the valued participants benefit from career enhancement. 

Given the changing nature of business and of employment both parties are becoming more cognizant of the types of exchanges called for and are positioning themselves to make the right connections when needed. The range of associations goes from fully employed individuals to outsourced service arrangements that satisfy small but critical parts of the larger organizational need. Partnerships, independent contractors, and more engaged outsourcers are playing a greater role in how business is done. 

For the job searcher and those committed to developing their careers, awareness of the ways business and work itself is transforming is crucial. Even though most of us have been brought up to think traditionally about employment — few job changes, development of a single skill, and living near your place of employment — a problem arises if we do not see how the other options mentioned above are becoming available, possibly preferred. We are approaching a time, if we are not already there, when designing a career around portfolio type assignments is as prudent as striving for full time employment with few different employers. 

Global skill markets with their individual players are as diverse, multi-functional, and ready to produce as any talent pool has ever been. The technology that exposes, promotes, and defines them, based primarily on a keyword-rich social media model, means that a fluid and robust recruitment industry can play an important role in facilitating valuable connections. We already see the expanded use of LinkedIn, essentially an international expertise database, becoming a primary means of sourcing talent. This and other human-technological applications are sure to boost the effectiveness of employer-employee matchmaking. 

The importance of mobility and lack of geographical tethering is also worth noting in the way workforces are evolving. Talent can be secured virtually from anywhere that has an Internet connection. Many projects can be advanced using contributors from a variety of places around the world. Although physical face-to-face collaboration certainly has its advantages it is by no means the only way to produce at a high functioning level. Cost alone may sometimes dictate that remote collaboration be activated. 

A flatter operational arrangement seems to be one way of describing the changing face of the workforce. Businesses need talent and talent needs businesses. Sure, this has always been true, but what may be different this time is that the parties are on more equal footings. A clever and spry talented professional has a greater chance of experiencing a nimble career when he or she can negotiate with potential employers from what may be becoming an enhanced power position. 

A Call for Future-Oriented Education

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Encouraging and supporting a high quality system of educating both youth and adults is fundamental to our being a thriving and competitive country in today’s global marketplace. A nation that would short-change its schools and training opportunities gets what it pays for — an unmotivated and unskilled workforce. 

But the role of educational institutions is under pressure to change not just some of its practices, but its core mission. Preparing citizens for the future is not what it used to be. Historically, it was accepted that a relatively limited set of skills were needed to fortify a person for the world that awaited. We had the canon of reading, writing, and arithmetic (still important, of course) and threw in some knowledge to encourage citizenship. However, beyond that, students were largely on their own to determine which of several career paths they would choose. 

Not so in the 21st century. Even a bachelor’s degree may not be enough to suffice for an entire career. The nature of work and professionalism is changing too rapidly. In fact, it is estimated that today what one learns in college will in many ways be outdated before the student loans are paid off. Even the so-called blue-collar jobs are becoming more technical and require skills and certifications that did not exist in the recent past. 

Also, blue collar no longer equates to low skill. To think that achieving a certain level of education will be adequate for almost any career today is shortsighted and rooted in old-fashioned ways of thinking. 

For those dedicated to teaching, training, and helping people learn, this news is good. It means your job never ends. Education is ongoing. Learning is lifelong.  

The ones who most need to reframe their thinking are all the rest of us who need to wrap our arms around the reality that obsolescence will always be nipping at our heels and that learning, relearning, and unlearning are now constants. Complacency is the greatest threat to our careers. Growing accustomed to changing skills and demands is the greatest benefit. 

Workforce growth is linked to sophisticated skill development. However, according to the U.S. Labor Department there is a lack of talent in the STEM careers (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math), healthcare, and business. One thing this recession has made clear is that economic recovery is not about recreating conditions whereby people can return to their old jobs. It is much more about realizing that successful long-term employment is in preparing a workforce capable of performing in relevant jobs of the future. And that future is now. 

Companies that do the hiring are increasingly concerned about the lack of necessary skills available. This problem is now as egregious as other competitive issues such as location, transportation of products, and procurement of materials. 

The problem grows larger when you look out over the legions of unemployed and see that three-fourths of them only have a high school education. If you want to be a player in the workforce of tomorrow, you must accept that a high school diploma is not enough. Be ready to get higher ed, vocational ed, or other skill training however you can do it and know that learning will be continuous. For many of us this will be the only path to living the lifestyle we want. 

Schools should start getting this message to students at a young age. Society needs to shake loose this notion that education is something you do before living. Rather, it is what we do as part of living. A thriving, dynamic, and competitive nation is one that is always learning and adapting. 

Is There Really a Talent Shortage?

Posted on by Bill Ryan

There are some common claims being tossed around in the national self-diagnosis now occurring of why hiring is not significantly picking up. Declarations such as employers are learning to do more with fewer employees and that there is too much economic uncertainty to risk hiring employees, especially after how bad businesses were hurt at the start of the recession, are two assertions often heard. 

There is another claim that does not get quite as much play but is starting to be heard often enough. It is that employers cannot hire as much as they would like because there is a talent shortage. 

Apparently, the workplace is changing so rapidly that schools and the individuals attending them cannot keep up with newly designed job descriptions, many of which contain specialty requirements. This seems particularly true in industries such as IT and engineering.  

However, the alleged shortage is occurring throughout the workforce — or so many employers tell us. We can easily be left with the impression that growth in innovation is now so exponential that it is the fault of our lagging workforce not preparing themselves briskly enough for the new world order. 

So, is there really a talent shortage? Upon closer examination it may be that employers are unwittingly perpetuating a shortage and dampening hiring as a result. 

Yes, employers do feel there is something wrong with the candidate pool. And that something is that candidates are not qualified enough. If there were more qualified candidates, there would be more hiring. This seems to be their charge. It must be the candidates’ problem, right? 

But let us look at how the employer landscape has changed for potential employees. Employers are extremely cost conscious because of the recession. This has caused them to reduce and consolidate their workforces. Specialty hybrid positions have been created to produce more multiple-skilled positions than existed pre-recession. Therefore, when an opening occurs, a candidate is supposed to be specialized in not just one skill set but in more than one. Obviously, the pool of likely candidates just shrunk a lot. 

Let us dig a little deeper. Among the costs being saved is in reducing or eliminating training and development. Why spend on onboarding when you can hire plug and play defacto independent contractors for specific projects? With no onboarding activities the expectation is that candidates must be ready to produce with little to no ramp-up time. This may discourage candidates from applying or is the cause of early departures once hired.  

Another issue employers must contend with is the huge number of applicants sending in applications. A screening process must be used that selects out all but the “best”. This increasingly means use of applicant tracking system software. Two issues with this type of software. One is that it is not always very nuanced enough or sophisticated. Second, use of even the most effective software requires skillful and dedicated HR use, another area seeing cost cutting. 

Potential talent is being screened out. A related issue for employers is maybe they could at least let applicants know that their application was received and processed, then they wouldn’t be left wondering if their application ever made to you, reducing the number of times they apply for the same position. 

Sure, the workplace is changing, and it is important for candidates to keep skills current and to apply to only those positions for which they are qualified to succeed. But employers also have a responsibility to examine their hiring practices to see if they are contributing to not only their own “talent shortage”, but also to the stubbornly low levels of hiring nationwide.