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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsLadies and Gentlemen, America's unemployment levels are due to a giant skills mismatch problem.
Americans lack the skills to survive while working at lower than subsistence level wages, or for free.
It's not the economy's fault that you want to be able to eat after you leave work!
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elehhhhna
(32,076 posts)unwilling to train people, and have been for the last decade (at least), and are now whining about the result of these shortsighted, cheap policies.
Folks beef about Exxon as an evil entity but it's worth noting that their success is partly attributableto certain factors: they have a fantastic training program (at least in the geosciences), and they pay like a slotmachine, with a fat pension @ 20 years. Wanna rotate to Sweden? Chad? Ulan Baator? Scotland? Moscow? Dubai? Employee development and retention done right. I think this is why they're the most successful in their class.
Note: they are not a client of mine.
MANative
(4,129 posts)...without a single doubt that you have hit the nail on the head. About a dozen years ago, coinciding with the rise of the Bush/Neocon/Insane Repub era, corporate training programs started to go the way of the dinosaur. All developmental work was slashed in favor of basic computer training and functional (job specific) skills training.
What the vast majority of corporate "leaders" don't understand is that "management" skill is not taught in MBA programs, certainly not to the extent that is required to manage a workgroup or improve one's leadership ability. MBAs teach about "business" skill - very, very different from "management" skill. The way people have learned the nuances of these skills is through developmental opportunities and guided learning. They are not inherent skill for most people. Sadly, most supervisors simply emulate the management style of their own boss, and the less specific knowledge that they gain along the way, the more likely they will not recognize the mistakes, thus being doomed to repeat them, and in the absence of new learning for themselves and their own subordinates, thus perpetuating the problem.
I headed the executive development team for a very large, multi-billion dollar, international retailer in Manhattan. With over twenty years of experience, having completely reinvented the company's approach to performance management (which they are still using seven years after my departure), and having been recognized as one of the country's foremost experts in adult behavioral development, they asked me to train computer classes in Microsoft Word and Excel rather than work with executives to develop their next group of leaders. Unbelievable.
ETA: The OP is actually not wrong that there is a skills mismatch, but it's been created by the employers and corporations, not by the workers. I've rarely found an employee who was not eager to participate in development programs. They are, however, rarely available now, either inside or outside a corporate environment. We have not, and will not, unless things change dramatically, developed our bench strength for the next level of managers. Corporations will discover the hard way what a huge, short-sighted mistake this has been.
WinniSkipper
(363 posts)I couldn't agree more. I have worked in just about every size and type of atmosphere: start ups, large corporations, mid-size, government, different industries, etc.
The corporate mind structure that equates MBA's with management skills is flawed. Most MBAs have developed zero 'people management skills'. They are rarely in a position to do so. The result is an usually an MBA with good 'technical' ability, but one who is not skilled in getting the most out of their people, or recognizing abilities.
The companies I gravitated to, and that we built, were based on the assumption of hiring the right person for the job. Meaning we hired the person, not the skills. Of course they had to have familiarity, but we could grow and develop people. If we had to train, we would. You have to be nimble, and able to adapt, much quicker than in the past. One way to assure that would not happen was to make sure we had people who could adapt with the changes to the business.
There is no quicker route to failure than unhappy employees.
MANative
(4,129 posts)The program that I developed pioneered an integrated approach to selection, training, evaluation and succession, targeting core competencies by industry then job function. My group had incredible success by using the exact set of criteria to screen applicants, make the hiring decision, training to enhance those competencies, evaluating performance on their execution, then making promotion/succession decisions based on the presence of competencies for the next level position (not purely on success in the previous one). Our turnover rate was less than 25% than that of our competitors, and the vadt majority of senior-level roles were able to be filled from within.
That sums up nearly 25 years of research in performance management in one paragraph! My research also concluded that it's more effective and less expensive in the long run to hire two people with complementary skills than to hire one who's an expert in one function but who sucks at another. Keep them both, and you have significantly better than double the productivity while both workers maintain much higher job satisfaction and success.
I saw that your decision to "expand your horizons" was based around the Microsoft and Excel training. I had to almost laugh. Some of the stuff you see nowadays, in the biggest, most successful companies, makes you wonder how they stay in business.
And that's what they all forget. They all forget names like Kodak, Pan Am, Oldsmobile. Any member of that long and distinguished list of companies that would always be giants.
Building for success today demands more of what you did in your 25 years. In fact it needs to be expanded upon. That's what is so attractive about the Valley here. In addition to just being a pretty exciting place to work, the varieties of approaches to management and building companies is also pretty fascinating.
You sure get all kinds out here.
MANative
(4,129 posts)It's always "stunning" to corporate execs when they see improved productivity, happier employees and reduced unwanted turnover after training or development programs are implemented. Duh!
coalition_unwilling
(14,180 posts)financial crisis of 2007-present.
When I TA'ed at the U. of Wisconsin in the late 80s, 25% of the entering freshman class had pre-declared as 'business major.' That should have set off alarm bells galore.
Higher education in this country has been turned into vocational training. I suppose that's better than using higher ed as an excuse to prolong adolescence, but I'm not sure how much better.
elehhhhna
(32,076 posts)(inthe mid-80's forward) it all went to hell
the conscience of the company was busted down to a risk management function.
MANative
(4,129 posts)I knew that it was all going to hell when the intrinsic value of the training was completely ignored, and I had to start creating algorithms to prove ROI. Subsequent research has proved that the employee satisfaction factor far outstrips the cash factor. I worked on a research project with Gallup (the Q12 Project) and our data demonstrated that the single most important motivator for employees in wanting to produce for their employer was, and I quote directly from the findings, "the ability to learn and grow, regardless of upward movement within the organization." Says something.
Also did some work building from Marcus Buckingham's book, "First, Break All the Rules" and confirmed that it's a waste of time, energy and resources to ask people to do anything other than what they love and where their greatest skills lie.
hootinholler
(26,449 posts)Was an indicator the upper management class was out of touch and implies that people are fungible.
Humans are not resources to be used but people to be nourished. Engineers are not plug compatible with each other, if you wish to do great things, you must build a compatible team.
MNBrewer
(8,462 posts)
lunatica
(53,410 posts)Human Capital Management.
They're also undertaking a huge downsizing by centralizing all the 'shared services'. A couple of years ago they hired a company for $3 million dollars to find ways for the University to save money because of the State budget being cut. The company managed to turn themselves into a permanent University department and the new jobs hiring for the University is overwhelmingly for their top and middle managers. They're going to rip employees away from every single department and move them, rumor has it, to some warehouse building away from the university and everything will be done electronically. Shopping for the labs to hiring the Grad Students and Work Study students to managing grant money to computer services to reimbursements, and paying the bills will all be done away from the departments electronically.
The really sad part is that those of us who get moved away from the campus will not be able to be part of the campus with its wonderful activities and its beautiful tourist attracting grounds. Activities like free concerts given by the music departments, to any number of social organizations. We'll be chained to our cubicles never interacting with the students or Faculty face to face and forever grinding at the same enormous pile of orders or reimbursements every day. Gone will be the day where you could do many roles in one department because we will be doing just one perpetually. The plan is to stretch the move through 2014 moving everyone in phases.
They don't have a clue, nor do they care of the emotional relationship that exists between the staff, the students and the Faculty. UC Berkeley is the kind of place where employees stay for life. At least up to now. People on all sides have grown old together.
For staff it's never been about good pay. It's much more about having a job that actually benefits humanity. It's really sad to see them making the bottom line the goal, rather than putting out world class graduates and research.
hootinholler
(26,449 posts)To capital, implying we are owned?
At least they're being honest about what they think of people.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)The way to make more money by cubicle-izing skills and spending less on salaries
MichiganVote
(21,086 posts)
musical_soul
(775 posts)why should we go to school to get trained for a job if we're not guaranteed a job after we graduate?
Getting additional skills are good, but I'm in a lot of debt because I went back to school and couldn't managed to get passed for what I applied for.
kenny blankenship
(15,689 posts)
Pepperidge Farm remembers.
coalition_unwilling
(14,180 posts)And what is the connection to Pepperidge Farm?
I'm a bit of a pop culture illiterate, but there's always room to fill in the gaps.
FSogol
(46,025 posts)by the same name. The Pepperidge farm comment? Just an internet meme, afaik/
coalition_unwilling
(14,180 posts)movie in my local DVD rental shop a couple weeks ago and considered it but passed it by for some other title.
The novel "No Country for Old Men" is as devastating, or more devastating, than the film version, imo.
Thanks for that.
FSogol
(46,025 posts)
RagAss
(13,832 posts)The fascists won.
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)
bluestate10
(10,942 posts)Politicians have been shortsighted in getting the nation to this point. But at present, the nation does not have enough scientists and engineers, or enough Tool and Die Makers, Draftpeople or Machinists. The shortage of trained americans for those skilled jobs is hurting both small and large businesses. We have an upside down economy when jobs that pay $10 per hour have an overwhelming number of applicants while jobs that pay $100,000 per year or more can't be filled because of the lack of people with the needed skills to perform those jobs. The problem that we have as a nation is how to not only create jobs, but develop a broad range of skills to fill those jobs. A working society needs janitors and gravediggers as much as it needs scientists and executives, the challenge that we have failed at is making the pay for work relative. An executive should not make $15 million per year and a gravedigger barely survive on $20,000 per year, their relative contributions to society are not as different as their salaries imply.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)He makes prototype orthopedic medical devices for the most part, artificial joints, custom tools for surgery, creative work in a highly critical environment, the surgeons talk directly to his team and tell them what they want, his feedback is critical to the design process because he tells them what can be made.
We were talking recently and he mentioned that he's never made over $50K in his life.
I think your figures for pay on some of the jobs you mention might be on the high side..
Edited for grammer..