Leadership Opportunity: Workforce Preparedness

The role of higher education in workforce preparedness is an ongoing issue faced by university leadership. Workforce preparedness ensures that today and tomorrow’s workforce has the skills, competencies, and behaviors needed to succeed in today’s and tomorrow’s workplace. This can be achieved by forging alliances between business, education, and the community (Utah SHRM). NACE (National Association of Colleges and Employers) has identified key competencies associated with career readiness including critical thinking/problem solving, oral/written communications, teamwork/collaboration, digital technology, leadership, professionalism/work ethic, career management, global/intercultural fluency (NACE, 2017). The challenge around this topic is reflected in data released by PayScale, which posits that more than half of all companies surveyed (60 percent) said that new graduates lacked critical thinking skills and attention to detail (56 percent), with 44 percent of employers stating that graduates lacked adequate writing proficiency, and 39 percent critiqued public speaking skills (Berr, 2016).

There is an opportunity for a university president to exemplify leadership by ensuring that their institution is doing its part in better preparing graduates for the workforce according to NACE’s list of key competencies by galvanizing the entire institution to work towards this shared vision. The president might do this by leading a collaboration between both academic and student affairs to incorporate these competencies as much as possible into the student experience in and out of the classroom. This matters for several reasons: (1) college costs are rising and students expect a return on their investment by attaining gainful employment; (2) colleges have a crucial role in educating and preparing students for work, as well as providing employers with a prepared workforce; (3) the lack of readiness is leading candidates to seek further education to remain competitive, thus causing them to spend more money, acquire more student debt, and delay their career trajectories; (4) and this is an opportunity for universities to assess their institutional performance and realign strategy as needed, promoting cohesion and collaboration as needed.

In order to tackle this issue of workforce preparedness, a university president will need to employ both a situational and adaptive leadership approach (Northouse, 2016). Because context matters, an effective president will need to accurately diagnose the development level of followers in a goal situation and then exhibit the prescribed matching leadership style so that the followers can be not only led to take action, but also motivated to buy in to the directive. Additionally, an adaptive leadership approach helps people change and adjust to new situations, with leaders encouraging others to problem solve, instead of the other way around. The key players and offices needed in this process of reassessment and revision might be resistant to change, so the president should try their best to provide their followers with ownership of the solutions.

Placing workforce preparedness as a university priority will significantly impact students, faculty, the institution, and the state or nation.

For students, the classroom and campus experience will be augmented, so students might be exposed to more opportunities to flex skills in the competency areas. They will potentially become more well-rounded individuals, who are strong not just academically. Also, their acquisition of these in-demand skills will potentially lead to more job opportunities after graduation.

As for the faculty, they may have to redesign their curriculum in order to make room for the development of in-demand skills. Faculty may be resistant to this change, but this might also encourage them to reevaluate their pedagogical approaches. It will be imperative for faculty to feel supported through this period.

The institution will also greatly be impacted. This focus on workforce preparedness will increase collaboration across areas such as academic affairs, residential life, career services, alumni affairs, etc. The institution might also see more alumni engagement through the creation of partnerships and alumni wanting to give back through providing mentorship or employment opportunities. Also, if the institution is graduating more and more workforce-ready people, their job outlook will be more favorable and could lead to an increase in rankings for the institution. The institution might also gain more respect and be viewed as a thought leader in the workforce preparedness arena.

Finally, the impact that workforce preparedness will have on the state or nation will be the increase in employment rates and the boost in economy performance, due to job market activity and output.

It is crucial for institutions to play their role in workforce preparedness. Institutions of higher education would be doing students a disservice by not taking the feedback from employers and ensuring that students are being set up for success. The university president is in a unique position to be able to influence change and collaboration across an institution through a leadership approach that is both situational and adaptive, because workforce preparedness is the sum of various departments and offices working together for the benefit of students.

References:

Berr, Jonathan. “Employers: New college grads aren't ready for workplace.” CBS News, CBS

Interactive, 17 May 2016.

Career Readiness Defined. NACE. 2017.

naceweb.org/career-readiness/competencies/career-readiness-defined/.

Northouse, P.G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice (7th Edition). Washington, D.C.: Sage.

“Workforce Readiness.” Workforce Readiness | Utah SHRM, utah.shrm.org/workforce-readiness.