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Home / Washington Business - May/June 2005 / Workforce Washington: Conquering the Skills Gap |
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Workforce Washington: Conquering the Skills Gap |
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Written On: May/June 2005 |
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Written By: by Mike Hudson |
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Even a company that has the right product, strategies and technology can be unable to compete if its workforce lacks the right skills. A case in point, last year’s Seattle Mariners.
The front office knew they were not competitive last year and analyzed the situation to determine the problem.
It wasn’t a technology problem. Safeco Field ranks among the finest ball parks in the major leagues with all the latest audio, video and electronic enhancements. And since the Mariners drew sell-out crowds all season, it wasn’t a pricing or a revenue problem. Served by media outlets around the globe because of their international players, it wasn’t a distribution problem. The only thing left was a workforce problem. Some employees lacked basic skills like hitting, pitching and field management. Once the problem was identified, management set out to fill those "skills gaps."
Retraining employees was not an option. The team would have to hire new employees with the desired skills—easier said than done. According to the 2004 Employers Survey conducted by the Workforce Training and Education Coordinating Board, assisted by AWB, 45 percent of Washington’s employers who hired new workers last year had difficulty finding skilled employees.
Are the Mariners now competitive? That question will not be answered for another couple of months (preliminary results are not encouraging).
The Mariners sought workers with job-specific or “hard skills.” Hard skills are easily measured or demonstrated. Other Washington employers, however, have trouble finding workers with “soft skills.” Soft skills are less obvious but important to insure a smoothly working organization. Soft skills include: communications, decision-making, interpersonal and life-long learning skills. AWB members tell us that job applicants they see have hard and soft skill gaps from not knowing how to make change for a dollar to not understanding the concept of coming to work on time. Trying to overcome these gaps costs Washington businesses money for recruitment, training, turnover and productivity.
There are many ways to test for job-specific skills but, until recently, nothing to help employers ascertain soft skills. AWB has partnered with the Workforce Training and Education Coordinating Board, four other states and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to develop the Work Readiness Credential. Employers will be able to use this to identify qualified candidates for entry-level jobs, and job seekers will be able to demonstrate the knowledge and skills required for success. This credential is one more tool to help employers remain competitive.
The WRC is currently being tested in Washington with entry-level employees and supervisors. Once those tests are evaluated, refinements made, and the support materials developed, the credential should be ready to go in early 2006.
In our next column, we’ll get into the details of the WRC and how it can help your business stay competitive. We may even profile another Washington business with a major skills gap—the Seattle Seahawks.
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