The report is based on an detailed survey of 431 human resource officials that was conducted in April and May 2006 by the Conference Board, Corporate Voices for Working Families, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, and the Society for Human Resource Management. Its objective was to examine employers’ views on the readiness of new entrants to the U.S. workforce — recently hired graduates from high schools, two-year colleges or technical schools, and four-year colleges.
“The future workforce is here, and it is ill-prepared,” concludes the report.
The findings reflect employers’ growing frustrations over the preparedness of new entrants to the workforce. Employers expect young people to arrive with a core set of basic knowledge and the ability to apply their skills in the workplace, but the reality is not matching the expectation.
Business leaders report that while the three “R’s” are still fundamental to every employee’s ability to do the job, applied skills such as teamwork, critical thinking, and communication are essential for success at work. In fact, at all educational levels, these applied skills trump basic knowledge skills such as reading and mathematics in importance in the view of employers. In order to succeed in the workplace of the 21st century, high school and college graduates need to master basic academic skills as well as a complement of applied skills. The survey also found though that too many new entrants to the workforce are not adequately prepared in these important skills.
Nearly three-quarters of survey participants (70 percent) cite deficiencies among incoming high school graduates in “applied” skills, such as professionalism and work ethic, defined as “demonstrating personal accountability, effective work habits, e.g. punctuality, working productively with others, time and workload management.”
More than 40 percent of surveyed employers say incoming high school graduates hired are deficiently prepared for the entry-level jobs they fill. The report finds that recent high school graduates lack the basic skills in reading comprehension, writing and math, which many respondents say were needed for successful job performance.
“This study should serve as an alert to educators, policy makers and those concerned with U.S. economic competitiveness that we may be facing a skills shortage,” said Susan Meisinger, president and CEO of the Society for Human Resource Management. “In a knowledge-based economy a talented workforce with communication and critical thinking skills is necessary for organizations and the U.S. to be successful.”
The findings show an especially big gap in writing skills. In addition to lackluster writing skills of incoming high school graduates, it continued to be a problem among both two-year and four-year college graduates.
Over half (58 percent) of responding employers say critical thinking and problem solving skills are “very important” for incoming high school graduates’ successful job performance, yet nearly three-quarters of respondents (70 percent) rated recently hired high school graduates as deficient in critical thinking.
Looking toward the future, nearly three-fourths of the survey participants ranked “creativity/innovation” as among the top five applied skills projected to increase in importance for future graduates.
In addition, knowledge of foreign languages, cultures, and global markets will become increasingly important for future graduates entering the U.S. workforce. When asked to project the changing importance of several knowledge and skill needs over the next five years, 63 percent of survey participants cited foreign languages as increasing in importance more than any other basic knowledge area or skill. And, in separate questions about emerging content areas, half of the respondents noted the use of “non-English languages as a tool for understanding other nations, markets, and cultures,” while 53 percent selected “understanding of global markets and the economic and cultural impacts of globalization.”
Making appropriate choices concerning health and wellness is the number one emerging topic considered most critical for future graduates entering the workforce. More than three-quarters of survey participants (76 percent) say that “making appropriate choices concerning health and wellness, such as nutrition, exercise, stress reduction, work-life effectiveness” is an emerging content area that will be most critical for future graduates.
On a brighter note, workforce readiness of high school graduates was reported as adequate by a majority of survey participants in three areas considered critical for current and future workplace needs: information technology, team work, and diversity. The report attributes this to “focused unified energy and resources” by business leaders, educators and communities.
The report includes a one-page Workforce Readiness Report Card, which assesses the readiness of new workforce entrants in skills deemed very important by a majority of the employer respondents to the survey on which this report is based.