Menu
Employers and workforce constitute a key building block in the learn-and-work ecosystem. Workforce development is the bridge between employers and workers, an interconnected set of circumstances and solutions designed to meet employment needs—including workplace education, skills development, and the hiring demands of employers.
Employers face numerous hiring challenges, including lack of clarity about the skills they require, underdeveloped pathways from high school to the workforce, the exodus of older workers, the need to recruit for diversity, and difficulties in finding enough qualified workers and, once hired, in retaining them.
Rapid technological advances make it difficult for employees, employers, and educators to identify the skills that job seekers need. Job seekers also often have incomplete or inaccurate information about the skills that potential employers will find valuable.
The landscape of workforce development is decentralized, but many stakeholders play important roles:
Leaders in human resources are increasingly interested in skills-based hiring, online microcredentials, and pre-hire assessments. While traditional college degrees continue to hold value, more employers are moving toward hiring based on applicants’ skills or competencies. The market for non-degree microcredentials and the rise of skills-based hiring is rapidly growing. These strategies, typically enabled by digital technology, involve employers in defining the specific skills that are necessary for the job and then seeking those skills in candidates.
A growing number of companies have moved beyond training their own employees or providing tuition assistance programs to help workers pursue higher education. Some employers are also developing their own curricula and offering publicly facing credential programs (e.g., certificates, badges, microcredentials, and certifications) to their employees and the general public. These employer-issued credentials are becoming a major part of the broader trend toward skills-based hiring and the creation of alternative, non-degree pathways to careers and professional advancement. The boom in employer-issued credentials is potentially transformational. Many of the new company-issued credentials reflect competency or content mastery in specialized areas in the same way that traditional educational certificates and degrees do. And, as much as these employer-issued credentials are talked about as substitutes for college degrees, they are increasingly being woven into college curricula through partnerships with postsecondary institutions, stacked into degrees, and integrated into new pathways to jobs for traditional students and adult learners.
Other major sources about employers and workforce include the list below. Most of these entities also host informative webinars and podcasts on numerous workforce development issues:
Jobs for the Future
National Fund for Workforce Solutions
The Project on Workforce at Harvard
Education and Employment Research Center
Non-degree Credential Research Network
Corporation for a Skilled Workforce
For the ecosystem to function effectively, all parts of the system must be connected and coordinated.
