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Solutions to STEM Skills Mismatch

Saturday, February 25th, 2012

My December 26, 2011 blog, Expanding the Ranks of STEM Professionals, examined some of the realities and the myths behind the much discussed skills mismatch in the U.S. labor force; a mismatch characterized by a surplus of people looking for jobs, but a shortage of people with the skills for which employees are looking. This is reflected in an economy in which there are more than four unemployed workers for every job opening, but also thousands of unfilled positions (primarily technical) for which employers have been unable to find people with the required skills.

In a nutshell, the disagreement, as I explained in last month’s article, boils down to three interpretations of the shortage problem:

  1. We are not educating or training enough STEM professionals;
  2. We are educating/training enough people, but employers are not paying them enough to attract them from jobs in fields such as management consulting or investment banking. This problem is exacerbated by U.S. government policies that make it difficult or unattractive for U.S.-educated, foreign-born citizens to stay in the U.S. and by increased aggressiveness of emerging country companies (especially Chinese and Indian) to recruit and attract top university graduates with offers of permanent visas, comparable salaries, attractive benefit packages, and the promise of interesting, resume-burnishing overseas work; and
  3. We are educating/training enough people, but many have insufficient functional skills (in their specific discipline) or broad foundational skills (communications, cognitive, etc.) to be hired in STEM jobs.

Although proponents of each of these interpretations disagree on many things, they generally do agree on two issues:

  1. Our K-12 educational system is not doing a good job at teaching STEM fundamentals (and thereby not preparing students for college-level work in these fields) or in creating the type of curiosity and excitement required to motivate our best and brightest to become engineers and scientists;
  2. Employers, who are cutting back on their own training programs, will accept only graduates who can fill a current need or otherwise deliver immediate value.

In Search of “THE STEM Solution”

We certainly don’t and possibly never will, fully agree on all of the specific “cause/s” of the STEM skills mismatch problem. However, most agree that the tech industry is having trouble getting the number and quality of people that it needs. Many agree that the reasons for this are two-fold:

  • The imitations of our K-12 education system; and
  • A dearth of corporate training programs;

I, along with virtually everybody else who examines the education-to-career pipeline, fully acknowledge that K-12 education is at the root of many of our problems. Unfortunately, none of the experts seem to be able to agree on the cause of this problem, much less on its solutions. Even if they could agree, the educational system is highly unlikely to get additional money (or probably, even avoid additional cuts) from state and local governments. Moreover, even if we were to identify the magic bullet, and could afford to develop and shoot it, it would probably take at least half of a generation to begin seeing meaningful results.

Compared with fixing the K-12 educational system, improving corporate training programs should be a piece of cake. After all, big companies already know how to provide training. Some, particularly those with large operations in India and China, already provide extensive education and training programs to compensate for the big gaps in these countries’ educational systems. Although smaller companies may not have such capabilities, even they can retain specialists to develop and administer programs that are tailored to their needs. The “only thing” that it will really take to address these needs is money. This too, however, will be a very tall order in the current era of economic uncertainty and unrelenting belt-tightening.

Moreover, even if we identify solutions to, invest in and address both of these potential issues, what if the underlying problem—companies’ inability to find people suited to fill specific STEM job openings—is not resolved?

Plugging the Leaks in the STEM Pipeline

There is no question. We absolutely must work to fix the K-12 educational system—for the good of our society, as well as for our companies. I would also love to see a recreation of many of the traditional corporate training programs. Ideally, I would particularly like to see U.S. companies go further, as by creating programs of the type that are widely used in India—whereby companies establish their own schools in which all new recruits are brought up to a common, base level of capabilities and then provided basic training in the specific disciplines to which they will be initially assigned. Such programs, could be used both, for new graduates (whichever level of school is appropriate for the anticipated positions) or for current or displaced employees who need to be retrained for new jobs.

In reality, however, such hopes are little more than pipedreams, at least in today’s economic and fiscal environment. Although we can certainly hope for progress in each of these areas, there are a number of generally smaller, more incremental steps that have the potential of at least alleviating part of the core STEM skills mismatch problem. For example:

  • Employers can work with state and local governments to develop and continually update an online jobs guide, using a companies’ best estimates on which and how many positions are likely to be available over the next year, the next three years and the next five years, as well as the types of skills, qualifications and/or certifications individuals will need to prepare for these jobs. The postings should also provide anticipated compensation ranges, the schools and programs that train people for these jobs, and examples of potential career paths.
  • Employers can partner with schools—particularly two-year colleges and universities—to jointly develop curricula, courses and materials for teaching the skills that will be needed for these jobs. Employers should also provide volunteer instructors, tools (computers, software, machines, support, etc. on which students can get hands-on training and practice), and, where appropriate, create meaningful internships, apprenticeship or sandwich year programs.
  • Schools, local government organizations, companies and labor unions can invest in training and building networks of “career navigators” who can help students or transitioning workers assess their interests and skills; match these to colleges, curricula and career pathways; and guide clients through college planning and the college-to-career transition. Some non-profits, such as CAEL, already help companies, local governments and labor unions create such programs. It is also working with other organizations to develop an online training and certification process for these navigators.
  • Governments and unions could make it easier for companies to put people though through company-run or company-sponsored training programs, test-hire them at low or subsidized rates for defined periods and easily dismiss those who do not meet expectations.

Most importantly, all students and employees must take much greater responsibility for planning, preparing for and managing their careers and for continually upgrading their skills. They must seek out and proactively work with career navigators to identify and prepare for careers that match their interests and skills, and that are likely to offer strong long-term employment opportunities. They must select schools and employers that offer the educational and training opportunities that will prepare them for these careers. They must, though coursework, reading and extra-curricular activities, develop the foundational skills, as well as the functional skills they will require. And, in the current era of perpetual uncertainty, they must continually assess the long-term trends in their own and other potential career paths and industries, identify needs and opportunities for changes, and continually update and supplement their skills to ensure they will can provide higher and higher levels of value to current and future employers.

Posted in Job and Career Opportunities, Skills Requirements, STEM Careers | No Responses »
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Accenture Contributes Its Professional Development Skills to Non-Employees

Sunday, October 3rd, 2010

Accenture has always considered professional development to be one of its core competencies. It recruits tens of thousands of new employees each year, puts them through intense training programs and follows up with ongoing, career-spanning, personalized professional development and mentoring regimes. In 2009 alone, it dedicated nearly $800 million to these efforts.

The company is now extending its commitment to and skills in training and professional development beyond the walls of its own company to thousands of people—250,000 by 2015 to be exact—who do not, and probably never will work for Accenture. Its newly announced Skills to Succeed initiative is intended to help disadvantaged people from all around the world to develop the skills they will require to get good jobs or to start and build their own businesses (and thereby create jobs for themselves and others).

Accenture, both itself and through its foundations, is funding this initiative through a commitment of more than $100 million in cash, in-kind donations and employee time, over a three-year period. It considers this effort to be so important that it has developed a global operating model to align all aspects of the company and foundations’ corporate citizenship efforts around Skills to Succeed. In fact, it has established a goal that 80% of all the company’s corporate citizenship activities will be aligned around this initiative by the end of 2010.

However, while Accenture itself manages and delivers training to its own employees, Skills to Succeed training will be delivered almost exclusively through independent non-profit partners that have proven skills in and share Accenture’s commitment to skills training, and that can “drive change and achieve scale” across multiple countries and continents.

Building the Skills to Succeed Initiative

Accenture launched the first stages of this program in mid-2009, with a $48.3 million contribution—primarily of in-kind skills (such as consulting, hardware, software and office space), secondarily cash and, to a small extent, pro bono contributions of employees’ time (as in teaching, mentoring and so forth). It aligned its efforts around three primary objectives:

  • Employment Building, which is the initiative’s primary focus and is intended to train and prepare disadvantaged people for secure jobs that pay well above local average salaries. It begins by providing training in skills required for these jobs to employment-ready individuals (generally, from high-school juniors and community college students to unemployed workers who are looking to be retrained for new jobs and industries). While much of this training focuses on IT skills (an area in which many NGOs have current programs and skills), Accenture plans to address many types of skills that are “at the intersection of business and technology”. These may include IT operations, programming, engineering drafting and accounting/finance. The program also helps prepare these trainees for actual jobs (such as by placing them in part-time jobs or internships while they are still in school) and actually capture new jobs (as by helping them develop resumes, plan job-search campaigns and secure and prepare for interviews).
  • Business Building, which is intended to help entrepreneurs create new employment opportunities such as by helping them strengthen their leadership skills, develop business plans and strengthen capabilities including financial operations, hiring and customer service; and
  • Market Building, in which Accenture helps governments, NGOs and companies build access to markets where current market infrastructures are not sufficient. Examples include a partnership with the U.S. Agency for International Development to improve rural farmers’ access to information on agricultural and marketing practices.

One of the first and largest efforts was in Brazil, where Accenture partnered with two local agencies (Rede Cidada and the Committee for the Democratization of Information) to establish Conexão (the local membership organization of Youth Business International), which provides free technology training to unemployed people and free consulting to small, promising entrepreneurs. The program was a huge success, training 13,500 young people (3,500 of whom have already been hired) and supporting 124 entrepreneurs.

This success led to more than 80 additional programs so far, with more than 15 NGO partners in both developed and developing countries. Examples include:

  • United States, where Accenture is working with Genesys Works to train inner-city high school students in skills including IT, engineering drafting and accounting and is placing them in part-time jobs during their senior years. Accenture executives also teach business preparedness skills to students in community colleges;
  • United Kingdom, with Youth Business International, to help disadvantaged young people find and get appropriate educations or occupational training and mentor them on skills required to become successful entrepreneurs;
  • India, with the Dr. Reddy’s Foundation, to train disadvantaged young people in business process outsourcing and technology skills;
  • Philippines and Cambodia, partnering with Passerelles Numériques to help underprivileged students build the skills they need to obtain IT jobs; and
  • Several countries in Africa, where it is working with Enablis to build the skills of young entrepreneurs.

Accenture’s Objectives and Methods

The concept for Skills to Succeed was born about 18 months ago during a full-scale assessment of the company’s corporate philanthropy efforts. It was looking for a single unifying effort that addressed a critical, global societal need; that reflected the company’s values, culture and character; and in which Accenture had skills that would enable it to contribute unique skills and expertise, in addition to money.

Its initial efforts in partnering and launching the program, combined with the successes it achieved and the lessons it learned, validated its commitment to the initiative and prompted it to set an ambitious goal—that of training and preparing 250,000 disadvantaged people (anyone from high school juniors to older people who need retraining for or who hope to create their own sustainable, well-paying jobs). Although Accenture is open to all types of NGO partnerships and skills training programs, it assesses each opportunity in terms of its ability to:

  1. Cost-efficiently achieve significant, sustainable, demonstrable and measurable results;
  2. Harness the energies of Accenture and the enthusiasm of its people; and
  3. Be scaled to train large numbers of people and leveraged across multiple states and countries.

But while Accenture is open to examining many different types of programs and partnerships, one thing is not negotiable—its objective. Accenture and its executive committee are fully committed to Skills to Succeed. The company is wrapping virtually all of its corporate philanthropy programs and contributions into this program and is committing all levels of Accenture employees to actively contribute to these efforts. It is also beginning to engage customers and partners in this program, as by working with them to place interns and program graduates.

But for all of Accenture’s commitments and efforts, the company understands that that achieving its 250,000-person objective within five years is a big challenge. It is committed to investing $100 million or more of its resources and the capabilities of its people to the program and is rapidly scaling its efforts. It has, for example, already added 80 new initiatives and is actively evaluating others. The means of accomplishing its goals are flexible. The objective, of preparing a quarter of a million people for rewarding jobs, is not.

Posted in 21st Century Careers, Accenture, Community/Other Colleges, Corporate Social Responsibility, Education System and Institutions, IT Company Strategies, IT Industry and Companies, IT Industry Role in Education, IT Industry's Role, Skills Requirements, STEM Careers | 2 Responses »
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