The following was originally posted by Pearson.
With an estimated five million unfilled jobs, and roughly 8.7 million Americans looking for work, there is still a mismatch of jobs and skilled workers in the U.S. To look at the issue more closely, the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4CP), in partnership with UpSkill America, has released a new report, Developing America’s Frontline Workers. This important report identifies a critical reason why workers are not receiving the training they could use to advance to higher paying jobs, even though it may be immediately available to them. Offering great data from a survey of 365 U.S.-based public, private, government, and nonprofit organizations, Kevin Martin, chief research and marketing officer at i4CP discusses the insights and implications from the report.
Q. In the report, you identified that companies are offering training, but workers aren’t taking them up on it. What’s that all about?
Martin: It really boils down to lack of priority and follow-through. Our research found that nearly nine in 10 organizations offer employee development opportunities to frontline workers. However, almost three-quarters either don’t track the percentage of frontline workers who take advantage of these development opportunities or don’t communicate effectively about the development opportunities that are available to these workers and/or why the development will help them advance to higher paying jobs. Further, the lack of manager accountability for frontline worker development needs to be addressed. While high-performance organizations often understand the importance of managers in this equation, many companies don’t make the effort and pay the price.
This piece was excerpted from “Why are workers ignoring free training that could lead to higher paying jobs?” by Pearson. Click here to read more.
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