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steventhuang

Rethinking Retraining - 1 views

hbr.org/...rethinking-retraining

shared by steventhuang on 20 Oct 20 - No Cached
  • The conventional wisdom on retraining older workers is they are too old or set in their ways to learn new things and update their skills. We don’t agree.
  • investment in skill development in the United States is largely “front-loaded” during the first 25 years of life, after which public contributions to formal education are substantially smaller.
  • Rapid technological change, automation, globalization, and offshoring all serve to shrink industries and spawn new ones at what feels like an ever-quickening pace. The booming job market and the evolving nature of work are altering the skills American employers need in their employees, and we believe that reskilling should play a vital role in meeting these needs.
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  • Unfortunately, we tend to conflate proposals for retraining older workers with the ways in which we prepare young high school graduates for direct entry into the workforce. Apprenticeships or technical high school programs in fields like computers and software or specialized skills like aviation may be a natural path for non-college-bound students, but older workers who have been in the workforce for many years may need a different approach.
  • Older workers who are suddenly displaced often have little interest in extended programs. The people we talked to often had family responsibilities and were focused on quickly replacing their lost income streams.
  • older workers “are willing to take a 16-week course” — but that’s about it. Older students also vastly prefer learning in a work setting rather than in a classroom.
  • This learning strategy focuses on building core capabilities and then layering on additional skills in steps.
  • This is consistent with a “just in time” approach to training, available when an individual needs it throughout his or her career, not just at the beginning.
  • Why don’t we have community colleges and employers working together to set a curriculum up?” The key to designing effective programs is to understand local needs and connect them to federal and other support. While federal programs can provide the ingredients, a local leader on the ground needs to match the resources to the needs of employers and retrainee candidates in their area.
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