Transitions punctuate the world of work: from new clients and hires to promotions, retirements and restructures. Many companies have robust guidelines for handling these moments, providing a handoff process for everything from handling a team member’s workload during their vacation to the creation of a new division. Documentation, timelines, meetings and cross-training activities all ensure confidence and continuity as individuals and teams undergo these changes.
The same cannot be said for one of life’s most significant transitions: from the classroom to the office. Graduates and other adult learners new to an industry start this chapter alone, leaving behind the support systems they’re accustomed to when they enter the world of work. While traditional education provides deep learning on specialized subjects, few new hires, green to their chosen industry are equipped with a roadmap for how their academic accomplishments correspond to work readiness now that they’ve gotten the job.
Learning and development (L&D) leaders have an opportunity to help bridge the gap for incoming team members and promote workforce readiness that translates to business success. By offering immersive, hands-on training that focuses on real-world hard and soft skills, organizations can set these employees up for workplace success.
Skills Gaps in Gen Z Workers
Gen Z workers feel unprepared for work — and business leaders agree.
While members of Gen Z, born between 1997 and 2012, cite getting a job as their top reason for enrolling in college, many believe school alone did not adequately prepare them for employment. Many business leaders echo these concerns — the same research shows 40% of employers think recent Gen Z college graduates aren’t prepared to enter the workforce. And nearly all employers who shared this sentiment said they were at least somewhat likely to avoid hiring Gen Z grads.
But Gen Z workers aren’t the only ones frustrated by a lack of skills preparation. According to Paychex, new hires who feel unsatisfied with their onboarding are likely to leave the company. And 80% of new hires who expressed a desire to leave also felt they’d been undertrained during their onboarding period, unprepared to perform the duties of their new job.
But it’s one thing for business leaders and new hires to agree that there’s a disconnect between past learning and future work needs — and another to identify and fill these learning gaps. Leaders must understand which skills need refinement, the training methods most conducive to skills development and the best ways for new hires to contextualize their abilities.
Workforce Readiness Training: Hard and Soft Skills
Workers new to the job market have distinct expectations for learning compared to previous generations in the workforce. They prefer interactive, engaging learning over passive experiences and want to pick up new abilities to advance in their careers.
While workers see technical skills as fundamental (and needing routine updating), “Pearson Skills Outlook: Employee View” found advanced emotional intelligence and social skills are a differentiating edge in a shifting job market. Employers concur: The survey found that human skills dominated the ranks of the most in-demand capabilities across millions of job listings globally.
L&D leaders who invest early in training initiatives to build interpersonal skills like communication, collaboration, leadership, problem-solving and decision-making can reap ongoing dividends as these fresh employees level up their abilities, forging connections between new workforce competencies and specialized skills they honed in college/higher education.
And according to the research above, today’s workers perceive these unique human capabilities as vital to complementing our relationship with artificial intelligence (AI) and automation that’s already augmenting how we work. Both organizations and individuals can benefit long-term from early career learning opportunities that support future-resilient proficiencies.
Experiential Learning and Digital Credentials
With the global economy rapidly evolving, new members of the workforce need opportunities to develop practical abilities that employers prioritize, like communication, critical thinking and teamwork. These training strategies, which can range from simulations and job shadowing to role-playing and other forms of experiential learning, provide vital hands-on development. Through these opportunities, employees draw connections between company-led learning and role-specific, real-world outcomes.
Integrating virtual platforms that emulate real-world scenarios can allow team members to strengthen workforce readiness early in their careers. The best way to represent these skill gains and showcase growth to colleagues, managers and other stakeholders are verified digital credentials. Digital credentials and badging can offer a shared language of skills for L&D and human resources (HR) leaders to understand these new hires and track workforce readiness progress against employer and division needs.
