The Penn Foster Blog

As we approach a new year and a new decade, smart employers are already looking to the future. They’re considering what skills employees will need to meet changing industry demands. Healthcare, skilled trades, and many other industries are in a state of change and growth. Your employees should be too.  It is true that each industry requires specific technical or clinical capabilities. Yet, there are some soft skills that every employee will need in 2020. These seven workplace skills can equip employees for success now and into the future.

The hospitality industry is growing. It’s also feeling the pinch of the record-low unemployment rate and high workforce non-participation rates. To find and keep qualified workers, hospitality industry leaders must embrace training as a solution. Dara Warn, Chief Operating Officer at Penn Foster, shares some advice for what to look for in a training partner and how to help hospitality employees meet training goals.

Is the skills gap real? Whether you believe it’s a business boogeyman that lurks in the dark imaginations of overworked hiring managers, or you see it as a problem for your LinkedIn connections, you might agree on this one thing: it won’t affect your industry. After all, roles at your company are in demand and you have more applicants than positions to fill. For now. In reality, it’s not some big, ominous thing. Rather, the skills gap is simply the gap between what employers want or need their employees to be able to do, and what they can actually do.

Spotify’s Wrapped has been shared across Instagram and social platforms like wildfire, sending premium users into a music-fueled trip down memory lane, reliving their band obsessions over the last year--and decade. This sent us down our own rabbit hole, slightly less musical but equally as capable of inspiring an emotional response to our learner’s ability to prepare for their next best career. Here’s a few of our favorite moments of 2019!

The demand for healthcare employees has been growing for years with no signs of slowing down. To fill open positions and plan for the future, smart healthcare providers are building talent pipelines that will help them meet their staffing needs, which will be critical as the organization grows or as specialized services need to be offered.

As a business leader, you expect your employees to have certain foundational skills. Some of these competencies vary by industry. For example, if you're running a contracting company you might expect all employees to have the math skills to be able to accurately calculate space and distance. If you're the HR manager at a hospital, you might expect that all employees know how to use your medical records management system. Other skills, like communication, ethics, and problem solving, are so universal that they go without saying. Or do they?

Make no mistake, healthcare is a service industry. In most cases, patients and their families are facing difficult and emotional challenges. They’re away from home, ill, and feeling vulnerable. What might seem like a small irritation under normal circumstances can escalate to a catastrophic event under these conditions. Which is why training employees to interact with patients, families, and visitors is critically important.

For decades, the word on the factory floor has been that robots would replace manufacturing workers any day now. That day, if it ever comes, is still far in the future. In the meantime, manufacturing still needs people to do what robots can’t do, or can’t do well.  For leaders in the manufacturing industry, the knowledge that they need employees is offset by the awareness that finding those people isn’t easy. A survey by SCORE  found that 89% of manufacturers struggle to fill open positions, exacerbated by an ever-present skills gap that some expect to cost the U.S. up to $2.5 trillion over the next 10 years across all industries.

When hiring, it’s easy to focus just on the technical skills. Find a Veterinary Technician who can take an X-ray or a contractor who can drive a skid steer and you’ve found a good candidate, right? Maybe not.  A hyper focus on hard skills can mean you miss out on quality candidates and end up with employees who can’t collaborate, lead or communicate. Soft skills or people skills are vital to the success of your business. Looking for people skills in new hires and developing them in your existing workforce can make a big difference for productivity, profitability, and even retention.

Keeping your employees safe is one of your top priorities. This should be true in any business, but it’s especially important in the manufacturing industry, where hazardous equipment and shifting technology are a dangerous combination for the untrained worker. An investment in industrial safety training does more than help you meet health and safety regulations, it protects your workforce and your bottom line.