The Penn Foster Blog

Pursuing higher education is often times considered to be a necessary path for attaining and maintaining a satisfying and sustainable career. Following the script of the American Dream - the idea that any hard working, ambitious individual can pursue and achieve their career goals - students matriculate to a university or college near them very soon after completing their high school diploma.

Since 2015, Church's Chicken's Stride for Success program, offered through a collaboration with Penn Foster, has enabled employees to earn their high school diploma online, providing a path toward advancement and career success. By allowing employees the opportunity to complete their high school diploma requirements, Church's Chicken provides a clearly marked path to a stable future with the company. Not only assisting employees in reaching their goals, Stride for Success and similar corporate learning programs empower those enrolled and can ease the burden of the high turnover rates the food industry is known for.

In-depth employee training and education is necessary for almost every industry. Well-trained employees will benefit your company long-term by being confident and skilled in their positions. Employees who are confident in their level of training and skill, who know that they are working toward a fulfilling career with opportunity for growth, are more likely to stay. Lower turnover rates can improve productivity, productivity, and product quality. Offering comprehensive training courses to your employees can translate into more profit in the long term and a more positive workforce in the immediate future.

While the number of available jobs in the United States is growing, employers are struggling to fill vacancies due to a lack of workers with the right skills. Overemphasis on the bachelor's degree as the gold standard postsecondary credential has led to an insufficient number of prospective employees with the appropriate skills. To close the skills gap, academic institutions offering short-term career diploma, certificate and degree programs need to take a new approach.

Last week, we examined the importance of having employees with well developed soft skills, and laid out the first two steps for developing an employee soft skills training program. First, you should perform a training needs assessment to identify which soft skills your training program should focus on. After that, it's critical to clearly define the performance goals you're hoping to impact with this training program.

If you spent five minutes in the exposition hall at the ASA's 2017 Staffing World Expo & Conference last month, you would very quickly get a sense of what products are being purchased by staffing firms.   

The retail industry in the United States has, historically, had a higher than average turnover rate. Hourly store employees have the highest turnover rate at 65%, according to a survey from the Hay Group division of Korn Ferry. Considering these lower retention rates, hiring or promoting an employee to supervisor can be a frustrating, slow process for employers. However, if you hire supervisors with the right skill set, you may be able to drastically reduce these turnover rates, for both your supervisors and the employees they oversee.

There is no denying that soft skills are in high demand across the modern day workforce, regardless of profession or industry. According to a recent Penn Foster survey, 79% of employers said soft skills were important or very important to an employee's success at their company. Moreover, 64% of employers said there was a significant gap between the level of soft skills of the average candidate, and the level needed for success in an entry level role.

Kicking off tomorrow in Chicago, the American Staffing Association's 2017 Staffing World conference will draw over 2,000 leaders in staffing, recruiting, and workforce solutions to the McCormick Place Convention Center. With nearly 50 sessions led by industry experts and business leaders, including workshops, roundtables, and sector-specific forums, Staffing World seeks to disrupt the thinking of the staffing industry with new strategies and cutting-edge best practices to take back to your organization.

The home health care market in the United States is enormous and, as the baby boomer population ages, is only expected to grow over the next decade. This includes both unpaid individuals providing care to an adult or child, which alone has a cumulative financial impact of over $450 billion annually1, as well as the professional care provided by nurses and home health aides - a profession that is expected to grow by 38% in the next decade.2