The Penn Foster Blog

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

Today is the day! Each year, the National Association of Manufacturers hosted Manufacturing Day, a celebration of modern manufacturing intended to inspire the next generation of manufacturers. The celebration of Manufacturing Day extends well into October, with businesses and community organizations planning events, such as factory visits and learning sessions, throughout the month.

Mark Twain once famously said, "Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated."  American manufacturing certainly seems able to make that claim.

In today's competitive labor market, workforce training organizations face real challenges preparing their clients for careers in high-demand occupations. Job-seekers must not only have the skill to do a job, they also must possess a related industry-credential. For example, 11.5 of the 11.6 million jobs created since 2008 have gone to workers with some level of postsecondary education " this includes those who've taken postsecondary courses or completed a postsecondary diploma, certificate or degree program1.