Knowledge Gap v. Skills Gap, Core Skill Gap v. Task Skill Gap

Important to Know Which You Are Trying To Close
by Stacey Lett, Director of Operations – Eastern U.S. – Proactive Technologies, Inc.

One common, ongoing theme that all of us in workforce development and related disciplines are familiar with is that our educational and workforce development institutions are not, despite the tremendous resources at their disposal. adequately addressing the issue of the “Skill Gap.” A lot has been written about the concern over the billions of dollars spent by employers and education to address the skill gap each year, but after 30 years we still are consumed with concern. Many employers have either learned to discount education as a viable partner in workforce development or have lost their confidence in these institutions all together and moved on. How hard would it to bring them back?

Some have suggested that educational institutions seem preoccupied with controlling the definition of the challenge so the solutions they prescribe can be pulled from their shelf. They have a powerful lobbying presence in Washington D.C. and state capitals to guide their proposals to steer grant money targeted for workforce development to their institutions. In some cases it is what sustains the schools…but for how long without significant outcomes?

As early as the 1980’s, surveys of employers showed a growing “schism of trust” in existing institutions helping meet the skills gap challenge. Today, educational institutions and workforce development groups seem more inclined to defend the institution and its programs. They are less interested in understanding the clear dichotomy between the core skills needed to master an employer’s tasks, and the employer’s de facto role in providing task-based training to ensure core skills are not lost, but are put to a good use that reinforces their utility.

Most “customized training coordinators” at community colleges and career centers would tell you their understanding of customized training can range anywhere from providing classes onsite or offsite to recommending a credit or non-credit course. Their educational training did not prepare them to seek out such an invasive role in an employer’s internal training. As they try to justify their engagement to that degree, they often provide evidence that they have little to offer that is specific to an employer’s needs.

BUT THAT IS THE WAY IT SHOULD BE! Educational institutions cannot, and should not try to, provide task-based training because they have little or no current expertise (especially as the rate of innovation accelerates) and if they are wrong in their content or delivery for a potential worker exiting a program after 2-4 years, things could go very wrong for the employer and prospective employee. Educational facilities, instructors and resources are best applied creating core skill programs as current and relevant to general industry as possible. Yet they are asked, or volunteer,  to embed themselves deeper and deeper, spreading themselves too thin. Once a dissatisfied employer tosses them off the premises it is usually for good and probably followed with a broad-brush stroke that hits all institutions.

Employers were told starting in the 1990s to put their faith in education and skill standards, and they would have an endless supply of skilled workers. Many are still holding to that dream even though the facts that it didn’t pan out as promised are all around…every day. Some pragmatic employers are moving on with their own solutions, and redefining education’s role in the emerging process.

In a December 3, 2017 article in the NY Times entitled “Now on Oracle’s Campus, a $43 Million Public High School” reported, “At its lush campus with a man-made lake here, Oracle is putting the finishing touches on a $43 million building that will house Design Tech High School, an existing charter school with 550 students. The sleek new school building has a two-story workshop space, called the Design Realization Garage, where students can create product prototypes. It has nooks in the hallways to foster student collaboration.”

In a January 8, 2018 article in IndustryWeek entitled “Cummins Brings Its Global Technical Education Program to the US”, The program was started in 2012 when company leaders discovered a growing gap in the availability of skilled workers and the harm it was causing communities.

And other large corporations are venturing back into this world of replicating educational institutions, even given the lackluster performance of similar corporate training campuses over the past three decades.

Obviously small and mid-size employers would have trouble establishing their own “onsite college” with the substantial investment in resources and manpower needed. But here is the thing; they should not feel compelled to do so. They could more wisely and accurately combine job-relevant resources from the wide array of providers in their community with a structured on-the-job training program designed exactly to their job classifications; a hybrid approach. This would reap far greater rewards, be more cost effective and efficient than a corporate-style campus that ultimately brings, primarily, related technical instruction onsite.

Big employers that create big campus-style institutions are reaching for solutions but still seem constrained by what they are familiar with. They will come to the same realization as others have come to in the past that this turns out to be a big expense that is not justified by the investment.

It is important to understand that task-based structured on-the-job training (SOJT) is not like classroom attendance (which is limited in its use to bulk knowledge transfer and is a one-shot event). SOJT is ongoing, and seeks to integrate the relevant core knowledge plus core skills into the mastering of a unit of work (i.e. “task”). Repetitive performance reinforces mastery, and the output of performance of these tasks represents value.

At any given time, each worker is at different stages of the training process, for multiple tasks, and at different levels of overall job mastery for each. Job mastery is a “high-bar” and represents mastery of all of the identified tasks of the job classification. For each task, the process is this:

1. Expert shows trainee how perform task (could be any resident expert);
2. Trainee performs task a few times with supervision from a resident expert;
3. Trainee performs task enough (unsupervised) to become consistent in meeting requirements;
4. Recognition of task mastery (i.e. trainee performs task unaided, in the correct order meeting all constraints and specifications, with proper outcome) is given by supervisor.

Identification of each new-hire and incumbent worker’s task-gap, then managing the closing of the gap, is what drives the process. If the trainee is unable to master a task, then the likely culprit is that an aspect of the core-skill training needs to be refreshed or remediated.

To setup, implement and manage the SOJT program isn’t as complicated and investment-heavy as one would think. It was in the past when everything was developed and changes incorporated extensively by manual means. In reality, if the SOJT is done right, the cost to train each worker declines. Furthermore, the increases that result in worker capacity, work quantity and quality, and compliance with ISO/IATF/AS requirements, internal engineering and quality requirements and safety mandates makes the investment quickly, and repeatedly, pay off. To establish this form of training system would take a level of commitment to maximizing worker development that not all companies exhibit. Yet, for most companies, the components of an infrastructure upon which to build an effective SOJT program already exist.

The supervisor and employee know when the employee has mastered a task, since the supervisor assigns the work. That is a formal training outcome upon which to build an infrastructure. In many cases, the employer has already developed process documents that describe process tasks. Many workers have very good set-up and operation notes in their lunchbox. With validation, these too can be incorporated into the program. Formalizing this process, using a system like the PROTECH© system of managed human resource development software to generate tools and materials, and to track each worker’s development, makes implementing the program extremely inexpensive, effective, efficient, accurate and easy.

These programs are built around the actual work the employer needs performed, on the equipment already in place being used to perform the work. Unlike an educational institution that needs to purchase this equipment for each employer to be accurate, and repurchase the equipment with each change in employer and technology, the employer knows what equipment is needed now and in the future and will invest in, and maintain, them for their own business strategy. SOJT alligns all of these employer resources rather than try to replicate them off-site.

It is long past time to look at the workforce development and skills gap problem logically and pragmatically. And no better time to change course if you feel the path you have been on has not landed you where you were expecting. Contact a Proactive Technologies, Inc. representative today to find out more. The discussion may at least give you more food for thought.