May 14, 2009 —As faithful readers of our blog know, WorldatWork promotes a cool model called total rewards, which defines the elements that enable employers to attract, motivate and retain workers. It's the employer-employee exchange: employer looks out for employee's well-being and development (and provides a paycheck), and employee enthusiastically produces the best work possible - tied to organizational goals - so that employer, employee, and business thrive. We here in Public Policy follow happenings in Congress that affect that exchange as captured through the total rewards model and philosophy.
Faithful readers know the five elements within WorldatWork's total rewards model are compensation, benefits, work-life, performance & recognition, and development & career opportunities. We've extensively blogged on the first three elements - and there's been plenty to report, as Congress and the Administration have been busy reforming health care, reviewing 401(k) pension plans, limiting executive compensation, promoting telework and work-life balance, and promoting changes to help attract, motivate and retain a high-performing federal workforce.
But that's not all. Congress has held several hearings on revamping the nation's workforce investment system - in effect, if it ran efficiently, the training ground for millions of Americans to acquire the skills they need to get the jobs employers are struggling to fill. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis recently testified on efforts at DOL to try some innovative strategies in its developing "green" sector. And, one of the most engaging panelists was an employer who described his efforts to make sure his employees were getting the skills they needed to feel engaged and productive.
Employers spend over $30 billion a year on developing their employees, but they can't do it alone - the gap between the skills employers need and those their workers possess is widening every day. But, the workforce investment system is notoriously complex and not conducive to training large numbers of people in the skills they'll need to get the jobs that are available.
It was always the intent to ensure that business had a seat at the table. The idea was that with business involved, workers would know what jobs were available in their region and would sign up to get training - provided by the workforce system - so they could do those jobs. In some areas, this formula has worked like a charm; in others, not so much.
So, what does this have to do with total rewards, you ask? Maybe very little...or maybe a whole heckuva lot, depending on how much pain organizations are feeling because they can't get workers with the right skills, and depending on what and how much they want to do about it. See, both the administration and Congress are looking at how to make the workforce system work better. And they're looking at it from different angles - from the perspective of adults that just need a credential to boost them into another pay rate, to business leaders who are warning of the need for more high-skilled workers, to regions and localities that have started to work together to strategically plot out whole industry sectors, so that they can attract businesses, skilled workers, and government dollars, and to workforce systems that are slow to respond and clunky to use. This is the long view.
The short view is that today employers increasingly are beginning to see the value of offering education and development as a benefit. Employees - realizing that the world and business are changing ever more quickly - realize their best defense is to continually acquire new skills. To the extent they can get employers to help them on this, they'll be engaged, productive - even loyal - workers. This is particularly evident in the "Y Generation" - which means the need to develop those employees will only grow. So, for a growing segment of the workforce, development and career opportunities is a huge factor in the employer-employee exchange.
After reading the new release of Workplace Flexibility 2010's defining platform on public policies impacting workplace flexibility, I was struck by one of their "buckets" of workplace flexibility, "Career Exit, Maintenance and Reentry." At the Corporate Voices for Working Families conference last week, Chai Feldblum, co-director of WF2010, explained this as engineering possibilities for revamping the workforce system so that mothers who leave the workforce to take care of children/other family members can brush up their skills and re-enter the workforce in a more advantageous position. It's refreshing, because we need these innovative ways of providing lifelong skills to workers.
This is just one of the proposals to take a fresh look at how to develop workers. The Obama Administration is looking at this issue through its Middle Class Task Force, in which its first tenet of the platform is "expanding lifelong learning and training opportunities."
What do you think about this? What innovative programs is your organization doing to develop people, that could be replicated elsewhere? Could the government help by providing seed money or technical assistance?
E James Brennan, III Senior Associate Member Since: 4/19/1979 Comments: 406
Seems like nearly every year, someone declares an intent for "a fresh new look" and repeats every thing that has been consistently noted and tried over and over in the past. Maybe I'm jaded, but I really haven't noticed any "increasing attention... beginning to notice" action re training & development. It's just as important as it's always been, the same players are doing the same things, right or wrong, with the right-actors generally tending to survive longer/better and the wrong-actors washing out and disappearing into oblivion. Next thing you know, someone will "discover" re-engineering and maybe even design a wheel. Meanwhile, politicans continue to pander and posture, colleges sell comfortable familiar established & popular ciriccula with no jobs at their end, and employers sigh, shrug, and create in-house practical skill-acquisition and practice programs.
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