A recent New York Times article ran a story about the increasingly large volumes of college applicants and the decreasing rates of admittance rates for college bound high school students. While this trend has been going on in the U.S. for several years, many of us in HR have been having a concurrent discussion about the talent shortage that is impending in the industrialized world. While one of the core problems is that the generation of workers after the baby boomers is not large enough to fill the void of senior talent and executive leadership positions when those baby boomers retire, another very real problem is that we simply don’t have the infrastructure needed to produce the right skills needed for the future knowledge economy.
Let’s think about a bit of history. Back when the baby boomers were entering the workforce, many of the jobs were still industrial jobs. For these types of work, this generation was often employed out of high school and trained on the job until they became managers. Often, these workers went back to school later when they could afford it, but a college education was not absolutely necessary back then. Move into the next (smaller) generation, those coming out of high school in say the 80’s and 90’s. As knowledge work became increasingly important, there was enough infrastructure to accommodate the volume of applicants, and educate them into the workforce. This generation now forms the core and future of the knowledge economy – they are the ones with the big shoes to fill.
Today, we have the children of the baby boomers (“millennials”) trying to get educated. No longer is it possible to employ masses of workers in the U.S. through industrial work. We need these millennials to be highly trained, analytical, creative and innovative knowledge workers. The problem is that we’ve never had this need at this level of capacity before. And it’s not as though we’ve been building universities like the Chinese and Indian’s have for the last 2 decades.
We’ve also mentioned in several places the millennials are likely to be “different.” They have a view that is more in tune with the globe, and they also have a tendency to want a better balance between their work and life. I’m going to contradict myself here and note that with all the “soccer moms” taking their over achieving kids to soccer, violin, debate team, and chess club, all the while running a 4.5 GPA and scoring 2400 on the SAT, this seems to be one of the most ambitious generations we’ve ever had. It would seem that they want the opportunities, they want to learn, and make lots of money. But if you’re perfect, and still can’t get into Harvard, Columbia or Yale, what do you do?
We’ll have enough of a problem adjusting to the style of this generation. We already know we need to develop their talent, but we’re starting off with a handicap if our national education infrastructure isn’t ready for them, or out future economy.
7 responses to “We Don’t Have the Infrastructure to Develop Talent”
We Don’t Have the Infrastructure to Develop Talent While this trend has been going on in the US for several years, many of us in HR have been having a concurrent discussion about the talent shortage that is impending in the industrialized world. While one of the core problems is that … [
13. Gen Y counseling on dress for work… http://employeeevolution.com/2007/06/11/what-not-to-wear-to-work/ 14. Do we have the wrong societal infrastructure for being responsive to strategic talent demands?… https://systematichr.com/?p=722 15. The homework-eating dog impacts workers too… http://www.gruntledemployees.com/gruntled_employees/2007/06/the_dog_ate_my_.html 16. Heads up on “JobVent”… http://humancapitalist.com/?p=371
We Don’t Have the Infrastructure to Develop Talent
[…] policies and procedures and human resources, 15 had been implemented and six were ongoing. … We Don’t Have the Infrastructure to Develop Talent https://systematichr.com/?p=722 While this trend has been going on in the US for several years, many […]
Very good post. I think its important to note that this millennial engages with media and therefore is influenced and learns differently.
Influencing them and getting mellenials to see value in an org’s employment brand will require some education on the side of the organization as well.
Dan Taylor speaks more to mellenials here…Good read…
http://www.jobsearchmarketing.com/2006/10/the_millennial_.html
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