Labor market and HR experts break down how changes in workforce planning could impact companies’ expectations of higher ed.
To contend with a reported lack of critical skills internally and among new hires, employers are sharpening their focus on workforce planning. And they expect the types of educational opportunities colleges offer to change.
That’s according to panelists at BMO Capital Markets’ 19th-annual Back to School Conference held Thursday in New York.
“There’s brand risk, reputational risk, by allowing people to reach a terminal point in their career, and (companies) are trying to think more carefully about the talent plan within the enterprise and also where people will end up over time,” said Frank Britt, CEO of Penn Foster, a skills training firm, during a panel about the future of work and reskilling.
And while reports indicate new technology is fundamentally changing existing jobs and resulting in the creation of new ones, Matthew Sigelman, CEO of labor market analytics firm Burning Glass Technologies, said that trend is incremental. Rather than seeing many new jobs emerge, he argued, it’s more often that existing ones are adding new requirements.