The Skills Era - Creating a Better Workforce for the Future

Our future workforce is staring at an uncertain future in the face of a global crisis. To adequately prepare young people, it requires new levels of collaboration between students, parents, schools and industry. We need to work together to advocate for new ways of supporting the education-to-workforce transition. 

At its core, our current system is based on the concept of a single and specific career path. This idea is quickly fading with the emergence of artificial intelligence, digitalisation, big data, machine learning and automation,  especially since the global COVID-19 pandemic. In a world of exponential change, we cannot apply yesterday’s thinking to today’s employment landscape.

What’s evident:

• There’s an overwhelming need to get students closer to industry while at school and tertiary learning institutions. 

• More attention needs to be paid to the role that schools play in the lives of our young people. 

• Students need to also be proactive and take ownership of their pathway

• It’s our young people feeling the pinch as well 

• Skills for the future isn’t a buzz phrase any more 

Getting students closer to industry 

The inconsistency in preparing students post study, beyond the course materials is increasingly evident to employers. The general lack of job readiness and industry exposure provided by many secondary schools and more so universities and Tafe, means that young people are  graduating with no real job readiness. This often is due to the fact that those teaching, have little to none industry experience outside their chosen field of education. It’s only when an individual educator can see the value of improving job readiness skills that they engage and create course material for it or bring in industry subject matter experts for training or presentations. 

The role schools play

More attention needs to be paid to the role that schools play in the lives of our young people. Whilst important, academic performance is only one facet of the overall schooling and education system. ‘Succeeding’ shouldn’t be measured purely in academic terms. The aim of the system should be to help young people grow and develop into educated, well-rounded and balanced young adults who have a range of life skills to begin their own life's path.

Instead of focusing solely on academic results, there needs to be a focus on practical life lessons such as financial education (budgeting, tax, compound interest, superannuation) and human-centric skills (listening, being emotionally connected and authentic).

Owning the decision 

Students need to also be proactive and take ownership of their pathway and engage in the career planning process to forge their ‘own’ path. 

It can be hard to fully understand the importance of where career pathway planning comes into the mix of everyday teenage life. Modern day life whilst flooded with benefits, has also seen young people spoon fed and a decline in the level of independence around enquiry and decision making. This results in students being reactive rather than proactive in some instances and focusing on learning and developing their hard skills (through the education system) and giving little thought to self development in other areas that are essential for working life such as building their soft skills set. 

Feeling the pinch 

We have, and continue to come across many examples of the lack of adequate advice and preparation students are receiving in preparing them for the working environment. 

We regularly receive comments from our interns and junior staff that Tafe and university didn’t prepare them adequately for the work environment or teach them the skills and insights they gain from their time working with us. Whilst we take an active role to help young people gain the job readiness skills which often leads them to securing employment, many businesses don’t have the time to do so. 

One of our recent interns commented “My Graphic Design course at TAFE didn't prepare me for working at all beyond learning the technical basics. It didn’t teach me how graphic design works in the real world - for example, interaction with a client, developing, reading and understanding a design brief, time management, office etiquette. These things matter. I am lucky that through family I have been able to secure several internships but it’s still not enough. It’s a competitive market, and understanding how recruitment works, and practically applying this would have given me a head start.”

Skills for the future 

According to a January 2021 article in the Australian Financial Review, COVID-19 may have accelerated the future of work, but it's also pushed the fast forward button on skills that will be in high demand in 2021 and beyond. 

Not only are soft skills not being taught in schools, Tafe or universities, they are also not valued by their grading systems. Perhaps this is because they are impossible to grade in the same ways as maths, science and traditional subjects are. Should the industry at large also be teaching students how to demonstrate proof points in developing these soft skills similarly to how they would in a real world employment ‘professional development/ learning environment’? These skills are vital in the changing 21st Century and overarching economic landscape as we continue to recover from the CVID-19 pandemic. 

For more insights, read the second edition of our Future Proofing Australia's Young People - Career Pathways for the workforce for the future paper.