Smart Employers Aim for the STARs

While too many companies find themselves in reactive mode, having fallen behind the talent curve given the acute impact of “the Great Resignation” and the partial rebalancing of power and choice for many workers - more and more smart companies are looking forward, as they realize that they have both the opportunity and the need to address chronic weaknesses in their industries’ talent pipelines.?If there’s really a war for talent, most have been waging it far too narrowly.

This “Great Realization” is good news: savvy employers are now realizing that investing in workers and developing their own pipelines of talent can be a big source of competitive advantage - as I recently shared with Neil Irwin Axios’ chief economic correspondent.

Our mission at Opportunity@Work is to rewire the U.S. labor market so that all individuals Skilled Through Alternative Routes (a.k.a. STARs) can work, learn, and earn to their full potential. For STARs, the most important skills are learned on-the-job. However, the skills that STARs have mastered - through community college, partial college completion, military service, skills bootcamps, workforce training programs and at work, typically via low-paid positions - have too often been ignored by the majority of employers.

Companies that recognize and invest in STARs talent can build a more resilient, adaptive, diverse, and skilled base of diverse talent, and outcompete organizations that are still burdened by bias and chasing pedigree.?

Next Monday, Jan. 31, I will discuss new “Rise with the STARs” research on LinkedIn Live (RSVP here), which reveals the severe impact of employers excluding STARs. Join our virtual conversation with STAR tech leader Debrena McEwen (She/Her), General Motors, Google.org, the National Fund for Workforce Solutions, and Opportunity@Work’s SVP of Insights Papia Debroy. I hope you will join me - because we can fix our broken labor market - together, on purpose.

Which brings us to the recent “Opportunity Wrap," in which Cheston McGuire shares new insights on why tech’s talent gap is a “self-inflicted wound” that can be solved by hiring STARs;? a discussion on how credential inflation is holding back STARs; and potential solutions for employers to tap into the STARs talent pool.?

• Opportunity@Work’s Julie Elberfeld writes in Fortune that spiking tech salaries are happening “for all the wrong reasons,” as employers screen out STARs. The good news? Millions of STARs “already have the skills to succeed in higher-wage jobs if employers would give them a chance.” buff.ly/3KAcXvR
• Citing our new “Rise with the STARs'' research, Paul Fain writes that during the last 20 years, STARs “have been displaced from 7.4 million jobs that have historically offered them mobility.” buff.ly/3qOeyq3
• GettingSmart interviewed Opportunity@Work’s Chief Customer Officer Bridgette Gray to discuss Stellarworx - the STARs Talent Marketplace that helps employers screen-in for skills: “Many companies desire diversifying their talent pool, but struggle to get outside their traditional pipelines, this is where we come in.” https://bit.ly/3r6vecF

All the best,

Byron