Help Members Fill Entry-Level Skills Gaps in a Workplace Changed by AI

AI has automated many of the routine tasks which were once performed by entry-level employees. That’s progress, right? Yes, but now young people don’t have the chance to gradually build skills. And they don’t yet have the skills required for higher-level responsibilities. They can’t get those jobs without experience, but AI’s doing the jobs that would’ve given them the experience.

How to Help Employers Fill Entry-Level Skills Gaps

Early career professionals hit the job market at a disadvantage even before AI enters the picture. Per LinkedIn research, 45% of executives say recent college graduates aren’t bringing the right skills to entry-level positions.

Here’s an opportunity for your association: become the workforce training partner for member companies and industry employers who need help upskilling new and existing employees. Don’t ignore their needs, especially if they’re the ones who pay for their employees’ dues and registration fees.

In your role as a workforce development partner:

• Help employers attract and train new talent
• Deliver training that helps new hires quickly become productive
• Offer learning pathways that convince new hires to stick around

Become the obvious and only choice for companies ready to invest their training and professional development dollars.

Help employers get new hires up to speed 

With the automation of traditional entry-level tasks, early-career employees aren’t gaining the skills and knowledge that once served as stepping stones to increased responsibilities and promotions. But you can bridge these gaps for them.

•  Accelerate the skills development of new hires. Offer onboarding and introductory training programs that help new hires acquire the competencies they need to become productive employees.

The Metal Treating Institute (MTI) uses TopClass LMS to offer online technical training, a big hit with members because, says CEO Tom Morrison, it automates their onboarding and training processes. “With the labor shortage for both management and line personnel, training is a must for every company. Studies show training drives productivity and efficiency, lowers error rates, and increases employee empowerment and confidence to make decisions.”

• Provide the missing experience piece. New hires no longer get hands-on practice with processing and updating docs and spreadsheets or handling customer service requests. Fill in the blanks with scenario-based training that helps them develop fundamental knowledge and skills by trial and error. 

• Fill in the soft skills gap. Even before AI, early career professionals needed help developing essential career skills like adaptability, resilience, collaboration, creativity, and communication. With AI taking over technical skills, these human skills become more valuable.

Usually, these skills are developed over time, but employees don’t have that luxury now. Soft skills are especially useful in workplaces experiencing constant change and uncertainty.

• Supplement employer capacity. Associations help members do what they can’t manage on their own. Many employers don’t have the capacity to design, deliver, and maintain updated training resources. Nor do they have the time, processes, or technology to track employee training.

Give companies access to training programs via a learning portal on your LMS, like their own mini-LMS with customized branding. Supervisors and HR teams can monitor and enforce the completion of mandatory training and share data via an integration with their HR system.

Offer education and credentialing programs that help employers bridge entry-level skills gaps

• Workforce training programs. Offer programs that teach the technical and soft skills employees need to develop in the first years of employment. Don’t forget about skills that set people up for promotions, such as data analytics, project management, and interpersonal skills. Consider introductory programs, like online bootcamps and workshops, that provide an intensive, accelerated jump-start to a career.

• Skills-based microcredentials and digital badges. Microcredentials and their visual representations (badges) validate the skills acquired in your training programs. They improve a person’s chances of securing and keeping a job and advancing their career. The badge metadata allows employers to understand what the credential represents. 

• Industry-specific AI literacy programs. A group of community colleges established a national consortium to advance the AI training of a technical workforce and align their curriculums with workforce needs. Do the same by designing and delivering industry-specific AI training for your members.

Sidecar’s Association AI Professional certificate program has become the standard for AI skills in the association industry, if the many badges shared on LinkedIn are any measure. Is there a Sidecar in your industry? Don’t let another organization get the jump on you.

Early career professionals must know how to do what AI is doing and how to work alongside AI applications. Consult with employers on a curriculum that covers required skills, appropriate use, quality checks, and data privacy issues.

Strategies for designing and delivering early career workforce training programs

• Get employers involved. Recruit an employer advisory council to help you design programs that work for the different companies in your membership: small and large, and low and high volume. Employers will help you understand skills requirements, job descriptions, and existing gaps.

Shadow, talk with, and film employees (or actors) demonstrating skills in a variety of workplaces. To ensure the training is tailored to the needs of all employees, develop learner personas representing the typical backgrounds of new hires, for example

•    High school graduate
•    College graduate
•    Military vet
•    Older career changer

• Offer self-paced microlearning modules. Microlearning fits into a busy schedule. Use short videos that focus on employees doing tasks in their first months in a new job.

• Experiment with cohort programs. Learning alongside peers is a more engaging experience. Offer a mix of live and on-demand instruction that learners proceed through in a few months with a group of peers.

• Integrate new programs into learning pathways. Keep people coming back for the next step in their learning and career journey.

• Customize programs for deep-pocket employers. Offer companies an LMS portal for their onboarding, booster, and other training programs, for example, microcredentials for specialized skills or leadership development programs.

• Regularly review and revamp programs. Ask for learner and employer feedback. Measure business outcomes related to employee productivity, retention, promotion, and satisfaction. Make sure your programs remain up to date and focused on employer needs.

I discovered an acronym we can all relate to: FOBO, the Fear Of Being Obsolete. When the pace of change accelerates, the risk of skills obsolescence rises. Position your association as a solution to FOBO for industry professionals and as a workforce development partner for employers.

In our quick tour, take a peek at how TopClass LMS helps MTI and other associations deliver the workforce training and credentialing needed by industry employers and professionals. Tom Morrison at MTI said, “When we changed LMS systems in 2023, we looked everywhere and only one could satisfy our needs. It was TopClass LMS.”