As we clamor for silver linings in the cloud of COVID-19, perhaps one is America’s skills gap, which is creeping up to a new high due to the exodus of Boomers from the workplace. While this presents many challenges for employers, it offers an abundance of opportunities for Gen Z who are in prime position to take advantage of the need to fill hundreds of thousands of jobs that make up our skills-based talent shortage over the next ten years.

America’s Skills Gap Trajectory

Those who hold college degrees have been hit hardest by the pandemic. According to edsurge, “When the unemployment rate spiked during the spring of 2020, jobs that required a college degree declined more than those that didn’t, and new college graduates were hit the hardest. Not only did postings for bachelor’s level jobs fall the most, but entry-level jobs also dropped farthest and fastest.”

The AAF explains, “Over the next decade, the nation as a whole could face a shortage of about 765,000 needed workers with the skills that come from an associate degree or some college.”

Here is where Gen Z can pounce, having witnessed firsthand that even during the pandemic, skills-based careers are a viable option, and could even be considered a safer career path alternative to a 4-year degree … and just as lucrative.

Optimism and Opportunities

The National Association of Manufacturers recently released its final Manufacturers’ Outlook Survey of 2020 and found that “74.2% of manufacturers responding to the survey felt positive about their own company’s outlook, up from 66% last quarter.” The NAM also says, “According to the latest numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 525,000 job openings in manufacturing in October, a record high.” 

Unfilled positions are not only abundant in manufacturing, but also cybersecurity. The Herjavec Group’s 2019/2020 Cybersecurity Jobs Report indicates, “The U.S. has a total employed cybersecurity workforce consisting of 715,000 people, and there are currently 314,000 unfilled positions.” 

This leaves the pathway wide open for Gen Z to take advantage of this labor shortage if paved with skills-based training. Because according to Undersecretary at the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency, Stewart Knox, “It’s not about just who you knew or who you might have an in with to get that job. It is based on skills.”

The Future Ahead

A greater focus on skills was part of the former Trump administration’s agenda that is continuing under Biden’s. The House of Representatives recently passed the National Apprenticeship Act of 2021 — a bill Jobs for the Future reports will bring apprenticeships into the modern era, investing $3.5 billion over the next five years to strengthen these programs and bring in a new generation of skilled workers. 

It’s safe to say that while vaccines are bringing the pandemic to a close, skills-based careers just busted wide open.

Soft skills and middle-skills gaming app development company skillsgapp has been selected by San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools (SBCSS) to provide its gaming apps focused on helping Generation Z gain the skills necessary to participate in the skills-based job sectors needed in numerous industries. Read More

With America’s ever-growing skills gap, apprenticeships are becoming increasingly more important. Below is a feature on one state that’s using apprenticeships to its advantage. The U.S. Department of Labor awarded Apprenticeship Carolina in South Carolina $4.49 million over the course of four years to expand youth apprenticeships with 800 new youth apprentices and 230 youth pre-apprentices in high-growth industries in SC. These efforts are great strides toward building a qualified workforce pipeline and with the addition of mobile technology, we will be set to reach more youth talent. 

Youth Apprenticeships: A Win-Win

Written by: Kelly Steinhilper,
Vice President, Communications, SC Technical College System

According to SHRM, the combination of a tight labor market and the high cost of a college education is fueling interest in youth apprenticeships. This is great news for all, as apprenticeships are a win-win, offering students the chance to find stable middle-skills jobs that they like and can grow into, while employers create a happy workforce where they can groom from an early age.

Apprenticeship Carolina™ helps companies in South Carolina set up successful youth apprenticeship programs. In general, here’s how it works. High school juniors and seniors combine high school curriculum and career and technology training with critical on-the-job training performed at a local business. The students can pull in a paycheck through part-time work while earning a national credential in one of many high-demand occupations. They gain critical workforce experience while earning their high school diploma and some college credit. At the same time, South Carolina’s business and industry that need highly skilled workers can build a solid workforce pipeline for the future.

McLeod Information Systems, LLC, (MIS) provides a perfect example. MIS developed its cybersecurity youth apprenticeship program with two clear goals in mind: to grow a more robust information technology (IT) work base in Charleston, South Carolina, and to provide a vibrant new career path for local youth.

As a service-disabled, veteran-owned and -operated IT security business, MIS looked for ways to give back to the local community soon after its founding in North Charleston in 2016. MIS saw an opportunity to accomplish this goal with the 2019 announcement that Trident Technical College (TTC) would establish a new associate degree in cybersecurity.

MIS agreed to partner with TTC and Apprenticeship Carolina to develop a registered cybersecurity youth apprenticeship, becoming the first cybersecurity company in North Charleston to have apprentices enrolled at the college. 

Debbie McLeod, president and co-founder of MIS, has nothing but good things to say about apprenticeship and this dynamic partnership’s potential. When asked what inspired MIS to consider creating a youth apprenticeship program, McLeod responded, “We saw the number of unfilled cybersecurity positions, not just locally but worldwide, and we wanted to make a difference. There are 3 million openings worldwide and not nearly enough graduates to fill them. We knew that fresh, innovative approaches had to be taken to meet those workforce needs.” 

She continued, “At the same time, we looked at IT courses offered in local high schools. We saw that schools were not adequately equipping students to step out into the IT market, let alone the cybersecurity career field.” 

After speaking with Charleston County School District and Apprenticeship Carolina, MIS realized that with youth apprenticeship they could do both – grow a stronger IT work base and provide a vibrant new career path for local youth.

McLeod reported that she found the youth apprenticeship program to be rewarding on many levels. “For one, it allows us as a company to prepare and grow our future industry leaders. Everyone in the company sees the value of the program. For the company employees that work directly with the apprentices, it is the brighter part of the workday when they get to instruct these impressionable minds.”

As for the youth apprentices, it allows them to learn and progress in a career field to which they are generally not exposed. For instance, high school student Arthur Gibson, one of McLeod’s youth apprentices, shared that learning code was like learning a new language, and he loves it. When asked about the benefit of apprenticeship for high school students, Gibson said, “It shows you that education is not a tunnel but a road with many paths…the hands-on learning connects all the bookwork to the real world.” 

It’s safe to say that it’s been a year of changes. From how we interact with others to the ways in which we work, nothing looks the same as it used to. Things are set to change even more with a new administration entering the white house. 

However, one thing remains the same, the need to close America’s skills gap. 

2020: A Year of Ups and Downs

Industry Week explains that “The coronavirus has exposed the vulnerabilities of our modern economy, forcing thousands of businesses to shutter and putting millions of Americans and people around the world at financial risk.”

We couldn’t agree more. Since February of 2020, employment in manufacturing is down 621,000 and other industries are feeling the affects of the Coronavirus as well. Not only that, but manufacturing productivity has also fallen in 2020. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Manufacturing labor productivity decreased at a 15.5-percent annual rate in the second quarter of 2020, as output fell 47.0 percent and hours worked dropped 37.3 percent. These were the largest quarterly declines ever recorded (data begin in 1987).”

However, it’s not all doom and gloom. There will be a light at the end of the tunnel and things will eventually begin to improve. Employment in manufacturing increased during October by 38,000 jobs. 

While earnings have somewhat decreased, hours for existing employees have increased. The BLS says, “Average weekly hours of all employees rose 0.3 hour in October to 40.5 hours. For production workers, the average workweek increased 0.1 hour to 41.2 hours.”

New Administration, Same Focus

Earlier last year, President Trump’s administration shifted its emphasis on hiring for the country’s biggest employer, the federal government. According to SHRM, the executive order “directs important, merit-based reforms that will replace degree-based hiring with skills- and competency-based hiring.” Trump’s move echoed what some in the industry, such as Elon Musk, are already moving toward. 

Musk doesn’t require college degrees to work at Tesla. Business Insider reports “Rather than a degree from a prestigious university, Musk said he looked for ‘evidence of exceptional ability’ in an employee.”

President-elect Biden’s administration will also share the Trump administration’s and Musk’s focus on skills. On November 9^th, a new federal workforce policy agenda for President-elect Joe Biden and Congress was released by the National Skills Coalition. Training partnerships and apprenticeship will be a focus for the plan.

The National Skills Coalition says, “President-elect Biden has called for a $50 billion investment in workforce training, including investments in industry-led training partnerships and expanding apprenticeship opportunities. Biden has also proposed providing two years of tuition-free community college for recent high school graduates and adults who may need retraining to advance in their careers or transition to new industries.”

What’s Next?

Props to our government for their efforts in helping to close the skills gap. But they alone can’t wrangle the decades-old elephant in the room: How to reach the next workforce generation in ways that make advanced manufacturing careers appealing to them. The business-as-usual ways of workforce recruiting through websites and shiny brochures don’t resonate with Gen Z. If we don’t innovate now, we risk losing them forever. 

COVID-19 has given us increasing opportunities to train and reach Gen Z in their digital world, and reversing Gen Z’s ‘Plan B’ mindset regarding manufacturing careers should be no different. By leveraging their phones already in their hands, modern manufacturing can employ interactive educational technology to help Gen Z develop real-world work skills through interactive, digital experiences that will engage with industry and expose users to existing opportunities.  

The most revered workforce in the world uses gaming for training, upskilling, soft skills, and for recruitment! “America’s Army” is the official game for the US Army that lets players try out virtual missions, in some cases for real. This is augmented, tactical training with quantifiable metrics and a sophisticated interface that helps save lives, whether on the front lines or not. 

It’s a new day, America. Let the games begin.

Educational gaming isn’t a one-size-fits-all proposition. There are those that teach curriculum, and then there are those that change behavior. You learn from both, but the user experience can be profoundly different from one another, and their reach arguably disparate. 

To better understand this difference, let’s first look at a game that aims to teach. 

Teaching In Gen Z’s Digital World

Gone are the days of the ‘rot-your-brain’ video game mindset, and schools have made great strides in using games such as Minecraft: Education Edition as a teachable medium. Minecraft explains that “Educators visiting the Minecraft: Education Edition community site will find existing lesson plans on pixel art, grid paper to plan student work, and even a Minecraft world set up as a blank canvas for students to engage in creative expression.” 

Kim Bennett, a teacher in Cherokee County, Georgia, uses Minecraft to teach business to her students. She says, “Students collaborate in a Minecraft world to actually build and create their businesses—restaurants, food trucks, factories, sports facilities, to name just a few.” 

This is an innovative move in finding meaningful ways to connect kids with career-centric curriculum in a classroom. And while video games in school aren’t new, they’re use has been accelerated as the pandemic persists. 

But what about outside of the classroom? 

The New World of Gaming

Gen Z is influencing the gaming world in a big way and they are vastly different in this space than their predecessors. For one, the majority of Gen Z, 98%, own a smartphone, and much of their gaming behavior is mobile, rather than tethered to a computer or console. And contrary to the stereotype of gaming as an isolating activity, Gen Z doesn’t game to be alone; they actually game to be with others. This generation has grown up in a socially broader digital world that allows them to form online communities inside of school, and out.

So as we look at those teachable skills needed outside of the traditional reading, writing, and math, like soft skills, mobile gaming opens up a new set of opportunities to reach our future generation outside of the classroom via a medium they’re already engaging in, not “having” to engage in. 

Games That Change

Curriculum and class dynamics drive the user experience in games like Minecraft: Education Edition. And while the learning experience may be more appealing than a textbook, work still comes first, fun second.

In games that change behavior, gameplay takes the lead and curriculum second. Look at the globally popular Pokémon GO, for example, where users navigate the real world using an in-game map that allows them to visit PokéStops to gather items, battle other users’ Pokémon, and to catch Pokémon using augmented reality. And while the app may appear to lead a wild goose chase,  one recent study’s findings indicate “that the surveyed players changed their behaviors while or after playing Pokémon GO. The respondents reported being more social, expressed more positive emotions, found more meaningfulness in their routines, and had increased motivation to explore their surroundings.” Well, guess what? Those align with 21st century skills every school district is also tasked with teaching: Work Ethic, Socializing, Strengthening of Social Bonds, Better Self-Treatment, and Collaboration. And with bragging rights of over 55 million installs in 2019, the size of that “classroom” is pretty astounding.

The Future is Edutainment

Games come in all different types and categories, coining a new umbrella term,   “edutainment”, defined as “the English neologism that indicates the forms of playful communication aimed at teaching.” And while educational games like Minecraft: Education Edition are powerful in a classroom environment for math, history, science, language art, and visual art, they’re still not enough as our skills gap continues to rise to a global talent shortage that might reach 85.2 million people by 2030. Games like Pokémon GO, if intentionally designed with the right balance of fun and faculty, can accelerate the development of soft skills that educational games don’t focus on. Those, paired with academic knowledge, can propel Gen Z much further. 

With both types of games at play, it’s safe to say that edutainment adds up to a big win when it comes to preparing Gen Z to be the future workforce that ushers us into the modern era.

According to some national surveys, 75% of Generation Z show little or no interest in working for manufacturers and 70% of parents discourage manufacturing as a career.  So where will a manufacturing state like ours get its workforce?  Our next guest believes that video games are the answer.

Mike Switzer interviews Tina Zwolinski, CEO and founder of skillsgapp in Greenville, SC.

Let’s face it, job training isn’t something many people look forward to. It can be the most tedious and boring part of being hired at a company. However, there is a solution that can remove the mundane. According to continu, “Gamification in training is the process of applying gaming designs and concepts to learning or training sessions in order to make them more engaging and entertaining for your employees.” It offers a more innovative way for organizations to recruit a future workforce, as well as an opportunity to get them more excited about the career they’re about to embark on. 

Here are four ways that gamification can improve manufacturers’ skills training development, and recruitment: 

1. It allows learners to better control their own learning experiences.
It’s essential to keep recruits engaged throughout the entire process as well as develop a process that gets new candidates in the door. There’s nothing about sitting down to watch a series of videos during skills training that actively gets someone’s attention. However, by giving them some control over the progression of their training, you can make them an integral part of the process rather than just having them passively observe. 

2. Gamification offers manufacturers faster feedback that can allow them to improve training procedures in real time.
Continu notes, “With more traditional training, you learn your score, or are given advice once your session is completed. With gamification in training, users are given feedback as they progress throughout the training.” This allows for real-time adjustments to be made as the training continues, making the process more efficient and attractive to a newer, digitally-minded generation.

3. Gamification can draw in the younger generation to your training.
The manufacturing industry can take notes from construction companies’ success at this. Caterpillar is recruiting younger workers and enhancing its operator training programs with game-based simulators. This hands-on approach to learning gives students the opportunity to understand — and develop an affinity for — machine controls and operating procedures prior to entering the workforce, which makes them more qualified candidates when they come of age. 

4. Gamification can make your company or organization stronger.
Making training interesting is key for new recruits to stay with you throughout the process. Think about it — if your training process is a bore, they won’t retain as much or be excited about it. Continu explains that gamification can allow users to enjoy the process, retain more, and ultimately use these newfound skills to strengthen your company. Their success can also inspire loyalty, mitigating the ever-costly workforce attrition. 

What’s The Bottom Line?

It’s safe to say that gaming matters to manufacturers and the future workforce alike. When they’re at the top of their game, your bottom line wins.

The pre-pandemic rules of work and school have given way to not only a more digital world, but also new opportunities. As such, education’s structure isn’t as rigid as it used to be. Schools have been forced to implement creative ways to not only bring education to students, but also bring them together safely, all without cannibalizing required curriculum.

Why shouldn’t manufacturers do the same?

New Opportunities

COVID-19 presents manufacturers the opportunity to bring their training to Gen Z, rather than Gen Z bringing themselves to manufacturers. 

Education and training structures are not likely to go back to what they once were. That’s why manufacturers will need to carve out new opportunities to engage in not only this next generation of workforce, but in content that resonates with them. After all, Gen Z is adapting to learning in their new, digital environment. Manufacturers simply need to catch up.

Take Felling Trailers in Minnesota as an example. Bonnie Radjenovich, a member of their operations team says, “We’re advertising like crazy on Facebook and Instagram, and we just can’t get enough candidates in the door.” This was a step in the right direction. But here’s the rub, it isn’t enough anymore for companies to simply advertise to Gen Z on social platforms where they don’t necessarily live.

Skilling Gen Z

One new way to skill is by bringing training to Gen Z on their mobile devices through creative gamification that interests and excites them, and on platforms that engage  them.

Executive Director of UNICEF, Henrietta Fore, offers an important insight. She says, “If this time of COVID has taught us anything it’s that you need to adapt to the world as it is around you and the world is changing and so you have to change with it.”

By catering to Gen Z’s current style of learning, manufacturers have the opportunity to create future talent pipelines they didn’t previously have access to. On the flip side, students who previously didn’t have access to in-person training can now get a jumpstart on a career path through training within gamified apps. This symbiotic relationship could especially thrive in America’s rural areas, where access has historically been challenging.

Manufacturers Must Seize the Opportunity

The Pew Research Center indicates that “95% of 13- to 17-year-olds have access to a smartphone.” Not only is there a widespread network already in place to reach Gen Z, but their usage of smartphones is only likely to increase due to the switch to online learning. This opens the door for us to bring more meaningful play to users and according to appannie.com, “Spend on mobile games across all app stores projected to top $100 billion in 2020.” Reaching Gen Z at an early age and training them where they live will lay the groundwork for a reliable workforce now, and down the road.

The opportunity has never been more ripe for manufacturers to adapt to a new way of building future talent pipelines. Or more fun.

Could mobile gaming hold an answer to the dearth of the U.S.’s middle-skilled workforce? Cynthia Jenkins of South Laguna thinks it does, and her new enterprise, skillsgapp, holds enormous potential to open up career opportunities for youth not on the four-year college degree track but who’ll need more than a high school diploma to earn a decent wage as they make their way. Read More.