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Project Details
1.2 Deliverables
Objective:
- Develop 21st Century job profiles based on a cooperative effort with R&D labs in federal, non-profit, and private sector companies and organizations with a focus on high technology, high impact future innovation career pathways in selected innovative industries. Define future workforce skills to enable workforce training providers. Develop quantitative projections in key skill areas for an education and training strategy for recommendation to funders and policy makers. Develop recommendations to ensure that educational institutions in the California Innovation Corridor are able to prepare corridor residents with the skills needed for these jobs. This project will collaborate with two other Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development (WIRED) projects: 1.1 - Economic Development Innovation Toolkit, and 3.14 - Learning Collaboratory.
Desired Outcomes:
- Develop 21st Century job profiles in the Bio/Pharma, Bio/Info/Nano, and Biomedical Health fields.
- Define the workforce skills issues within these industries, based on their projected futures
Outcomes, Findings, Deliverables & Insights:
- Both the results and the process, using DoL O*Net compliant data driven quantitative and qualitative methods, are valuable. Among common WIRED CIC findings, four projects including 1.2 found a shortage of critical workers for innovative industries, and regardless of industry, occupation, level or position— improved levels of communication, interdisciplinary technical knowledge, problem solving, and systems thinking skills are required, as is systematic increased industry-education collaboration.
Deliverable – 21st Century Workforce Profile Analysis
Methodology:
- Included skills profiles included the following industries, which encompass discrete, process and nano/info and may include requirements applicable to other high innovation might tech industries:
-3254 Pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing,
-3344 Semiconductor and electronic component manufacturing,
-3345 Electronic instrument manufacturing, and
-5417 Scientific research and development services.
Occupations researched included:
-Biological Technician
-Chemical Technician
-Electrical Engineering Technician
-Robotic Technician
-Electronics Engineering Technician
-Industrial Engineering Technician
-Mechanical Engineering Technician
Methodology included a quantitative data driven LMID employer survey, and qualitative WIB and EDC interviews and forums with employers; companies were asked to rate the importance of specific tasks and abilities, knowledge requirements, and tools used, and to provide information on hiring difficulty, minimum educational requirements, and hiring trends in the next 12 months. Respondents were generally middle management or human resources directors. In addition, the Bay Area Council Economic Institute/BASIC conducted a Life Science Industry-Research-University Roundtable on the evolving needs of the life sciences industry in California. In conjunction with this, 17 bio-related executive interviews and ten graduate student interviews were conducted overall.
Findings:
- All of the groups surveyed – including recent PhD graduates, human resource professionals, and top executives, as well as the national laboratories and universities, stressed the need for adequate communication skills for workers ranging from technicians to executives, widespread concern that the educational system is not providing sufficient numbers of adequately prepared people to meet the needs of a high-tech workforce, and the need to improve the connection between the educational process and the experience and skills demanded by industry.
Every group expressed concerns about the quality of the education system and its ability to provide people with a suitable base of scientific knowledge and practical experience. Though most companies have developed relationships with local universities and/or community colleges to provide training meeting specific workforce needs; many indicated that more hands-on training was needed at these institutions and expressed concerns that educational institutions were not keeping current with technology and were not maintaining close enough ties with industry.
The top concern for industry was lack of basic science and math skills. This concern was closely followed by the observation that educators lack broad understanding of the key elements that are the driving forces of the industries
Conclusions and Recommendations:
Responses were remarkably consistent across the regions included in the current group of surveys and with data from WIRED 3.1 and 2.2, namely that there are significant difficulties in recruiting candidates with the level of skills and experience necessary. Education reform is called for at every level, with better career advice, experiential learning and preparation at the associate's, baccalaureate, and postgraduate levels alike. Perhaps rather than just ad hoc approach, an institutionalized model that integrates mentorship (perhaps a combination of industry and academic mentors), experiential learning (with real world objectives and metrics) and formal learning (traditional education), mirroring some best practices in industry for human capital development should be encouraged as an effective model for all levels of education.
Opportunities for Collaboration
Use the Collaboration Search Engine to search across the site. The partners listed in this section of the project pages are open to collaborating in these fields with any interested companies. See below for a list of skills and competencies that contributed to the success of this project:
NOVA: Assessments; Customized Training; Grant Writing; Job Training; Labor Market Research; Policy Maker Education/Outreach; Project Management; Project Partnering; Public Private Partners; Research; Skill Gap Analysis; Worker Profile
SBEDP: Business Development; Economic Development; Facilitation (meetings, etc.); Public Private Partners
SDWP: Advocacy; Assessments; Cluster Analysis; Customized Training; Facilitation (meetings, etc.); Fiscal Agent; Grant Writing; Industry Educational Investment; Innovation Support; Job Training; Labor Market Research; Marketing; Policy Maker Education/Outreach; Surveys; Worker Profile
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