Industry Skill Panels: Useful But Not Sufficient

TeamOJT Tip of the Month for June, 2005

Industry skill panels are not adequate for closing the real skill gaps that exist within companies and between school and work. Skill panels can be a starting point, but the specific job tasks that employees carry out daily need much more careful analysis. Skill panels are simply too slow and too general to do much good. Jobs are too specialized and change too fast for traditional skill panels to address what workers need to know and be able to do. What workers need are skills that enable them to perform their everyday work tasks.

Employers who use the skill panels still report a high level of difficulty hiring employees with sufficient basic employability and basic skills to meet entry-level hiring demands. And they seem to lack confidence in community and technical college programs as well as public workforce training systems to help provide these skills. Employers, colleges and public training providers need more detailed information on what specific skills are needed - skills that are measured against a set of outcome-based performance measures. They need modularized curriculum based on these performance measures.

The only way to find out precisely what employees need to know and be able to do is to ask them. Industry skill panels are not the answer. Members of skill panels generally consist of people including industry leaders, supervisors, and educators who are too far removed from the "real world" of the workers to make this determination.

To identify skills needed by entry-level workers (or even higher level employees for that matter), employers need to form teams of workers who regularly perform the job. By using the team job task analysis process as outlined in the September, 2003 Tip of the Month, these skills can easily be identified - usually in a couple of hours. Work accomplished by industry skill panels can be used as a starting point if available, but this is not necessary, and in some cases may prove a hindrance to the team process. Employees already know what the skills are. Once skills are identified, teams can write training modules, including outcome-based performance objectives, as outlined in the October, 2003 Tip of the Month and December, 2003 Tip of the Month. The training modules can then be used to train new hires quickly and effectively.

Human Performance Applications
Phone: (206) 447-0860
FAX: (206) 447-3410
E-mail: diane@teamojt.com