Workforce Readiness Initiative

The Conference Board is committed to enhancing the global competitiveness of workers, businesses, and economies. Our Workforce Readiness Initiative (WRI) conducts research, convenes business and thought leaders, and provides resources to member companies and the public at large aimed at ensuring that all employees bring to the workplace the skills and knowledge necessary to be valued as productive workers.

Reports

Are They Really Ready to Work? Employers' Perspectives on the Basic Knowledge and Applied Skills of New Entrants to the 21st Century Workforce, 2006.

According to the study Are They Really Ready to Work? employers report a low level of workforce readiness among new entrants. These recent high school and college graduates are sorely lacking in both basic (math and science) and applied (work ethic, team building, leadership, critical thinking) skills. The four organizations behind this report, The Conference Board, Corporate Voices for Working Families, Partnership for 21st Century, and the Society for Human Resource Management are concerned by this readiness gap and recognize the need to galvanize business support around this significant issue. For the business community to effectively advance solutions to address the skills gap and the related workforce readiness issue, we will have to challenge conventional thinking about what, where, when and how young people learn.

Speaking with Authority: The Case for Teaching English language Proficiency on the Job, Executive Action 270, 2008

As foreign-born workers become a larger share of the overall U.S. workforce and companies rely more and more on immigrant communities to supply their labor, employers are going to have to deal with language limitations in one way or another.

Investing in the Future: The Importance of Cross-Sector Partnerships in Improving Workforce Readiness, Executive Action 258, 2008

With talent gaps looming, businesses have a strong incentive to focus on workforce readiness. Education and its impact on the workforce of the future are evolving into major issues for companies. But how can business effectively address this challenge? This report highlights a conceptual framework for business involvement and explains why cross-sector cooperation among public and private institutions as well as NGOs must expand to have a real impact on this issue.

Ready to Innovate: Are educators and executives aligned on the creative readiness of the U.S. workforce? Research Report 1424, 2008

Innovation is crucial to competition, and creativity is integral to innovation. In November 2007, The Conference Board and Americans for the Arts, in partnership with the American Association of School Administrators, surveyed public school superintendents and American business executives (employers) to identify and compare their views surrounding creativity. Overwhelmingly, both the superintendents who educate future workers and the employers who hire them agree that creativity is increasingly important in U.S. workplaces, yet there is a gap between understanding this truth and putting it into meaningful practice.

New Graduates' Workforce Readiness: The Mid-Market Perspective, Research Report 1413, 2008

Preparing students to meet the demands of an increasingly competitive, knowledge-based global economy is a critical challenge facing the United States. With that in mind, this report presents a mid-market perspective on the workforce readiness of newly hired high school and college graduates. It is based on data from the U.S. Workforce Readiness Survey conducted by The Conference Board, Corporate Voices for Working Families, Partnership for 21st Century Skills, and Society for Human Resource Management. This report also includes excerpts from interviews with human resources professionals and educational research experts from seven mid-market organizations, as well as case studies of mid-market initiatives designed to improve the workforce readiness of newly-hired graduates.

The Ill-Prepared U.S. Workforce, 2009

Employers report hiring substantial numbers of new entrants who are poorly prepared, requiring additional corporate investment to improve workforce readiness skills. And while almost half (46 percent) of the companies surveyed by The Conference Board and its research partners provide readiness training programs for new hires, the majority find these programs to be "moderately" or "somewhat successful" at best. At a time when workforce talent is a major issue in the global competitiveness of U.S. business, the report raises several questions concerning the overall effectiveness of these training programs.

Joining The Conference Board in this research project are Corporate Voices for Working Families, The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), and ASTD (American Society for Training & Development)

See our Additional Resources page.

Convenings:

Investment in America Forum
Business and Education Council
Council on Development, Education, and Training
Community and Public Issues Council
Diversity and Inclusion Council
Contributions Councils
Global Business and Education Conference
Corporate Community Involvement Conference
Executive Action Reports
Attend The Conference Board 2009 Annual Dinner

Ongoing Research:

Supported by a grant from the Gates Foundation, The Conference Board WRI is framing the case to enlist U.S. business support to help increase post-secondary credentials among low-wage 16-26 year olds.
A report on the business impact of having to hire unprepared workers, created in conjunction with Corporate Voices for Working Families, American Society for Training & Development and Society for Human Resource Management, is also nearing publication.
Additional research focuses on determining how the disparate nature of business investment in education and workforce readiness impacts its potential effectiveness.

To learn more, contact WRI Project Leader, Mary Wright at mary.wright@conference-board.org