The U. S. Chamber of Commerce is joining with Business Roundtable and SHRM to scale up skills-based employment practices for American businesses.
Finding qualified talent is not just a business priority, it is a national imperative. The U.S. needs a strong workforce to power economic growth, stay globally competitive and open the door to greater prosperity for all.
Our organizations collectively represent hundreds of CEOs and large companies, thousands of HR leaders and professionals, and millions of small and midsize businesses. We commit to combining our strengths to do more.
Adopting a skills mindset has the potential to transform the workplace. Companies can expand talent pools when they look beyond traditional four-year degrees, and workers can open more doors to meaningful careers when they are able to showcase their full skillsets.
We are already seeing positive results:
- 68% of U.S. workers say earning credential(s) outside traditional education degrees has helped them progress in their careers.
- 95% of executives and HR professionals say individuals with only credentials earned outside of traditional pathways perform the same or better than individuals with only traditional degrees.
Job openings increased an average of 12% a year between 2011 and 2021. Opportunities for workers who can demonstrate their full skillsets should be abundant. But barriers persist.
Why? Awareness, processes, and technology are not where they need to be to support employers in full-scale implementation. More needs to be done to help employers navigate changes like updating job postings and exploring new ways for job seekers to present their skills and experiences.
- We are committed to working together to make skills-based talent strategies possible on a larger scale:
- We will support employers as they translate their needs into a skills language that can be understood by hiring managers, employees, applicants and learning providers.
- We will provide training and change management support to assist employers in developing and deploying skills-based employment practices.
- We will help identify the best, simplest, and most unbiased technologies for implementing these talent strategies.
- We will send a market signal that skills-based employment practices work for companies, learners, and earners.
- And we will each continue our own efforts to support the CEOs, executives, and HR professionals we represent as they expand the benefits of skills-based employment practices to more workplaces.
Our shared commitment to the American business community is to make skills-based hiring and advancement more effective and more accessible by elevating best practices and leveraging the strategies, tools and resources needed to act.
Together, we can scale up what promises to be a successful strategy for our companies, our workforce, and our economy.
