Articles

Employers should take a long-range view, especially in times of crisis.

By Nicholas Wyman, business.com writer | Jun 24, 2020

It’s a bumpy road to a post-COVID-19 recovery. Countries that have declared themselves free from the coronavirus are trying to snap their economies back into action and fend off the dreaded second wave.

They offer some insight into what lies ahead for the U.S. and what we are already dealing with: paralyzing business uncertainty, disrupted global supply chains and school education, food insecurity, erupting inequalities, and shifts in trading partners.

And this is what the U.S. looks like to outsiders. As a business owner operating within North America’s borders, you might feel like giving up. More information can breed confusion and inaction, but it doesn’t have to.

I’d like you to consider taking a long-range view to anchor your thinking and to help you navigate through the impacts of COVID-19. An anchor moving you along? Sounds counterintuitive. Think of it as a temporal guide that is both about time and being more worldly.

The temptation is to focus on what’s close at hand – your business and your customers – just to get by and get through this. Gritted teeth and tentative steps. Recruitment is the last thing on your list, but could that hinder the sustainability of your business?

Employers, you should look squarely at COVID-19 and beyond to build a workforce starting now. Hear me out; there’s a rationale here that I hope might intrigue you.

• Cocooning your business within your comfort zone offers little cushioning to pivot against future uncertainty.
  
• A “tweak and business as usual” approach isn’t your best bet. “Be different” could be your new motto. “Pivot” is this year’s buzzword for a reason.
  
• Position yourself as a vector of positivity with a healthy dose of reality. Think Dr. Carol Dweck’s Growth Mindset.
  
• Train your sights on the sectors that are sparking our economy back to life and how your business can connect to them. There’s a host out there once you start looking. 
  
• Scrutinize your news feed for sage advice, subsidies, and grants; there’s plenty out there to tap into.
  
• Put the end-user of your product or service first, not your customer – successful businesses do this.
  
• Rewrite your playbook in business. This is time to work in and on your business, but you’ve got to really mean it this time. Small businesses can be nimble, so they are better positioned than behemoth enterprises.
  
• Consider if and how trainees and modern apprentices could be an excellent fit for your business sustainability.
  
• Short of time to strategize? Look at what chunks of your business you can automate or delegate, such as to virtual staff – freelancers, gig economy workers – for project work.
  
• Take solace that these successful companies started in a recession: FedEx, Disney, Microsoft, HP, Hyatt, Uber, Airbnb, and General Motors. They weren’t the norm, but would you want to be in these circumstances?

Whatever the industry, it is unlikely anyone will be returning to “business as usual.” There will be long-lasting, even permanent shifts, in many markets, as consumption patterns and shopping habits evolve post-pandemic. At the same time, remote work and other shifts in how we work, rapidly adopted of necessity in crisis, are likely to become permanent features. You know this.

Many businesses want to keep staff on but face fewer customers or forced closures with little cash flow to cover wages. Mothballing your business or shutting it full stop rather than going bankrupt might sound like a solid option. But, you’ll be on the back foot when the economy gets going again. The goodwill you’ve built up in your business will vanish.

There’s help for businesses to avoid mass layoffs and keep workers on their payrolls: free advisory services, loan resources and local assistance via the U.S. Small Business Administration or your local district, for example. Experience is an expensive teacher. Why not talk to other business owners, listen to their advice and gain insights from others’ mistakes so you can track your path to continuous learning about business?

Then go to the people who know your business challenges intimately. Quiz your staff about their ideas to help your business pivot, because they have definitely got skin in the game. What have they heard from their own network? Can they see connections for opportunities you can’t?

If you’re lucky enough to have a workforce that celebrates diversity – not just in name – ask yourself if there are different countries that might find your products and services beneficial? Perhaps an ideal market is in another region, country or continent than the one in which you’ve been operating. You won’t know unless you read widely, talk to people extensively and get active on the business powerhouse that’s LinkedIn.

In the short term, consider lifting your profile by making a meaningful contribution to your community, whether that is done by repurposing your facilities, managing volunteer efforts or forming an innovative partnership with another company. Orienting locally during a crisis can have profound positive effects on the health of the community and businesses.

You’re not alone, even though every business situation is unique. Be open to solutions and innovations, both locally and internationally. Get inspired by what other companies are doing across the globe, thanks to the World Economic Forum, too.

We’ve seen innovation in the retail sector. During the shutdown, restaurants pivoted to home deliveries where they could. Now, where they’re reopening, companies such as Presto have stepped in to hand them a free app to make safe, contactless dining a possibility. You’ve also heard of manufacturers switching over to making in-demand health products.

Being different (to your competition and your pre-COVID-19 setup) could well be how businesses will prosper, although there will be major losses in some sectors of the economy. COVID-19 will create more opportunities for businesses providing technology and data-driven products and services in areas such as supply chain logistics, cloud IT, and automation, as companies seek to develop operating processes and systems which can withstand future shocks of this nature. How can your business operate in one of those ecosystems by finding a connection?

While you might be tempted to keep a steely focus on your customer as always right, look beyond the direct buyer of your product or service to the actual end user. Follow their behavior. It’s more nuanced than just keeping your customers’ customers happy. Consider who is in the ecosystem in which your business operates.

A study published in the latest issue of the Journal of Marketing confirmed this. Researchers used artificial intelligence to find that successful companies no longer put their customers first. They instead focused their marketing on building relationships across industries. In addition, they were alert to the end user of their product or service, which wasn’t always their direct customer. 

That long-range view makes sense for building your workforce with trainees or apprentices who you can expect to be with you on your business journey through and out of COVID-19. It’s a way to build diversity, engender loyalty and mold your team members so they earn while they learn, and gain nationally recognized qualifications. America’s apprenticeship system has bipartisan support and is all the stronger for that. It needs to be.

The jobs of the Fourth Industrial Revolution demand broad, agile skill sets. Hopefully, we are looking at a new era of investments in training that address existing shortages and meet the workforce expansion opportunities that will come out of this crisis.

Flexibility and understanding are how businesses will get through this.

https://www.business.com/articles/beyond-covid-19-to-build-workforce/

By Dr. Ely Weinschneider, Psy.D., Psychologist and Relationship Expert.

https://thriveglobal.com/stories/why-you-should-accept-the-situation-you-are-in-with-dr-ely-weinschneider-nicholas-wyman/

As a part of my series about the things we can do to remain hopeful and support each other during anxious times, I had the pleasure of interviewing Nicholas Wyman a workforce development and skills expert, author, speaker, and CEO of the Institute for Workplace Skills and Innovation. Wyman is a leader in developing skills-building, mentorship and apprenticeship programs that close the gap between education and careers around the world. He is a regular contributor to Forbes and Quartz, and was named LinkedIn’s #1 Education Writer of the Year. His award-winning book, Job U, is a practical guide to finding wealth and success by developing the skills companies actually need.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?

My journey started in high school in Australia, where I grew up. What I didn’t know at the time was I wasn’t doing well academically because I learn best by doing. I didn’t get much support from my school. In fact, the school discouraged me from completing my final year because they were worried their overall grades would take a slump! Part of the problem was that I wasn’t good at sitting still and memorizing. But I was good at hands-on work. I used to cook with my grandmother, and really loved that concrete learning — chopping, combining, cooking, tasting, adjusting spices and ingredients. I channeled that passion for cooking into a position as an apprentice chef. It was challenging, but I stuck at it and ended up as national apprentice of the year. After that I captained a gold-medal winning culinary youth team in Germany, which led me to a job as a fish chef at a Michelin-starred hotel in London. Later, I supervised apprentices, which led to a management role in corporate human resources.

By age 40, I was ready for university and got a Master’s in Business Administration, with additional study at Harvard and the Kennedy School of Government. When I finished my studies I started thinking about how I could help others who’d been discouraged in school achieve success. I created two non-profit organizations in Australia specifically to help young people who aren’t academically inclined get the skills they need for work, and then find apprenticeship positions with local employers.

Next, I set up an international consultancy in America, the Institute for Workplace Skills & Innovation, to help companies and governments expand the range of skills-based careers. The insights I gained from my work in Australia and the U.S. led me to write my 2015 book: Job U: How to find wealth and success by developing the skills companies truly need.

I now specialize in the skills gap and future workforce issues. The series of steps that led me from high school under-performer to international expert in career and technical education was utterly unpredictable but at the same time entirely logical. I built on my own interests and skills and leveraged doing what I loved. I never stopped learning. Because I did it, I know others can do it, and therefore I feel so strongly about helping others get the skills they need to find great jobs. It keeps me raring to go every day.

Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

I had an opportunity to spend time with Clayton Christensen and attend some of his classes. One of his books stuck with me — Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns.

I know there’s no shortage of books that talk about the challenges in education, but this book focuses on individual students — what individuals need in the classroom and how we can transform classrooms, transform entire schools, to make sure students get what they need.

He argues for an end to the monolithic classroom where teachers present the same content in the same way to a large group of students. What’s needed instead is a custom curriculum molded to the student, and Christensen thinks we have the technology to do this. In fact, since this book came out in 2008, we’ve greatly improved hardware, software and communications technology, so there’s even more of a possibility to create a truly student-centered school experience. If they had something like this when I was in high school, I could have been learning math, science, history and languages through a specialized cooking curriculum.

It might seem overly ambitious to consider the needs of every student. But to me education is about changing the lives of each young person for the better. When I think about what we’re trying to do, I remember the old story about the child who was walking with her father along the beach as the tide rolled out, stranding thousands of starfish. Seeing one at her feet, she picked it up and tossed it back into the surf. ‘Don’t waste your time,’ said her father. ‘There are thousands of stranded starfish on the beach. Saving one doesn’t matter.’ ‘It matters to that one,’ she replied.

Many people have become anxious from the dramatic jolts of the news cycle. The fears related to the coronavirus pandemic have heightened a sense of uncertainty, fear, and loneliness. From your perspective can you help our readers to see the “Light at the End of the Tunnel”? Can you share your “5 Reasons To Be Hopeful During this Corona Crisis”? If you can, please share a story or example for each.

From your experience or research what are five steps that each of us can take to effectively offer support to those around us who are feeling anxious? Can you explain?

• Consume less — of everything. What can and can’t you manage financially? What subscriptions and services can you let go. What products can you also do without.
• Spend time to nurture your own wellbeing and mental health.
• Just accept the situation you (and we all) are in. That that the global economy is undergoing huge shifts that may result in stronger and more self-sufficient local, regional and national economies
• Communication is key. Make and refresh connections with people and companies.
• Consider some reflection about your problems and seek out those that you couldn’t resolve before the crisis.

What are the best resources you would suggest to a person who is feeling anxious?

I think there’s one thing we can do, and encourage others to do, that will help reduce anxiety around this crisis. And that’s take some time to stop, to settle yourselves, breathe and reflect. Research shows that even the busiest person has at least 20 minutes a day to engage in reflection. Stop all activity, calm yourself, breathe — this will help.

Of course a little assistance in this endeavor can be very useful, as some people really don’t know how to stop. I’ve got a friend who’s a local fire chief — a job that includes dealing with wildfires and is extremely stressful. He recommended Andrew Johnson’s online recordings to me — MP3s you can listen to online or download. These are guided meditations that help you bring down your own stress levels and develop strategies for staying calm when you get back into your busy day. I’m listening to the recordings myself and finding them very helpful.

Right now you can listen to eight of his most popular meditations for free, and during the coronavirus crisis he’s made numerous other recordings available at a sharp discount. There are some meditations specifically for children as well, which is a great way to introduce children to habits that will help them their entire lives.

I think developing this capacity — the capacity for self-calming — will bring great benefits during and after the current crisis.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life?

“There’s more than one way to cook an egg” — as a former chef it appeals to me! And yes, there is a story behind it.

When I was a chef’s apprentice, I learned how to make chicken soup under the watchful tutelage of an European chef. This simple stock was used as a base for many of the hotel’s famous signature dishes and she showed me how to make it step by step. Eager to show off my new skills, I rushed home that night and made the stock for my parents. By this time, my father was coming to terms with my career choice and was happy to sample the fruits of my labors. True to his European heritage, he put some semolina dumplings and a few carrots in the stock and declared it delicious. Clearly, I’d mastered chicken stock.

A few days later, another chef in a different part of the hotel offered me the opportunity to showcase my new skill. ‘Mr Wyman, make some chicken stock!’ he ordered. ‘Yes, Chef,’ I dutifully replied, and followed the recipe exactly as I’d been taught. So, I was shocked when he was less than pleased with the result.

‘That’s not how you make chicken stock!’ he exclaimed. What had gone wrong? The hotel’s executive chef, pulled me aside. ‘Nicklaus,’ he said in his Germanic accent, ‘when this chef is in charge make it her way and when that chef is in charge make it his way. He said “When I am in charge make it my way. When you are in charge one day, make it your way.”

That’s when I realized there’s more than one ‘right’ way to make chicken stock.

Of course, this story isn’t really about chicken stock. It’s about getting where you want to go, on your own path. There’s plenty of career advice out there. I can’t tell you what’s right for you. Take in as much information and guidance as you can, but ultimately only you can make the decision about what job or career will be the right fit.

The possibilities for your future are virtually limitless and there are many ways to get there. Whatever path you take, I hope it’s one that leads you to the unparalleled sense of meaning and satisfaction that comes from skilled work.

If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. ?

I think what we might get from our reaction to this virus, and our recovery from it, is a greater sense of community. Businesses should think very hard right now about how to contribute to their communities — repurposing their facilities for storage or care; managing volunteer efforts to help the most vulnerable; or donating goods, services and money to assist in the community effort — whatever they can manage. A reorientation toward the local, toward the customer, people who are ultimately your friends and neighbors, can really contribute to the health of the community and the health of the business.

What is the best way our readers can follow you online?
LinkedIn and Twitter
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholasmwyman/
https://twitter.com/nicholas_wyman

Published on June 9, 2020

Posted by Nicholas Wyman.

You’ve heard of digital-tech disrupters having weekly, or even daily, business plans? That sounds like a good fit for business in the United States these days, with the alarming increase in coronavirus cases. Wouldn’t a crystal ball be handy now to help business leaders pivot as nimbly as needed?

Chances are, we won’t snap back to normalcy as we knew it before COVID-19. Are you even a teensy bit hopeful about what will emerge?

You might be if you’d checked out the #BuildforCOVID19 Global Online Hackathon which finished a couple of weeks ago. WHO, Microsoft, Slack, Facebook, Salesforce and Twitter were among the big names backing this call for developers to create software solutions to help address the crisis. Almost 90 projects were ‘winners’ – it’s a space to watch to see which ones enter the market.

Hope will only get you so far. Inaction isn’t an option. Businesses and employees across the globe are making difficult decisions and pivoting. It’s what we do to succeed.

In the aptly titled book of the times, Upstream: The Quest to Solve Problems Before They Happen, Dan Heath, a fellow at Duke University’s CASE Center, talks about what’s crucial to navigate an uncertain future.

“We can’t foresee everything; we will inevitably be mistaken about some of the consequences of our work. And if we aren’t collecting feedback, we won’t know how we’re wrong and we won’t have the ability to change course,” he writes.

Accept you won’t accurately foresee all aspects of the future. Marshal yourself in there with a solid plan that’s got built-in feedback mechanisms and keep checking in.

My challenge to you is to be direct and honest about what your business can achieve. Look to innovate, work out your metrics to monitor regularly and keep your eye on the long-term.

Many organizations have expanded into telecommuting and remote working (many for the first time). IT networks and tools such as Zoom and Slack underpin this foray. Consider how your company’s work processes and systems are flowing into this new distributed business model.

Sales and tech fields have been the exemplars of smooth transition, but other sectors can take their heed to innovate. In health care, we’re seeing telehealth platforms including Plushcare really showing their mettle. Healthcare workers can use them for contactless visits from their centers. Meanwhile, mental health counselors are tapping into platforms such as Betterhelp to pick up online where they left off with their clients.

You can expect that business travel, conferences and in-person staff meetings will be history, at least in the short-to-medium term.

If you haven’t done so already, check out how online platforms and telecommuting can boost communications and engagement for your business. Use them to replace face-to-face training or ramp it up with a learning management system. There are 700+ out there in the market. Elearning, mobile learning, virtual and augmented reality training are useful alternatives to in-person training if your budget allows.

Why is training to important, particularly if you think your business planning should have a short-term focus? This is the key: nest your nimble short-term plan in a longer-range one that covers workforce development and employee retention. That’s critical.

Many businesses want to keep staff on, but have fewer customers or have been forced to close so they have little cash to cover wages. Mothballing your business or just shutting it full stop rather than going bankrupt might sound like a solid option.

But there is help out there for businesses to avoid mass layoffs and keep workers on their payrolls – this is the best insurance for sustainability. Think of it as keeping your business humming so it’s ready to upscale when treatment or a vaccine are in place. You’ll be on the front foot.

Check out the array of resources on the US Small Business Administration website. It offers guidance, loan resources and local assistance for the COVID-19 situation. See what other companies are doing across the globe, according to the World Economic Forum, too.

However, if you do need to close your business or reduce operating hours and if the work can’t be done remotely, there are options. During the downtime, consider incentivizing staff to take part in online education and to upskill. If they can foster and finesse their skills during this time, it’s a powerful tool to engage and retain them as well as lift morale.

Online learning aims to be actionable – it’s practical and focused on skills. Your staff can tackle online courses to reboot, boost or enhance their skill set – cheaply, easily, from anywhere and anytime. And they aren’t just hobby courses.

For instance, Khan Academy offers free math, science and engineering, computing, economics, finance courses as well as a variety of test prep. Also check out other free offerings such as Udacity, Skillshare, Google, Udemy and Memrise. There are also massive open online courses (MOOCs) including the highest-profile EdX from many of the globe’s most prestigious universities. Check out if the course certificates could give your staff microcredentials recognised by the marketplace credential engine.

When you take the long-range view, COVID-19 could mean workforce expansion opportunities. Local and regional communities will be invigorated to work together perhaps in ways that are more self-sufficient. Closed borders means globalized trade will dip. You might not think it, but there will be a greater need for more modern apprenticeship programs. A survey of 900 US employers found most of them said registered apprenticeships produced net economic gains and 87% would recommend them strongly. Apprenticeships are actually a superb fit for roles in health, human services, high-tech manufacturing, even cybersecurity. Expect governments across the world to recalibrate the role and scope of government services. 

The immense problems COVID-19 is causing need solutions from businesses offering technology and data-driven products, as well as services in supply chain logistics, cloud IT, automation, etc. Companies will want to develop operating processes and systems to withstand future disasters, not just pandemics.

Embracing apprenticeships means employers will be a step ahead in working towards future-proofing themselves and the country. Consider giving young people a chance as apprentices in these challenging times.

The modern apprenticeship has proven effective for upskilling workforces. It makes sense to begin investing now in your talent pipeline to prepare for economic recovery.

For companies with apprentices, the message is clear: have the courage to stand firm. Do extra training. You’ll find yourself well poised to respond when the economy improves. Keep your eyes on the road ahead. We’re undergoing an economic transformation which will demand revamped, adapted, or new skills.

Each business is unique, so you’ll need to customize how you’ll adapt. The eyes of workers will be on the C-suite leadership. Savvy senior management teams will listen to all staff about making remote work sustainable while fostering unity and a sense of purpose. Honesty, flexibility, and understanding are how we’ll get through this. Business leaders who take a long-term view of current crisis can see the opportunity to create a more robust and better-prepared workforce for when the economy returns to normal.

Let’s see where this will take us. How will your company tap into workers as a community of learners to ensure resilient and sustainable operations?

By Nicholas Wyman.

Much of America’s production has halted, unemployment queues are growing and many businesses are terminal. Thanks to the COVID-19 crisis, our country is hemorrhaging on many fronts, from output to revenue and wages. It’s a new world order.

Unemployment insurance and business loans are necessary, but in the bigger picture, they’re palliative care. They have no effect on shrinking production of goods and services. For businesses and workers who can’t work remotely, it looks like flatlining territory — or is it?

The remedy, despite the crisis, is that now is an ideal time to invest in skills. America has a serious skills shortage due to insufficient worker training over many years, and there’s a severe mismatch between what workers can do and the job descriptions companies are offering. There aren’t enough qualified workers for job vacancies in occupations like information technology (IT), advanced manufacturing, logistics and parts of health care.

At the heart of the problem is many workers have poor literacy and numeracy levels, as the latest data shows, which is a significant hurdle to their ability to be productive and earn a decent wage. For instance, more than a quarter of jobless people can’t use common decimals and fractions well enough to perform calculations. In addition, more than seven in 10 service sector workers have low numeracy skills — in a sector experiencing harrowing job losses.

The current shutdown is an opportunity to lift literacy and numeracy skills by encouraging workers to take part in continuous learning, benefitting them and the country in the medium to long term. To do so, the U.S. government could spend some of its new economic stimulus funds on such a program. Effectively, it would boost human capital to make workers more productive. The remedy, despite the crisis, is that now is an ideal time to invest in skills. 

What are the priority skills this country needs to subsidize, and how can America ensure the greenback investment will improve skills and competencies?

Worker Incentives

This upskilling initiative could happen in a number of ways. The first is a pledge to support training in basic math, reading and language. This funding would take the form of incentive payments to workers who are on unemployment insurance or unemployment assistance to use to enhance their skills. The investment would also support access to the eLearning tools, educational videos and mentoring needed.

These worker incentives would be performance-based and aimed at replacing a more significant portion of lost earnings than the 50% level unemployment insurance (UI) often provides. State agencies that administer UI would ask recipients to take part in a math, reading, digital skills or language learning program. The incentive? Workers would receive a 30% to 35% bonus on top of their weekly payments, which would be paid every two weeks or every month as long as they demonstrate active participation and progress.

State and/or local education providers would also receive federal funding to kick-start online programs to improve reading and math skills. These programs might pivot off existing free online resources and learning videos. Meanwhile, well-educated unemployed people could be trained as mentors under a similar bonus incentive program.

Virtual Apprenticeships

Another option is to fund virtual apprenticeships and other in-demand occupational skills. Businesses are continuing to hire qualified workers even in today’s shriveling economy. Think of the need for workers in many health care fields; this shortage will only grow. Virtual apprenticeships, which would attract government funding, could help, with jobless UI recipients and low-wage workers filling the roles. Government funding would support intermediaries and/or employer sponsors to set up online learning programs.

Virtual apprenticeships have proven their worth in medical coding, medical transcription, pharmacy technician, cyber technician, software development, insurance sales brokers and many other occupations. Competency-based occupational frameworks could guide program design, and they already exist for several of these fields. They’re also useful to assess whether (and to what extent) participants develop the right skills.

A current urgent need is to train health care workers to operate and monitor ventilators. Meeting this need would help hospitals improve their capacity to care for infected and ill patients, but hospitals couldn’t do that supervision and training now. Ideally, other health facilities would gain funding to train apprentices.

Consider, too, that employers keen to commit to rehiring workers post-crisis would receive help for supporting unemployed workers in learning digital and maintenance skills. That support would skyrocket their value in advanced manufacturing as well as other industries.

No one can be sure how America will recover after the danger of COVID-19 passes, but we do know that skills in numeracy, literacy, manufacturing and health care will always be valued and needed. These two initiatives would pivot off existing approaches to create a way forward.

The current shutdown is an opportunity to lift skills by encouraging workers to take part in continuous learning.

Article by Robert I. Lerman.

Efforts to limit the spread of COVID-19 have shut down much of American production, led to massive layoffs and reduced hiring, and endangered many American businesses. The scale of the lost output, revenues, and wages is unprecedented.

Replacing workers’ lost incomes through unemployment insurance (UI) and offering concessionary loans to businesses suffering extraordinary revenue losses are needed but have little impact on the declining production of goods and services.

They’re a stopgap, not the solution.

What can be done, especially for businesses and workers not lucky enough to generate production, sales, and incomes through remote operations?

It might sound counterintuitive, but now—during the COVID-19 crisis—is the best time for investing in skills.

We could reverse years of underinvestment

America hasn’t been training enough workers for a long time. The result has been a serious mismatch between job requirements and worker capabilities. Too few workers qualify for the jobs available in information technology, advanced manufacturing, logistics, and certain health fields.

Part of the problem is that many workers lack the basic math and reading skills necessary to increase productivity and earn good wages. The latest data document low and stagnant levels of literacy, numeracy, and digital problem-solving; 27 percent of employed workers were unable to solve a problem with common decimals and fractions. In the service sector, where job losses are enormous, 74 percent of employees have low numeracy skills.

We can make a dent in these long-term problems by investing in skills during today’s shutdown. Because they can’t go to work, many workers have the time to become active learners; training will not displace other production.

Using dollars from the new economic stimulus, the US government could support a program to upgrade the skills of American workers, especially those experiencing sudden unemployment. At a time when production of goods and services is dropping off dramatically, the program would increase the supply of human capital.

What would it take?

What kinds of skill development should be subsidized? How can we ensure government funds genuinely enhance skills and competencies?

1. Financial support to increase generic skills in math, reading, and language

Workers receiving UI or unemployment assistance would qualify for incentive payments to increase their generic skills and for funding to help them access necessary e-learning tools, educational videos, and mentoring. The financial incentives to workers would be performance based and aim to replace a higher share of lost earnings than the 50 percent level often provided by UI.

State agencies administering UI would invite recipients to participate in a learning program (in math, reading, digital skills, or language) in return for a supplement to their weekly payments. State and local education agencies would receive federal funding to mount online programs to raise reading and math skills.

Existing resources include many free online tools and videos from organizations such as Khan Academy, Alison, Mooc.org, Smartly, Mobi, Adobe Education Exchange, Udemy, and Grow with Google.

UI recipients receiving a 50 percent replacement rate could top up their payments to 80–85 percent of prior earnings. The relevant agency would pay the supplements monthly or biweekly so long as recipients demonstrate active participation and progress toward goals. Well-educated unemployed people would be invited to learn mentoring skills and subsequently receive payments to help workers increase their generic skills.

2. Funding for virtual apprenticeships and other in-demand occupational skills

Even in today’s shrinking economy, some employers need and are willing to hire qualified workers. Qualified workers in many health fields are in short supply, or soon will be as health systems become overwhelmed with an influx of COVID-19 patients.

The government could fund virtual apprenticeships to deliver competent workers. UI recipients, others not working, and low-wage workers could apply to participate. Federal grants from the Office of Apprenticeship would go to intermediaries and employer sponsors to mount online learning.

Virtual apprenticeships show promise for several occupations, including medical coding, medical transcription, pharmacy techs, cyber technicians, software development, and even insurance sales brokers. Competency-based occupational frameworks to ease program design and judge how well participants attain necessary skills are already available for several of these fields.

During the pandemic, training more health workers to operate and monitor ventilators would ensure hospitals have the capacity to care for infected patients. However, hospitals too taxed to take on the training could be assisted by having the government fund other health facilities that have adequate supply to train apprentices to learn the necessary skills.

When the crisis has passed, employers willing to commit to rehiring workers would receive aid for helping unemployed workers learn digital and maintenance skills that enhance their value in advanced manufacturing and other industries.  

These two initiatives can harness existing approaches to bridge the gap between now and our uncertain future. As our founding father, Benjamin Franklin, reputedly said, “by failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” We can start building America’s future now.