WorkReady Communities Aims to Fill Skills Gap

When new business and industry come calling, South Carolina officials want to be able to spotlight not only available sites, but the workforce those industries are seeking.

A new initiative rolling out this year aims to help them do just that.

Ray Farley, Executive Director of economic development agency AlliancePickens, recently spoke about the WorkReady Communities program to area Chamber of Commerce members.

Ray Farley the program is connected to a “hot button topic” that's talked about not only statewide or nationwide, but worldwide.

“That is skills availability in the younger set of the workforce,” Farley said.

Previous generations of workers developed mechanical aptitude and analytical capabilities that “we are now missing in the workforce,” Farley said.

“We are not alone here,” he said, adding that this area is not the only area experiencing a shortage of technical talent.

He said industry wants to hire, but companies often can't find the skilled workers that they need.

“Hundreds if not thousands of jobs are going unfilled in our neck of the woods because these folks that aren't employed don't have the skill sets that are in demand by the modern manufacturers,” Farley said.

The younger workforce, both statewide and nationwide, is lacking “soft skills,” Farley said.

“When my boss tells me to be at work at 8 o'clock in the morning … I need to be at work at 8 o'clock in the morning,” Farley said. “That doesn't mean I stroll in at 8:05, 8:10, 8:20. And if I've got tasks to do on a particular day, I need to complete them. I can't just pick and choose which tasks I want to do. We're hearing all over the country that this is an issue with our young people.”

Farley said that communities that “crack the code first,” developing technically skilled workforces with strong work ethics that the marketplace is seeking, “those are going to be the communities that grow in the future.”

South Carolina has chosen to face the problem head-on, Farley said.

The SC Workready Communities program aims to connect industry with the employees they need, by identifying workers who have the skills sets that are needed and ranking them on standard scale.

“We'll be able to slide a catalog over to (industry officials) and say, 'Do we have the skilled labor that you need? Yes, we do. We've quantified it, and here is the catalog of people. Here are the individuals who are qualified to do your kind of work.”

The program will use the WorkKeys job skills assessment system to develop that catalog of workers with sought-after skills.

“We're going to test people,” Farley said.

Tests will be given at technical colleges and One Stop centers and possibly in Pickens County schools.

The test will gauge workers' basic aptitude and capability and will rank them along a scale of Platinum, Gold, Silver or Bronze. The results will connect employers to job seekers.

The area will need to meet a certain number of quotas concerning number of residents who are tested, in order to become a WorkReady-certified community, Farley said.

He urged Chamber members to support the program and help it become successful.

While many countries are thinking about the lack of technical skills among their workforce, some countries have advantages over the United States in dealing with the problem, Farley said.

“Europeans have a leg up on us because they have a several generations deep ongoing apprenticeship program that helps alleviate this a lot, some of the skills gap we're seeing here,” he said. “Shame on us, if we don't good something as a community to effect this in a positive way.”