A new survey of American workers indicates that workers mostly feel positive sentiment pertaining to the economy, but it revealed concerning truths about career exploration and access to skills development programs. In October during an UpSkill Works forum, the Partnership’s Peter Beard, who leads the UpSkill Houston initiative, hosted Jane Oates, president of WorkingNation, the workforce-focused media organization that commissioned the survey. Oates presented the key findings and others and shared what they mean for workers, students, employers and educators. The survey was conducted by Frank Luntz and his company, FIL, in August 2020, with a sample size of 800 people. The survey is a “snapshot in time” that shows a useful picture of how workers view their skills and how they could obtain more. The data collected can point employers, educators, career coaches and parents of students of any age to areas ripe with opportunity to increase career exploration and opportunities to obtain additional skills. Key findings in the survey include: 75 percent of workers surveyed believe they can still aspire to obtain the American Dream. 47 percent equate the American Dream with going to bed each night feeling financially secure. 31 percent of workers said they never talked with a parent or teacher about their future job. Workers put a premium on certifications in technology skills as a means for obtaining well-paid employment in the future 66 percent of workers say they have never had the opportunity to participate in skills training on-the-job. 56 percent of workers were unaware of local skills training programs; More than 20 percent said they would not use these programs, anyway  Oates advocated for school curriculum to include job-focused lessons in creative ways and for colleges and universities to embed industry-recognized credentials into associate and baccalaureate degree programs as opportunities to improve career understanding and provide the education individuals believe they’ll need to have successful careers in the future. A recording of the Forum may be viewed to the right. Main points from the discussion follow. Workers are optimistic about achieving the American Dream. They value employment that is enjoyable and rewarding over employment that’s secure. Even now, amid the pandemic and changing labor market, people seem more willing to take an enjoyable, rewarding or interesting job with an employer that might appear less secure than one that seems more secure, Oates said. Nearly one-third of workers (31 percent) said they never had a discussion about a future job with a parent or a teacher, a statistic Oates hopes can be changed by creatively embedding career exploration into school curricula. By doing so, “you're teaching them how to write a research paper, but you're also teaching them how to learn about what they could do and what they're interested in how they match their passion with how they make their money.” “If we could get parents of every age to begin and continue to talk to their children about careers and their potential, it could make a difference,” Oates said. Workers believe that to have a healthy economy it is important to have a skilled workforce and put a premium on obtaining technology skill credentials in order to get a job in the future that pays well. This should be a “warning bell” for higher education institutions signaling a need to embed industry-recognized credentials into traditional college programs. The majority of workers have not been offered skills training by an employer; they’re also unaware of other local training programs. They also expressed confusion and even fear of the changing economy and learning new skills to remain successful. Language makes a difference, and talking about “careers” and “career progressions” versus “jobs” will resonate with workers. “We’ve been talking career pathways for decades and it’s resonated.” Oates said. “People understand that they might have to take an entry-level job, but they want to build that career.” Workers also said they trusted themselves to solve the skills gap (34 percent) more than they trusted the business community (21 percent) or school or education systems (20 percent). Coaches and counselors can use this to remind clients that they are in charge of their own destinies. “People need to say to people that come to them for advice or assistance or guidance, ‘You are in charge of your own destiny. You have to have skin in the game. You have to be committed to this.’ You can build the best program ever, and people who work in programs know this, and unless a person really committed to it really puts their best effort out they're not going to get the most out of it,” she said.  “One of our biggest challenges I think today, and certainly moving forward, is motivating people to believe they can be anything they want to be with some hard work,” she said.   Learn more about the UpSkill Houston initiative. See recordings of all past UpSkill Works Forum events.

In an entrepreneurial career that’s helped spawn some of the most recognizable company names in the tech world, Matt Mullenweg has become an evangelist for the concept of distributed work.  Mullenweg realized as a young adult growing up in Houston that the internet offered a means of connecting with some of the smartest people in any given field around the world. And you didn’t have to be in the same physical space to actually create things together.  The co-founder of Wordpress, the wildly successful open source content management system and website building platform, knew he was on to something when programmers worldwide worked to help build and improve upon that platform. Roughly 600 programmers worked on the most recent version of WordPress, only a fraction of which work full time for the company.  Today, Mullenweg’s open source tech company Automattic, which he founded in 2005, has a distributed workforce of 1,300 people in 77 countries. He spoke this week with HEB President Scott McClelland about distributed work, diversity and inclusion and the need for companies to adapt to a changing landscape, in a fireside chat. The conversation was part of the Partnership’s annual Houston NEXT: An ERG Summit.  “Words create reality,” Mullenweg said, describing how he differentiates between remote and distributed workers. “Remote suggests that there’s someone central and someone remote who isn’t. We tried to think of a word that captured the idea of being very close to each other in our work, but not physically in the same space. Distributed is the word we chose.”  Click to expand Distributed Work's 5 Levels of Autonomy developed by Matt Mullenweg. That distributed approach gives employees a great deal of personal freedom and autonomy to get the job done in a space of their choosing and in their own way. “When people are really happy and fulfilled in the rest of their life, they bring their best self to work,” Mullenweg said. “They’re more creative, they have more energy, and for every person what that looks like is different.”  The COVID-19 pandemic has forced a lot of companies that might never have seriously considered allowing employees to work remotely to do just that. And for many who’ve seen productivity and quality actually increase, it’s been a wakeup call, Mullenweg said. “This has allowed us to break out of the ossification of ideas,” he said, adding that companies need to be able to adapt to both crises and gradual change or risk becoming obsolete.  Building a More Diverse Workforce  Automattic is well-regarded for its diversity and inclusion efforts, and Mullenweg touched on why. “Talent and intelligence are equally distributed throughout the world, but opportunity is not, and we can see that,” he said. “If our company is able to provide that opportunity where it hasn’t existed, then we benefit.”  Automattic has also upended the traditional hiring process. Managers don’t look at where a candidate went to school or even their employment background. Rather, Mullenweg said, jobs are open to anyone, regardless of their background, if they are able to exhibit the necessary skills through a trial run at the job.  He said even before the pandemic struck, the company actually did a lot of its hiring remotely via chat, sometimes not even seeing the individual. “Some people don’t do well in a traditional interview, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be good at the job,” he said. “Our approach has been great for creating a more equal playing field for everyone who wants to join the mission.”  The number one thing businesses need to do, according to Mullenweg? Embrace change. “We have all had to adjust with COVID,” he said. “If you really try to hold on to the way things worked before, it’s going to be really tough. And it’s going to be tough for the people on the front lines of your business. Open things up more.”  Check out Matt Mullenweg’s Distributed podcast and learn more about the 5 levels of distributed work.