By Anvi Goyal
SACSCOC Workforce Communications Intern
One institution participating in SACSCOC’s Workforce Initiative survey offered a candid assessment of its biggest challenge.
A participating Workforce Initiative institute comments, “We are under-resourced and therefore lack staffing (faculty) capacity to innovate in how workforce is supported.”
That sentiment was echoed by many other respondents across the survey. Many other such comments received through the Workforce Initiative survey revealed the major roadblocks that higher ed institutions face today in meeting national and local workforce needs. This survey, conducted under the two-year Workforce Initiative supported by a Lumina Foundation grant, gathered responses from over 100 institutions and systems nationwide.
Of these, 73 percent of institutions and 56 percent of member systems cite constraints in acquiring resources and staff as obstacles to meeting workforce needs. The findings suggest that many institutions understand the importance of workforce development, but face practical limitations in expanding their efforts. The challenges that an alarming number of these institutes indicate serve as a wake-up call to all education and workforce governing bodies.
Many of these institutions also indicate the lack of space and equipment necessary to expand new and existing workforce development programs. High-skilled programs in STEM, such as healthcare and engineering, require hands-on training and the use of equipment and other resources.
Addressing this, an institution suggests that “Many programs that would be ideal for the institution and address workforce needs are resource-heavy.”
Another respondent observed: “It is no surprise that the declining external funding heavily impacts the lack of resources and staffing that universities face today. Indeed, as one partner institute suggests, “You have to have room for workforce programs, room for labs, and funding for equipment.” Moreover, “On the healthcare side, clinical space, faculty availability, accreditation standards, and space for expansion” are required to develop effective programs to meet workforce needs.
How external funding is allocated and utilized is also an important factor. Funding allocated to garner workforce development growth is often dedicated to programmatic and delivery needs. Whereas “administrative infrastructure necessary to accompany that growth,” as one of the respondents rightly comments, is sometimes overlooked.
External changes, beyond funding, such as the ever-evolving job market, affect the steps institutions can take toward workforce development programs. The questions the survey’s findings generate, therefore, are: how can institutions, especially publicly funded institutions, respond simultaneously to the agile job market while facing and reduced funding? What innovative means can these institutes develop to meet new workforce needs? Are innovative programs enough to battle the resource and staff shortages?
Recognizing these challenges is one of the reasons SACSCOC launched the Workforce Initiative to help member institutions share strategies, strengthen partnerships, and develop practical approaches that better align education with workforce needs.