The Handbook of Career and Workforce Development

Research, Practice, and Policy

V. Scott H. Solberg, Saba Rasheed Ali, V. Scott H. Solberg, Saba Rasheed Ali

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138886551
• eBook ISBN: 9781317501978
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Social Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The Handbook of Career and Workforce Development provides educators, researchers, and policy makers with information on evidence-based programs and activities. Chapters describe ways that current research can be used to promote the design of more effective career development programs and services at local, state, and national levels. Promising career development practices applicable to a range of settings and special populations are identified, as are strategies for communicating evidence in ways that influence career and workforce development public policy. The Handbook of Career and Workforce Development can be used by policy makers and grant program officers to identify key career development ingredients that should be considered in proposals; researchers seeking to make their career development research relevant and practical; and practitioners implementing or advocating for career development programs and services.

1
Introduction

Designing Quality Career and Workforce Development Programs and Services

V. Scott H. Solberg
Saba Rasheed Ali

The Economic Rationale for Investing in Career Development

Access to quality career and workforce development programs and services that leverage higher postsecondary completion rates and wage earnings is considered a key “pillar” for establishing and maintaining economic competitiveness (World Economic Forum, 2014). This is due to the fact that in knowledge-based economies, such as the United States, a large number of citizens are needed who possess and continuously upgrade their skills to keep up with increasingly complex job requirements. As employment settings and career opportunities change, continued access to training, professional development, and education offers an efficient method to enable the workforce population to adapt to changing job expectations and/or to take advantage of emerging career and occupational opportunities (Sala-I-Martin et al., 2014). Indicators of vibrant workforce development include rates of enrollment in secondary and postsecondary institutions as well as perceptions among leaders in the employment sector that these education systems are producing the requisite workforce and employability skills necessary to sustain high demand employment sectors (Sala-I-Martin et al., 2004).

In the United States, there has been a long-standing concern about how to increase the number of individuals who possess the skills needed to successfully enter and contribute to increasing workforce skill demands. In 1976, the Committee on Education and Labor authorized funding for the creation of the National Occupational Information Coordinating Committee (NOICC) and the State Occupational Information Coordinating Committees as a strategy for coordinating career development programs and activities to more effectively incorporate future employment outlook information (SOICC; Flanders, 1988; Lester, Woods, & Carlson, 2013). Although funding for NOICC/SOICC ended in 2000, important resources were established, including (a) occupational and career information systems, (b) the National Career Development Guidelines, and (c) a career development “portfolio.”

In 1991, the Secretaries Commission on Addressing Necessary Skills (SCANS, 1991) recognized that unskilled and semi-skilled occupations were quickly disappearing as a result of globalization. SCANS proposed a set of basic and advanced employability skills. In addition to basic academic skills, the report outlined a range of “thinking” and “personal” qualities that emphasized, for example, the use of technology, teamwork, creative and critical thinking, and personal integrity. The SCANS report was followed in 1994 with congressional approval for the School to Work Opportunities Act (STWOA; PL 103–239). STOWA sought to make education relevant to future careers, in part by infusing access to work-based learning, and is credited with increasing the use of career academies, increased school persistence, and excitement among educators about linking education to the world of work (Hughes, Bailey, & Mechur, 2001). More recently, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (n.d.) has established a new set of workforce readiness skills. The 2001 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act mandated increased literacy, mathematics, and subsequently science standards as a strategy to increase the academic skills needed to enter and complete a postsecondary degree and/or enter the world of work (i.e., referred to as “No Child Left Behind,” 2002).

In 2005, 45 governors signed on to the College and Career Readiness initiative (Achieve and the Education Trust, 2008). The primary goal of the College and Career Readiness initiative is for states to use education resources in ways that ensure all youth graduate with the academic skills needed to enter and successfully complete a postsecondary program or degree. Originally this effort focused exclusively on raising test scores on college entrance exams. More recent efforts have considered “career ready” as a separate construct (Career Readiness Partner Council, 2012), and some have argued that focusing efforts on strategies that enable youth to become career ready serves as the foundation for youth becoming motivated to become “college ready” (Solberg, Phelps, Haakenson, Durham, & Timmons, 2012).

Challenging the notion that all students should aspire to a four-year college degree, the Pathways to Prosperity Report made a strong case that a four-year degree is not the only way to maintain a skilled workforce and that many training programs and two-year college degrees also lead to high-paying occupations (Symonds, Schwartz, & Ferguson, 2011). The report concluded that access to career and academic planning was critical for ensuring that all youth graduate with the intentions and skills needed to secure the postsecondary training or degree needed to enter and effectively participate in the workforce. Therefore, “postsecondary program or degree” refers to obtaining an industry certification, completing a two-year training program or degree, or obtaining a four-year degree. Chapter 2, “Career and Workforce Development and Its Role in Maintaining a Competitive Global Economy,” will explore current federal and state career development policies and activities that include access to postsecondary programs and degrees as an important outcome of receiving career development services.

There is merit in adopting secondary and postsecondary participation rates as well as “workforce quality” perceptions from the employment sector as indicators of the economic competitiveness of a given community. Consider, for example, that across their lifetimes, the 6.7 million youth aged 16–24 who leave school without a diploma and are not participating in paid employment is estimated to represent a loss of $1.56 trillion in potential tax earnings and an additional $4.75 trillion in additional social costs (Belfield, Levin, & Rosen, 2012). This population is referred to as “opportunity youth” because any impact on reducing school dropout rates, increasing access to higher education, and entry into the world of work results in economic gains to local communities by increasing the tax base as well as reducing social costs. One longitudinal study of Philadelphia students, for example, found that without some college training or degree, high school graduates and dropouts achieved similar income levels and were clustered within the same range of service occupations (Neild & Boccanfuso, 2010). In Massachusetts, economists conservatively estimate that in comparison to high school dropouts, each graduate contributes an additional $145,000 to state and local governments across their lifetime, while each graduate who attains a four-year college degree contributes over $330,000 (McLaughlin, Sum, & Khatiwada, 2007). A Wisconsin economist reported that by 2040, they expect a 200 percent increase in the number of senior residents, many of whom will leave the workforce, and only a .4 percent increase in the number of young adults entering the workforce (Sullivan, 2012). Sullivan concluded that efforts to support career and academic planning were necessary to ensure that this .4 percent successfully achieved some postsecondary education training and education that is aligned to their career goals. This led to new state legislation mandating that students create and manage an academic and career plan.

Resurgent Interest in Career and Workforce Development

In 2004, a seminal report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) persuasively argued that providing lifelong access to quality career development programs and activities can influence these key indicators by increasing secondary education persistence rates, increasing the number of youth and young adults who are qualified and seek out higher education, and improving perceptions among employers by helping them gain direct experiences with the quality of talent in their community through offering work-based learning opportunities. This report sparked the formation of the European Lifelong Guidance Partnership Network (ELGPN) that was born from the 2004 and 2008 EU resolutions on Lifelong Guidance and seeks to promote collaboration and systems development within and between 29 EU countries (CEDEFOP, 2011). Their toolkit offers a comprehensive perspective on the establishment of a lifelong strategy that ensures ways for the education, government, and business communities to collaborate and ensure access to quality career development programs and activities for the general population but especially for those considered to be vulnerable or at-risk (ELGPN, 2012). Chapter 5, “Developing National Career Development Systems and Policies with Structured International Co-Operation—Structures, Processes and Activities of the European Lifelong Guidance Policy Network,” will describe in more detail the history and strategies of the ELGPN more fully.

There is a growing resurgence of interest in career development in the United States (see Chapter 2). With the loss of NOICC/SOICC, however, there is currently no method to coordinate state efforts in a manner similar to the ELGPN. Nonetheless, there are separate, but complementary, career development policies, programs, and activities being generated from national organizations, state legislation, and federal legislation that could serve as a strong foundation for establishing a new coordination structure. The American School Counseling Association’s National Model identifies career development, alongside academic and social/emotional preparation, as the core roles of a school counselor (ASCA, 2005). Proponents of Career and Technical Education have organized careers into 16 clusters and designed “career pathways” that enable youth and adults to understand the skills and training/education requirements needed to pursue those careers (National Association of State Directors of Career and Technical Education Consortium, 2008). The Carl D. Perkins Act of 2006 directed schools to offer career and technical education to work with a postsecondary partner and the businesses within their communities to create career pathways that would enable youth to learn about local career opportunities through work-based learning opportunities. The reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA; U.S. Department of Education, OSEP, n.d.) directs all youth with an Individualized Education Program (IEP) to develop a postsecondary transition plan that is responsive to the individual’s career goals. To support states’ investments in College and Career Readiness, a vast majority of states have either passed or strongly encourage schools to provide career development activities that enable youth to develop and regularly update a personalized career and academic plan (ODEP, n.d.; also known as an Individualized Learning Plans; Solberg et al., 2012). There is increasing pressure on colleges and universities to account for how they are preparing their students for the world of work (Trow, 2006). Reauthorization of the Workforce Innovation Opportunities Act (WIOA, 2014) has affirmed a similar course of action in supporting access to career development programs and services for all WIOA-funded state agencies and community organizations. Until WIOA, federally sponsored programs such as One Stop Career Centers focused on job placement, not career development. WIOA brings career development to the forefront by specifically articulating that individuals seeking services will receive access to programs and activities that offer career counseling, develop career planning skills, and enable them to pursue one or more career pathways.

Underlying Framework for the Handbook

Career development theories, research, and practice have primarily been generated from researchers in two professional organizations. The National Career Development Association (NCDA) was founded in 1913 and the Society for Counseling Psychology, a division within the American Psychological Association’s Division of Counseling Psychology, was founded in 1996. The Society for Vocational Psychology was established as a section within Counseling Psychology to further focus attention on research, practice, and policy issues related to career development. This Handbook of Career and Workforce Development is one of many that have been generated from conferences sponsored by this vibrant society (Pope, Flores, & Rottinghaus, 2014; Savickas & Lent, 1994; Savickas & Spokane, 1999; Savickas & Walsh, 1996). This inspiration for this handbook was the society’s Boston conference held in 2011.

The theoretical and pedagogical foundations underlying NCDA and SVP began in the midst of the Industrial Revolution when Parsons (1909) prescribed a set of core activities necessary for helping youth and adults match their interests, skills, and values with new emerging occupations that could be found in cities throughout the United States. Subsequent World Wars allowed for the design of new assessment instruments that could aid organizations and individuals to make informed decisions based on an accurate representation of one’s personality. Emerging from this work was the RIASEC model, which organizes interests and careers into six types: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional (Holland, 1997) and is used in most assessment systems today. It is believed that selecting a career based on one’s personality “fit” with the occupational tasks would result in greater satisfaction in the career and remaining longer within the organization (TWA, Dawis, & Lofquist, 1984).

Gelatt (1989) argued persuasively that rather than learning how to make the correct career decision, career development programs and services must focus on helping individuals learn decision-making skills and help them develop the proactive and resiliency skills needed to manage the uncertainty and ambiguity associated with today’s world of work. Additionally, Savickas (2005) reframed career decision readiness in terms of “adaptability.” He defines adaptability in terms of the individual’s ability to adjust effectively to uncertainty by developing the skills needed to effectively manage problems that are by definition “unfamiliar, ill-defined, and always complex” (p. 51). This perspective is shared on a national level in Singapore’s workforce development meta-model that actively encourages lifespan capacity building as a means of developing and maintaining employability skills (Neo & Chen, 2007; Figure 5.1). The model combines both Gelatt’s and Savickas’s respective theses by positing that workforce readiness in the 21st century involves the ability to manage future uncertainty in such a manner as to maintain and develop the employability skills that enable one to adapt to change as well as the abilities needed to take advantage of new and emerging occupational opportunities.

This view of career adaptability is entirely consistent with the protean and boundaryless career models espoused by Hall (1996). From these models, the purpose of career development programs and services are to enable youth and adults to develop the self-regulation skills needed to continuously engage career planning and management. The goal is to help them be more strategic in pursuing careers and occupations that offer new learning opportunities as well as to be proactive in taking advantage of opportunities that expand their employability skills. In recognition that organizations do not provide long-term commitments to employees, and the fact that the world of work continues to ebb and flow with changing occupational opportunities, Hall coined the term “protean careers” to reflect a shift away from having one’s career trajectory managed by an organization and instead having a focus ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction: Designing Quality Career and Workforce Development Programs and Services
• Section 1 Career and Workforce Development Policy and Evidence-Based Practice
• Section 2 Promising Career and Workforce Development Practices
• Section 3 Influencing Public Policy
• Index