Workforce Readiness: Preparing High School Students for Tomorrow’s Jobs

As schools consider how to best prepare students for a rapidly changing 21st century workforce, one of the questions we need to answer is how to shape curriculum. One answer is to prioritize workforce readiness — focusing on teaching the necessary skills, knowledge, and attitudes that learners need to successfully enter, navigate, and contribute to the workforce.

While the transferable skills fostered by workforce readiness education are applicable for K-12 learners, they are especially important for the high school students who are likely to directly enter the workforce if they do not attend college. Not only is the overall college enrollment lower than a decade ago and continuing to drop, The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that 71.7% of recent high school grads who aren’t enrolled in college participate in the workforce, compared to just 26% of college-enrolled students. 

This can be a problem, as many of the technical and interpersonal skills students learn in college are increasingly important in the modern workplace. College programs offer the opportunity for students to work with new technology, collaborate with diverse groups and learn how to effectively solve problems. Right now, only about half (51%) of Gen Z students feel prepared for the future. For non-college-bound students, that percentage drops to 40%. 

Students who enter the workforce straight out of high school need to develop the skills, confidence and experience to successfully thrive within the workforce. This article explores some ways that educators can ensure High School learners are ready for success in the modern workplace.

The Case for Workforce Development and Readiness for High School Students

Workforce readiness provides numerous benefits beyond just job skills for high school learners. The idea is not only to prepare them for the workforce but to ensure they develop essential skills that will help them succeed no matter the circumstances — such as if they’re promoted to a new position or need to change careers entirely.

Workforce readiness programs can provide the following benefits:

• Career Readiness — Aside from specific technical skills, learners can develop practical interpersonal and cognitive skills that will directly apply in the workplace, such as problem-solving, teamwork, and communication.
• Increased Engagement — Learners of all levels can feel disengaged when they don’t see a connection between what they’re learning and how it applies to their lives in the real world. Workforce readiness can help learners make a connection between their education and their future careers.
• Personal Development — Workforce readiness can be an effective way for learners to develop job skills, be productive and gain experience — all of which can help boost their confidence and sense of independence.
• Improved Employment Opportunities — A combination of confidence and knowledge will provide high school students with a better awareness of the workforce, helping them to understand different career fields and to make more informed decisions about their future.

The Current State of Workforce Readiness Among High School Students

When we talk about workforce readiness for high school students, it’s important to understand there are two different approaches: Work-based programs that have students work directly with local businesses and workforce readiness courses or programs that teach important skills that prepare students for the workforce.

Work-based programs are part of career and technical education (CTE) programs or similar skills-learning opportunities. These programs combine academic instruction with hands-on training in specific industries, either through job-shadowing, mentorships, internships, or apprenticeship programs. These programs allow students to develop workplace skills and even the possibility to earn industry-recognized certifications or certificates. 

The demands of the modern economy are increasing the popularity of work-based programs, as they help set graduates up to be successful lifelong learners, whether they plan to attend college or head directly into the workforce. Recent studies have found that, as of 2023, 47 states have implemented 115 policies relating to promoting work-based learning, including:

• Forming industry partnerships to drive work-based learning opportunities
• Launching data and research activities that support CTE programs
• Providing funding and scholarships for CTE and similar work-based learning
• Modifying graduation requirements to  adopt CTE or career readiness objectives

The federal government has also passed key pieces of legislation to support work-based learning including:

• Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act (Perkins V) 
• The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA)
• The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)

This work-based learning legislation is meant to address the concerns around placing learners in work environments, which can include providing equity of access to all demographics and preventing the possible exploitation of child labor.

Workforce readiness programs, in comparison, are learning opportunities that are part of the regular curriculum designed to teach 21st-century workforce skills. The intent is to prepare students to succeed in a broad range of careers — not just one field of interest.

While workforce readiness programs can also connect high school learners to local employers, the focus is more on project-based learning (PBL) to provide a framework for learners to develop career and workplace-readiness skills and competencies without the need for direct participation in the workforce. 

PBL provides a range of benefits, but it is how it empowers students and promotes lifelong learning that relates to workforce readiness, as it helps learners prepare for the disruptions and uncertainties we’re seeing in the modern workplace. Here’s how Anthony P. Carnevale, Research Professor and Director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce explains it in an EducationWeek article: 

“The skills gap exists because the labor market is not static. As the economy evolves, the skills that employers want and expect from workers will naturally change. Add technological advances to the mix, and the frequent disconnect between educational and training outcomes and labor market realities becomes not just understandable but predictable.” 

So how does PBL solve the issue? Terri C. Albert, Educator, Advocate and CEO of Fresh Set of Eyes, LLC explains in an interview with Harvard Business Publishing:

“Project-based learning is discipline neutral. It will work across business—any business discipline. It’s an opportunity for the school and the faculty to give a great gift to their students, because they’re being taught certain concepts and given the opportunity to practice those concepts and really master them.”

That aligns with what a study of graduates from the School of Civil, Chemical and Environmental Engineering in Australia found when it looked at how they defined work-readiness, specifically as a “complex of generic attributes that allow graduates to apply their technical knowledge to problem identification and solving once they join the workforce.” Particularly, the graduates understood they had a workforce advantage through the development of project management skills, time management skills, confidence, communication skills, and systems thinking either through extra “vacation” work or by participating in project-based learning programs.

The skills developed through PBL experience match up with many of the top career-ready skills identified by parents. A joint study by Project Tomorrow and PBL Works found that a majority of parents (62%) placed “participating in project-based learning” among the most important college and career ready experiences they wanted for their children. That was in addition to 75% that wanted their children to have “authentic problem-solving experiences around real-world issues” and 62% that wanted more teamwork and collaboration with classmates on projects. 

See how project-based learning in a SmartLab environment helps prepares learners for 21st century careers

Top Job Skills for High School Students

The skills taught by PBL and workforce readiness programs also directly align with what employers are looking for. Every year LinkedIn publishes a global inventory of the most in-demand skills for professionals. As of the publication of this post, they’ve listed adaptability and agility as top skills they’re looking for in new hires. Having the higher-level skills and knowledge to be versatile and stay composed is essential for high school graduates to succeed in a fast-moving workplace that is both increasingly digital and unpredictably disruptive.

Additional top in-demand skills across all industries fell into the following categories:

Crucial Technical Skills

• Digital Literacy — Essentially, any familiarity with basic computer operations, software applications and internet navigation. Digital literacy is important for conducting research over the internet by finding, accessing, and using information.

• Data Analysis — The ability to interpret and analyze data, derive insights, and make informed decisions using software tools such as Excel or Google Sheets.

• Project Management — The use of project management principles and supporting tools to keep projects organized and teams on-task and coordinated. 

• STEM Skills — STEM education is an effective means to help learners develop essential skills that they can use beyond the classroom, especially in the application of mathematics, scientific knowledge, and engineering mechanical skills.

Critical Interpersonal Skills 

• Communication — This includes verbal, written, nonverbal, and visual communication across a wide variety of channels and platforms. This is especially important for job seekers as they start interviewing for position writing resumes.

• Teamwork and Collaboration — Collaborative skills are essential to successfully complete tasks and lead teams. Strong collaboration skills also directly relate to important management and leadership skills. 

• Problem-solving and Critical Thinking — The process of understanding and solving unexpected challenges, finding new ways of completing tasks, and developing newer, more effective solutions to processes.

• Relationship Building — Distinct from team work, this is how to build trust, resolve conflicts, and accept and respond to criticism. In the workplace, this is directly tied to customer service.

All of these important skills are essential elements of project-based learning. So, while work-based programs and internships can help high school students transition directly into the workplace, truly effective preparation for the workforce doesn’t have to be only at the CTE level. 

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How Schools can Implement Effective Workforce Readiness and Development Programs

Part of the challenge of getting high school learners ready for the workforce is that, while instructors have systems in place to measure the mastery of technical skills, there are less clear ways to measure the mastery of interpersonal skills, workplace-oriented professional skills, or transferable skills that can be employed across various roles.

Creating an environment that enables students to practice a range of skills, including technical, interpersonal and transferable skills, is key toward preparing students for the tasks they’ll encounter in the workplace. Project-based learning in high school has been found to be more effective than traditional approaches in increasing learners’ long-term content retention, improves their problem-solving and collaboration skills as well as their overall attitude toward learning.

“Project-based learning is an excellent way for students to try-on-for-size different careers in what I call a safe environment, which is the classroom. They can experiment without fear of retribution; they learn from their successes and from the mistakes that they make.” 

— Terry Albert

Though designed to teach STEM skills and concepts to students, SmartLabs also provide an environment where learners can build key 21st-century job skills such as critical thinking, problem solving and collaboration. To understand how it works, request more information or schedule a lab visit today.