There are more than 70 million Americans in the workforce without a college degree. And there’s a movement underway to give those workers and job seekers better access to open jobs.
“The ‘paper ceiling’ is when employers use degrees as a proxy for shutting out the millions of STARs – workers that are Skilled Through Alternative Routes – from being able to access well-paying careers,” says Bridgette Gray, chief customer officer for the nonprofit Opportunity@Work.
WorkingNation sat down with Gray at Presented by JFF Horizons – See Beyond 2022 in New Orleans.
She says a four-year degree isn’t the only way to gain the skills needed to do a job well. “We want to make sure that employers understand that there are multiple ways that stars gain skills – primarily through their work experience.” STARs, says Gray, should also be able to talk about the skills they’ve developed in a really smart way “so that employers really understand how to connect those dots to the jobs that they have available.”
Gray also says it is important that the message she is trying to share is not misinterpreted as a message that a degree isn’t valuable or something you should dismiss.
“As a Black woman – and we know Black women are the most educated – we don’t want our college education to be diminished, right? We want to continue to be able to access that. And so in the Black community, we want more people to reach their educational goals. Sometimes the pathway to get to college may be longer for some people, college is really expensive, but there are ways of learning to build skills, to eventually get to college. And so what I would tell the Black community is to continue to strive for every opportunity to continue to learn.”
Learn more about Opportunity@Work.Learn more about the Opportunity@Work-led campaign to champion skills-based hiring.
© Copyright 2024 by Structural Unemployment, LLC dba WorkingNation
Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.
Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.
Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.
Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.
Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.
Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.
