Cannabis

Cannabis employers creating certificate programs to help standardize skills

Marijuana’s momentum creates demand for workers in manufacturing, cultivation, and retail
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For the cannabis industry, one of its biggest challenges is also a sign of one of its greatest strengths: its growth. Sales of legal marijuana in the United States jumped 45% during the pandemic in 2020 to $17.6 billion. The momentum isn’t expected to stop anytime soon. Sales are estimated to reach $41.2 billion by 2026. 

Recreational use of marijuana in small amounts is legal in 18 states, and medical use of marijuana is legal in 36 states. Increased consumption of legal marijuana translates into a need for more skilled, trained workers to keep up with demand.

An estimated 321,000 people work in the U.S. marijuana industry, with 77,000 jobs added last year, a jump of 32% from 2019, according to Leafly and Whitney Economics. The Leafly Jobs Report tracks the labor force in the cannabis industry since the U.S. Department of Labor is prohibited from doing so since marijuana is not legal on a federal level. 

The growth in the use of legal marijuana and the increased demand for workers is also pushing cannabis employers to create a certification system that will help standardize the skills needed to work in the industry.

‘Growing at a Breakneck Speed’

Max Simon, CEO, Green Flower (Photo: Green Flower)

“The cannabis industry is growing at a breakneck speed right now which is both very exciting and also creating a lot of big challenges,” says Max Simon, CEO of Green Flower, an education and training platform for the cannabis industry.

One of those big challenges, he explains, is a shortage of skilled, experienced workers. “The only people on planet Earth that have background in this came from an illegal market place—or a loosely regulated marketplace—which means it’s a very small population,” adds Simon.

Creating Standardized Credentials 

Those challenges prompted Green Flower to create the GF Institute and the first of its kind education training for standardized credentials for the cannabis industry.

More than 30 cannabis employers from Curaleaf to Wonderland Nursery have signed on to steering committees, providing input and oversight of the standardized credentials for the plant-to-touch sector, which includes companies that cultivate, process, distribute, or sell cannabis. The initiative has partnered with higher education institutions around the country to administer the credentials. 

The GF Institute’s first certificates focus on three different roles: manufacturing, dispensary, and cultivation. Each includes specific skills sets with online instruction between 16 and 20 hours. All of the certificates include roughly four hours in training on safety and compliance issues.

The certificates are available through employers. The plan is to make them available to individuals in the coming year. 

Creating Common Skill Sets in Cannabis 

Kevin Jodrey, cannabis cultivator (Photo: Green Flower)

Kevin Jodrey, a well-known cannabis cultivator for decades and the owner of several businesses including Wonderland Nursery, is advising the GF Institute on cultivation. He says the goal is to create a common language and skill set just like any other skilled trade and notes that one issue specific to this industry is that longtime cultivators were self-taught.

“That doesn’t mean they are not really good at what they do. It just means that they all have their unique operational edges and it makes it extremely difficult to bring a bunch of people together and work effectively as a team when each individual has their own process of how they go about it,’ says Jodrey.

Cultivation Jobs

The Cultivation Technician Certificate, he says, will help to address that challenge. Jodrey explains that this particular certificate training includes basic plant anatomy, and knowledge of operations systems both indoors and outdoors.

He says there is high turnover in the industry because people are entering it without really knowing what to expect. “There is no shortage of people who want to be in cannabis, but what you have is you are really a farmer. As much as people don’t want to see themselves as farmers, you are a farmer. You are growing an agricultural product,” stresses Jodrey. 

Entry-level jobs in cultivation—such as a trimmer or post harvester—earn minimum wage on average, according to Vangst, which tracks wages and jobs in the cannabis industry. Salaries in this space can multiply, though, into six figures depending on the level of responsibility. 

Credit: Green Leaf

Cannabis Jobs in Manufacturing

Another path offered by the GFInstitute is the manufacturing agent certificate, which provides instruction on things like extraction processes.

The training course is now being used at Cannacraft, a licensed cultivator and manufacturer in Sonoma County, California. “We are a big supporter of helping our employees learn and scale individually as we scale the organization, and the GF Institute education program will help us do that,” says Jim Hourigan, CEO of Cannacraft. Hourigan adds, “We feel that offering this type of program will help us attract and retain employees.”

Entry levels for jobs in the manufacturing sector such as a production technician, according to Vangst, start at $16 an hour with higher salaries depending on skill level. 

Cannabis Jobs in Retail 

The third certificate at the GF Institute is the Dispensary Associate Certificate in the retail sector, focusing on customer services. Green Flower’s Simon explains it requires a deep understanding of cannabis products and how they are delivered. “If you think about it, you have a completely diverse audience from 21-year-old kids to 85-year-old grandmothers trying to use it for serious health conditions, all asking highly-specific and personal questions in an area they know nothing about,” adds Simon. 

Salaries in retail can range from $15 an hour on average for entry level positions, in Vangst’s listings, to $62,500 for a dispensary general manager, to six-figure salaries for director of vice president positions in retail. 

As the industry grows, Simon emphasizes that he wants people to know that cannabis is an “amazing career opportunity.” But he also wants them to enter it with eyes wide open. “Most people are completely unaware of just how sophisticated the cannabis industry is,” he stresses. They have no idea how complex and how skilled you need to be to succeed in this space.”

Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

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.