Tech apprenticeship coalition to make workers ‘tomorrow ready’

Apprenticeships are expanding into new industries and IBM and the Consumer Technology Association are joining forces to bring them to scale.
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Apprenticeships are breaking free from tradition and into new areas where the careers of the future are: in technology and tech-adjacent industries. A new coalition led by IBM and the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) launched this week to shepherd this new paradigm and make thousands of new apprentices “tomorrow ready.”

On Wednesday, IBM CEO Ginni Rometty announced the CTA Apprenticeship Coalition during her keynote address at CES 2019, one of the world’s largest technology showcases. With buzz about artificial intelligence and automation surrounding the event and abounding in media, Rometty links the emergence of these so-called job-killing technologies to their potential for job-creating opportunities.

“I believe that 100% of jobs will change in the era of AI and that productivity gains resulting from these technologies will ultimately create more jobs than they replace. The priority right now is to help people around the world prepare for these jobs and benefit more from the prosperity that new technology creates,” Rometty wrote in an op-ed for CNN Business.

The coalition is comprised of 17 leading companies. IBM along with corporate heavyweights Walmart, Toyota, Bosch and start-ups like delivery service Postmates are uniting behind a common cause: to implement more apprenticeships within their companies and across industry sectors. The aim is to deliver digital skills training for young people and mid-career workers alike through public-private partnerships, so no workers are left behind.

IBM apprentices
Rometty with IBM apprentices at IBM’s CES 2019 keynote address. Image via CES and YouTube.

According to a joint release from CTA and IBM, the coalition will help prepare workers for “new-collar jobs.” They include entry-level tech support, software development and tech-enabled jobs where digital skills are prized and in short supply. Additionally, jobs in high-skill careers like engineering and data analysis are in demand. With a half-million unfilled tech jobs, the CTA says apprenticeships can bridge this skills gap while providing an upward career path.

“Our commitment — and our entire industry’s obligation — is to build a workforce that is ‘tomorrow ready.’ This new Coalition allows us to scale apprenticeship programs nationwide and prepare more workers for the surging number of new collar jobs that require in-demand skills, but not always a four-year degree,” Rometty said in the release.

The initiative spans 20 states to reach into America’s heartland and underserved communities that were overlooked as technology transformed coastal cities into high-tech oases. IBM’s registered apprenticeship program, which began in 2017 and Rometty said has “grown nearly twice as fast as expected,” will serve as the guide for apprenticeships created through the initiative.

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The CTA’s report that tech executives will struggle over the next five years to hire skilled workers joins a litany of stories and studies affirming a skilled worker shortage. Blue-collar industries are feeling the effects of a tight labor market too. But manufacturing and construction have long enjoyed apprenticeships to infuse new blood into their industries. Now other industries, insurance, for example, are using the apprenticeship model — and guidance from their European owners — to replenish their ranks.

The benefits of the apprenticeship model, where workers “learn while they earn” have garnered the tech industry’s interest in recent years. The traditional way for workers to break into tech is too costly and time-consuming for many students, leading to the looming worker shortage and a stark diversity gap. Tech giants Google and Apple are ditching college degrees as a job requirement to court skilled workers who didn’t have the means to get a college education.

The first registered apprenticeship for the tech industry emerged a few years ago when Techtonic Group created a Department of Labor-recognized program to train software developers. Techtonic CEO Heather Terenzio explained at WorkingNation’s Work-Based Learning Town Hall that apprenticeships offer a faster and more affordable pathway that opens the door for workers to enter tech careers. Apprenticeships can reach into untapped talent sources, and provide the low-cost training that can be out of reach for economically-disadvantaged students.

With the reauthorization of the Perkins Act to fund career and technical education and more federal funding for apprenticeships, it’s no surprise top companies are taking advantage of subsidized work-based learning opportunities. The power of public-private partnerships to align job-training programs with needed skills is emerging to meet the challenges of closing the skills gap. The CTA Apprenticeship Coalition is a product of this new way of thinking.

The choice of Rometty to use “tomorrow ready” to describe the skill-boosting effect apprenticeships can have on workers is an interesting departure from “future-ready.” The implications are in words said and the technology on display at CES 2019, the future isn’t too far from today.

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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.