HRchat Podcast
Listen to the HRchat Podcast by HR Gazette to get insights and tips from HR leaders, influencers and tech experts. Topics covered include HR Tech, HR, AI, Leadership, Talent, Recruitment, Employee Engagement, Recognition, Wellness, DEI, and Company Culture.
Hosted by Bill Banham, Bob Goodwin, Pauline James, and other HR enthusiasts, the HRchat show publishes interviews with influencers, leaders, analysts, and those in the HR trenches 2-4 times each week.
The show is approaching 1000 episodes and past guests are from organizations including ADP, SAP, Ceridian, IBM, UPS, Deloitte Consulting LLP, Simon Sinek Inc, NASA, Gartner, SHRM, Government of Canada, Hacking HR, McLean & Company, UPS, Microsoft, Shopify, DisruptHR, McKinsey and Co, Virgin Pulse, Salesforce, Make-A-Wish Foundation, and Coca-Cola Beverages Company.
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Podcast Music Credit"Funky One"Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
HRchat Podcast
Unlocking Potential: Skills First Movement with Wendi Safstrom, SHRM Foundation
The U.S. faces a talent crisis with millions of skilled candidates overlooked due to outdated hiring practices. The SHRM Foundation's Center for a Skills-First Future aims to bridge this gap by transforming how employers approach talent acquisition.
In this HRchat conversation with Bill Banham, SHRM Foundation President Wendi Safstrom reveals why skills-first hiring has moved to the forefront of strategic thinking for forward-looking organizations. "Talent is America's greatest asset," she explains, noting that employers increasingly rely on workforce creativity and innovation to compete. Yet traditional credential-based hiring creates artificial barriers that exclude qualified candidates simply because they lack formal degrees.
The statistics paint a sobering picture: 75% of employers struggle to fill positions, nearly half face retention challenges, and replacing employees costs up to four times their salary. Meanwhile, one-third of working-age adults without four-year degrees possess valuable skills that remain untapped. As AI and technology rapidly transform skill requirements, the disconnect between educational outputs and workforce needs continues to widen.
Beyond addressing the immediate talent shortage, the Center for a Skills-First Future expands support for overlooked talent pools, including military community members and "opportunity youth" aged 16-24 who are neither in education nor employment. The initiative provides HR professionals with practical tools, including a new certificate program focused on skills-first recruitment strategies.
Learn more about the SHRM Foundation to join a movement reshaping America's workplace.
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Welcome to the HR Chat Show, one of the world's most downloaded and shared podcasts designed for HR pros, talent execs, tech enthusiasts and business leaders. For hundreds more episodes and what's new in the world of work, subscribe to the show, follow us on social media and visit hrgazettecom. And visit hrgazettecom.
Speaker 2:Welcome to another episode of the HR Chat Show. Hello listeners, this is your host today, bill Bannon, and in this episode we're going to look at the Sherwin Foundation's new initiative called the Center for a Skills-First Future, which recently launched. And joining me on the show to shed light on this new initiative is the amazing, awesome today somewhat haloed uh wendy saftrup, the ceo foundation president. Hey, wendy, how are you doing today?
Speaker 3:I am doing fantastic, bill. Thank you so much excited to share with you a little bit about what we're up to lately at the foundation. Uh, that, that reference to the halo business, could you be like? What's bill talking about? Uh?
Speaker 2:there's a little bit of sunlight earlier. What we're up to lately at the foundation, that reference to the halo business, because you'll be like what's Bill talking about. There's a little bit of sunlight earlier, when Wendy and I were talking and it looked like she was an angel, which was very nice. Wendy, beyond my reintroduction just a second ago, why don't you take a minute or two and tell our listeners a bit more about yourself?
Speaker 3:Sure, wendy Safstrom, as you mentioned, I'm president of the SHRM Foundation. I've been here for almost eight years and we really have transformed, I think, the work of the SHRM Foundation over the last couple of years. In particular, I think what we focus on in terms of our mission, and that is really to elevate and empower HR professionals to lead positive social change in the workplace, could not be more relevant or resonate with what's going on in our world, in our country and in our workplaces. And it's really an honor to be part of the SHRM Foundation leading those efforts. And we're part of the broader SHRM enterprise where the philanthropic affiliate of SHRM and lean in heavily in this project in particular to working with all of our colleagues across SHRM to pull this off. And this has been a project that's about two and a half years in the making and excited to share a little bit more about it with you today.
Speaker 4:Thanks for listening to this episode of the HR Chat Podcast. If you enjoy the audio content we produce, you'll love our articles on the HR Gazette. Learn more at hrgazettecom. And now back to the show.
Speaker 2:Learn more at HRGazettecom. And now back to the show. We are recording this episode, of course, very shortly before 2025. It's in about a week and a half, in fact, not very long at all. What are you excited to see at this year's big annual conference?
Speaker 3:This year. I'm excited to see the build out, if you will, of our skills first marketplace. So we've really got real close to the SHRM booth. The foundation shares a booth with the broader again with broader SHRM. Really close like 10 pieces away from that is our skills first marketplace and that's an actual build out and it's all completely focused on everything you ever wanted to know about our skills first future and the Center for Skills First Future. That is a tongue twister for sure. We've also launched a new certificate for individuals if they're interested in getting certified in being an HR professional who knows what they're doing and has it going on.
Speaker 3:When it comes to incorporating skills first recruitment and retention strategies within their organizations, there's a lot of energy, a lot of external partners who have come together that don't necessarily work together all the time but kind of have in the past tended to work in silos to pull this off. And I'm talking about external organizations because we all care very deeply about talent. We know that talent is America's greatest asset and increasingly, employers are relying on creativity, productivity and innovation, quite frankly, of their workforce to compete and in fact, our economy depends on access to skilled and really motivated workers to thrive. I'm most excited to see this come to life. We also have board meetings that are going on. We've got three or four days of really great keynote speakers. The foundation is leading about 25 sessions and smart stages and workshops. We're having a skills first launch party during annual conference. So I'm excited to see all of that come to life and then see what we make of it moving forward.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you just give us a little taster, but maybe you can take a bit longer now and explain what the Center for Skills, first Future really is, what the mission is and what motivated the Sherm Foundation to launch this effort now you know why is this particularly important now, in the summer of 2025?.
Speaker 3:You know, talent is America's greatest asset and people are competing for talent. It's what's keeping CEOs up at night. It's what's keeping CEOs up at night, and it's keeping us up at night because traditional pathways to employment for prospective employees and then the strategies to help engage and support current employees are falling short. And that means we've got more than 7.6 million positions that have gone unfilled and continue to go unfilled. And the skills kind of in parallel to that, the skills of millions of workers are under leveraged and we've got a workforce that's under mounting pressure. Right, there's some pretty scary stats Employers are struggling to fill jobs, as I said, and only 75% of employers report difficulty in filling full-time positions, but nearly half are struggling with retention and it's costing employers up to four times a person's salary to replace them. And I mentioned, at the same time, in parallel, we've got millions of job candidates who are overlooked and underutilized Again scary stats one in three working age adults don't have a four-year degree. And applicants from untapped talent pools many who do have the skills and the experience to excel continue to be overlooked and excluded from opportunities, not because of their capabilities but perhaps because of life circumstances or lack of formal credentials.
Speaker 3:So solving this challenge is super critical to what we're phrasing as supercharging our competitiveness and creating economic prosperity for today's generation and future generations. And so the solution that's really risen to the front, this work and I have to, in all fairness, a lot of folks have been at this skills first movement or work for quite some time, but I think what was really, really was missing was this complete leaning in of the employer community to say this is important work to us. We've got to change how we're doing business, we've got to change how we recruit and, I think, just as importantly, if not more importantly, retain those employees. And so this, as an initiative, has really moved front and center in strategic thinking and where the foundation representing, together with SHRM, representing the employer community, is leaning in and that is fostering a skills first, thriving, focused workplace.
Speaker 2:So just picking up on one thing you mentioned there around university education. I interview a lot of folks on this show. This episode is going to go out and it's going to be around about 825 or something. Lots of interviews over the years and increasingly here which I celebrate that a formal university education ain't as important as it used to be. If you're going to be a doctor or if you're going to be an architect, sure you need these things, but from what you guys are seeing, have you seen that shift that actually employers are more interested in those skills over the old school qualifications, if you will?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and to your point. You know, for decades companies have relied on four-year college degrees or two-year college degrees right to supply talent or really validate be the validation for identifying or supplying the talent that they're looking to recruit. But we are all talking about AI and as AI and technology evolves, skill requirements are shifting faster, I think, perhaps, than traditional degree programs can adapt, and that has created a growing disconnect between educational outputs a very technical term and what the workforce needs, and I like to approach it as a yes and or an or, or maybe both. I have some folks in my family who went through, graduated from high school. College was not in the cards because it wasn't something they were necessarily committed to doing and furthering their education just based on where they were in their mind and their life space at the time and a way to finance. It wasn't in the cards either.
Speaker 3:And I've got folks in my family who got a four-year degree and pursued a job and a career afterwards that was not necessarily directly linked to that four-year degree.
Speaker 3:I like to think that the family who got themselves through high school and then were kind of wondering what was next if they had the ability and or the awareness, because this was 15, 20 years ago to tap into things like apprenticeship, or if there were career and technical educational programs they could pursue post-high school, I think that would have accelerated their securing jobs and careers, especially in the industries that they ended up going into anyway. I think it could have accelerated their pathways in a much faster way than they could have or would have 15 to 20 years ago. So again, the employer community is leaning in saying, yes, degrees are important. It's one method or methodology of validating an individual's skill sets or what they're bringing to the table. But there are other options. Just as people are diverse and complex, the route to how people come prepared to go to work and then, once they're in jobs, how they kind of navigate that lattice as they move up or over or out can look really different depending on the person.
Speaker 2:I noticed when the other day, that show announced that Joe Biden is going to be speaking yeah, annual this year which makes me even sadder that I'm not going to be there in attendance this year. I'll be back next year. What are the? What are the sessions that you look forward to seeing at the annual conference next week?
Speaker 3:Well, I'm looking forward to seeing all the main stage sessions, and you know SHRM has had former presidential folks on stage previously, so I'm really, really excited to see that they're adding Biden this year. The other sessions we're bringing a lot of the skills first stuff to life. Right, it's one thing to talk about it We've got a booth, but we're actually having workshops with HR professionals, and all of the things the foundation is doing linked to skills in particular is reflected in the apps that you can download for SHRM 25 and in the program books. I'm also excited to see some of the smart stages where the foundation is kind of giving quick snippets or overviews of what the foundation is doing, what the foundation is doing in terms of programmatic work and how we're, I think, leveraging the investments made by donors, and that includes members of our chapter and council networks. They're very generous when it comes to donating to the foundation. It looks a lot different than it did 10 years ago and, like I said, we're investing in helping HR professionals because we know they can lead to change that improves society through the lens of the workplace, and so there's programming linked to untapped pools of talent. We have programming that's supporting creating cultures of care.
Speaker 3:When it comes to workplace mental health and wellness, caregiving is becoming increasingly a thing. I'm a caregiver myself and I don't have children, so that wasn't necessarily a concept that I had in my mind. I have two parents who luckily both turned 80 years old, but they are a five-hour flight away from me in Washington, and this notion of how you balance work and life, or integrate that, is going to become increasingly important, especially as the country ages and gets grayer, as they say, and caregiving looks very different. The impact that it's going to have on our workplaces is going to get increasingly complex as life is getting increasingly complex. And then we've got the underpinning of everything. We've got our strengthening HR sessions.
Speaker 3:It's really all designed to help improve the mental health and wellness of those listening who are HR professionals and really promote the fact that we've got undergraduate scholarships, we've got graduate scholarships, we offer professional development grants for emerging professionals. I love that particular body of work and I say often, if we can help contribute to the development of tomorrow's next generation of HR professional, everything else that we're doing at the foundation is going to be table stakes and I'll be out of a job. I hate to say that but in reality if we're effective and we're having the impact that we really want to have. That's what I really love to vision. So, again, an opportunity to see everything we do at the foundation in the culmination of three, three and a half four days in sunny san diego.
Speaker 2:Is it going to be sunny, though, because I got tricked into this? Nobody told me about.
Speaker 3:Was it uh, june?
Speaker 2:gloom gray may. Yeah, I walked up there. In fact I was earlier when I was wearing my san diego hat. It's like british weather, wendy you know, so I hope it is sunny I I.
Speaker 3:so what? So I was born in seattle, right, and it's I think it's Wendy, I hope it is sunny. So I was born in Seattle, right, and I think it's a misnomer. It doesn't rain as much as they say in Seattle, but I'm okay with a rainy day. I have heard there's something called the marine layer. I probably get it wrong and my colleagues who are from Sandia will get upset with me, but listen, it's on the water. We've got everybody got the shermiest of the sherm together, as they say, and everybody's really excited and focused and we are talking and I think more broadly and bigger, if you will about the work of the foundation that I've ever seen in the eight years I've been here and that's really exciting to me. So, whether or not it's sunny or not, um, I know we're in for a good time sherm leaves nothing to chance.
Speaker 2:I'm sure you guys have booked the weather. Yes, you're all good, wendy. Before we wrap up for today, how can our listeners connect with you? I've sent you a LinkedIn invite. Please accept that. Are you on Instagram? Anything you want to do there? And also, of course, how can they learn more about all of the amazing work happening over at the SHRM Foundation?
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, instagram, not on Instagram the foundation is. Our handles are run under the SHRM handles, so you can access all of the work of the foundation. Then again, shrm is an enterprise on those social channels. But LinkedIn I was just on LinkedIn this morning. I was at a conference earlier this week and I've connected with a lot of people who have messaged me individually and I do follow up on those as quickly as possible.
Speaker 3:I think something else I wanted to highlight we have broadened our scope under support for veterans who are making a transition from military service to civilian work and life to include that of members of the military community. So those are members of family members who perhaps have a veteran who served in their family, a military spouse, and we're going to have a great, terrific gathering conversations about how to best support members of the military community as they transition again from service to civilian work and life, because it's not just the veteran that's making that transition, it's all those folks or individuals in the sphere of their individual care as well. I know I've come from a military family. My dad was in the army, my mom was a mill spouse.
Speaker 3:There's an impact but tremendous opportunity again to tap into that untapped pool of talent, and we're also taking on a new project related to supporting opportunity youth Opportunity. Youth are individuals anywhere between 16, 18 to 24, and that's a group of folks who are not enrolled or in education or taking a career tech ed course or pursuing any kind of particular form of certification or credentials, and they're not working, but they're looking for opportunities to get a job and that'll hopefully lead into a really lucrative career, and so we're embracing that group and supporting them as we can, as appropriate from the employer community's perspective, and leaning in heavily. We've got a convening that's going on, that's going to be talking about that really important topic that is today's generation and, in fact, the future generation of our workforce, and we've got to do a better job of embracing those individuals and bringing them into our place of work I'm delighted to hear that I'm actually on the board of uh, of an organization that supports needs.
Speaker 2:I don't know if you use the term needs in the us. In the uk it means not in education, training or employment. Uh, yeah, so it's uh in the uk. Here it's nearly 1 million needs, which is a staggering number when the population is around 70 million. So maybe that's one for sure to mention in the future.
Speaker 3:Yeah, or do some kind of partnership with you right across the pond someday. I this is you know I grew up thinking I had a lot of opportunities to be set up to go and do what I needed to do and pursue what I wanted to pursue in terms of college, and that just is not. Everybody has that opportunity, those opportunities up to go and do what I needed to do and pursue what I wanted to pursue in terms of college, and that just is not. Everybody has that opportunity, those opportunities, and I think that we have an opportunity and obligation as the employer community to lean and make that happen. So I think you're doing great.
Speaker 2:I think you're doing great too, and that was a wonderful interview today. So, wendy, that just leaves me to say for today, thank you very much for being my guest.
Speaker 3:Absolutely Pleasure to be here.
Speaker 2:And listeners as always, and visit HRGazettecom.
