UpSkill Houston Forum Series

While Houston has strong economic fundamentals, there is a gap between employers’ needs and workforce availability. The Greater Houston Partnership, leveraging employer leadership, established Upskill Houston in 2014 to develop a robust pipeline of talent for middle-skill careers that pay livable wages.

Learn more about how this business model is working in Houston from Partnership senior vice president of regional workforce development Peter Beard in the attached workforce development playbook.

Career Pathways

In Houston, thousands of jobs are available that offer lucrative wages, great quality of life and require only two years or less of education or training. Career Pathways connect high school and community college students to those opportunities by connecting their interests, aptitudes, and learning styles with career fields that need them. Pathways help students visualize careers, connect them to courses they can take now, and provide real-world experiences. To start exploring career pathways, explore the Curriculum & Registration Guide and speak to your counselors or pathway coordinators.

Businesses are working alongside the community and education sectors to prepare Houstonians for careers that will lead to livable wages and lasting careers. Through industry-led collaborations, the initiative is addressing the information and resources barriers, along with structural and institutional challenges that contribute to the middle skills gap of occupations that require education and skills beyond a high school diploma but less than a four-year degree. Through a business-led approach that puts employers at the center of collaborative efforts, UpSkill Houston has proven itself as a model for other communities seeking to build sustainable talent pipelines.

Employer Partnerships

To compete globally, businesses require a talented workforce. In response to this challenge, Greater Houston Partnership – with employer leadership – established UpSkill Houston and Houston Back on Track, jobs-first initiatives focused on building talent pipelines in high-demand occupations in the industries that drive the region’s economy.

To do this, the Partnership focuses on engaging employers to prioritize occupations and align their efforts with education and community stakeholders. This approach provides a structure, resources and convening opportunities to foster collaboration among business, education, and community-based social service organizations.

Upskilling enables workers to learn new skills that improve their job performance, increase productivity and reduce costs through more efficient and effective processes. It also increases employee engagement and retention when employees know that their employer is invested in their professional development. The Partnership employs a business-model called Talent Pipeline Management (TPM) to support and amplify this work. This model builds regional leadership coalitions to prioritize industries, develop career pathways and identify education and community partnerships that are demand driven.

Community Engagement

The Forum Series features conversations with regional business, education and community leaders along with high profile thought leaders on key workforce issues facing the Houston region. This event series supports and advances the UpSkill Houston initiative’s work to help employers identify the skills they need for workers to be successful, provide relevant information about careers and pathways and drive effective career guidance.

The Greater Houston Partnership partnered with local educators and community organizations to launch UpSkill Houston, an employer led initiative that connects people to careers in middle skill jobs – occupations that require more than a high school diploma but less than a four year college degree. The goal is to increase economic opportunity and mobility for area families by focusing on attracting, training and employing individuals into these in-demand occupations. During the first forum, panelists Andrea Hodge (TRIO Electric), Tammy Newman (JPMorgan Chase) and David King (INEOS) shared their in-house apprenticeship programs that support career re-skilling for individuals and create talent pipelines for industry.

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Upskilling at McKinsey

Upskilling is a key workplace trend that facilitates continuous learning and helps employees advance in their careers. It also helps close the digital talent gap and allows companies to fill jobs with specialized skillsets.

Upskilling is different from reskilling, which involves teaching new skills that help an employee perform their current job more effectively. Upskilling is often facilitated by training programs, such as courses offered by Penn LPS online and mentorship programs.

What are the key drivers?

The world of work is in a state of epochal transition. Digitization, automation, and advances in artificial intelligence are transforming jobs. By 2030, as many as 375 million people—or 14 percent of the global workforce—will have to switch occupations or acquire new skills.

In a McKinsey survey, 87 percent of executives reported having skill gaps in their workforces. But fewer than half of them had a clear strategy for filling these gaps.

To win the talent battle, companies need to accelerate their reskilling and upskilling efforts. Leaders who succeed in this arena have a sharp view of the talent required to build future value and are intentional about finding both top talent and adaptable learners.

They also use digital talent-marketplace platforms to connect supply and demand. They design learning journeys that can help displaced workers find new career paths. And they make reskilling and upskilling an integral part of their corporate social-impact programs. Michael Chui is a partner in the San Francisco office, Mena Issler is an associate partner, Roger Roberts is a senior partner, and Lareina Yee is a senior partner.

What are the skills gaps?

The COVID-19 pandemic brought skill gaps to the forefront, and respondents now recognize that filling them is more urgent than ever. They are more likely to cite reskilling as their most important action to take than they were in the run-up to the pandemic (Exhibit 1).

Companies need to focus on future skills—those that already exist, like agile working and digital interaction, or will develop over time, such as blockchain technology development. They must also address current skills gaps by focusing on training that will enable employees to perform their jobs more effectively, particularly soft skills, which are critical as distributed teams become common.

In order to identify which areas of their workforce require more training, companies need to conduct a capability gap analysis. This is a process that requires a mix of tactics, including reskilling, retraining, and providing more learning opportunities. It is essential that the right training is provided to employees, as failing to do so can lead to a decline in performance.

What are the learning opportunities?

McKinsey offers many opportunities to learn throughout your career, starting with our One Firm Onboarding program, which you can tailor based on the areas of development you want to focus on. You’ll also have access to a broad range of online and experiential learning programs — some are self-directed and others, like our Tech Week, help you build new skills through a combination of immersive experiences and online resources.

You’ll be thrown into the deep end your first few engagements, but don’t worry — your colleagues are always available to help. And if you get stuck, there’s our global Helpdesk — the rule is to call them for any IT issue or Excel question that can’t be solved by asking your colleague. And of course, you’ll have countless conversations with clients where you can apply what you’re learning. The result is a continuous cycle of improvement and development — one of the reasons why ex-McKinsey consultants are so highly sought after on the job market.

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