While central banks have largely focused their, limited, powers on the demand side of the equation to try and tackle the inflation that is cutting across the world, the supply side is equally, if not more pressing.

Research from Harvard Business School’s Project on Managing the Future of Work explores how better collaboration between community colleges and business leaders could help to ensure a better supply of talent to the labor market.

The researchers highlight the impact new technologies have had on the so-called “hallowed middle”, with middle-skilled positions often heavily affected. These roles, which require more than a high-school diploma but less than a college degree, are typically served by community colleges.

“America’s community colleges have been, and should remain, the education portal through which these workers pass,” the authors explain. “But increasingly, the ecosystem is in imbalance due to the growing gulf between those who teach and those who hire.”

Meeting the challenge

The report suggests that both educators and employers are currently failing to meet the challenge of equipping workers with the suitable skills required to fill the millions of vacancies across the labor market today.

The problem is a well-documented one, with employers complaining that they can’t fill vacancies (and a seeming unwillingness to invest in training themselves), while students emerge from the system unable to find work that pays a living wage. Meanwhile, educators complain that employers are unwilling to engage in crafting a curriculum that better meets their needs, nor indeed even sharing their skills requirements.

Indeed, when asked to rate the effectiveness of their partnerships with employers, 93% of community colleges rated employers a “B” or lower. By contrast, when employers were asked the same question, 28% gave themselves an “A” grade.

Similar disconnect appeared in terms of the employability of graduates, with most colleges believing that graduates have the skills employers need, but only 62% of employers thinking the same. This disconnect is partly explained by the fact that just 11% of colleges said that local employers were willing to set hiring targets, with a similar number of employers willing to offer job guarantees to any graduates.

Indeed, around half of employers said that it was more cost-effective for them to hire talent from the open market rather than spending the time and money to train new talent internally. Similarly, just 25% of employers said that they communicated their hiring needs to colleges, with half not even having a clear idea of the skills they were actually hiring for.

“Educators also face high hurdles when seeking internships and apprenticeships from local businesses,” the authors explain. “Real-life work-based learning experiences for community college students are rarely available and often unpaid.”

Rebuilding the relationship

The report provides a number of recommendations to help repair the relationship and ensure that employers get the workforce that they so desperately need.

Firstly, they should work more effectively together to ensure that the training provided to students is aligned with the needs of industry. This could potentially be in the form of co-created curricula that is based around particularly relevant and in-demand skills. This curricula could also contain real-world and on-the-job learning.

Secondly, these relationships should evolve such that graduates are routinely hired by these firms. This might involve dedicated staff time to work on the partnership and specific processes for hiring graduates from the colleges.

Indeed, the authors also believe that employers and educators could work together to gather better data on the local talent landscape so that they have a better understanding of the supply and demand for talent.

“The current state of collaboration is failing to meet today’s business needs and putting future competitiveness and prosperity at risk,” the authors conclude. “‘The Partnership Imperative’ is a wake-up call for community college leaders and business executives to fix what’s broken and ensure better outcomes for students.”