To thrive in the future workforce, both employers and employees need to get comfortable with uncertainty. Rapidly changing technology is shifting the way we work and the skills required to achieve success.
Today’s economy calls for us to embrace flexibility, to commit to a lifetime of learning, and to creatively approach problem-solving. Simply put, today’s economy pushes us to be agile; the economy of the future demands it.
Unfortunately, our education system is behind the curve in preparing students for the new Age of Agility. Without profound and rapid changes to how we educate our children, this nation faces the real possibility of falling behind countries with more nimble and more innovative education systems. It is time for our communities – business leaders, education experts, and policymakers – to confront the skills gap and help reshape education-to-employment pathways. It is going to take all of us, working together, to successfully navigate the future of work.
“(Education needs to be) preparing students for jobs that don’t exist and to use technologies, sciences, and methods that we haven’t even discovered yet, to solve problems that we haven’t identified.”
Jamie Casap
Education Evangelist
“We need to make sure our schools are educating kids and their parents on what is driving our economy, and their future opportunities, and prepare them for that.”
Brad Rhorer
Human Resource Assistant Senior Manager, Subaru of Indiana Automotive
“We have not solved the technical training problem of the last generation, even as we are very quickly moving into this new AI and robotics space.”
Mark Osowick
Vice President for Human Resources Operations
“Businesses, skills providers, non-profits and governments at all levels have to find new ways to work together to ensure people are equipped to succeed in rapidly changing workplaces.”
Sean Thurman
Director of Global Public Policy
“High schools and colleges in the U.S. are not turning out graduates with the mix of technical expertise, soft skills, problem- solving ability and communication skills that companies like Toyota need.”
Dennis Parker
Assistant Manager, Toyota North American Production Support Center
“We need to hire people who can maintain and work on this high-tech equipment we’re putting into the factories to keep up with growing worldwide demand for our products.”
Dan Moore
Training Specialist
“There used to be a more or less steady state. Now it is just constant change. The ability to adapt and change is the key to the future.”
Alexis Sgouros
Vice President and Business Information Officer
“In the coming years, pressure to reexamine the ways in which companies identify and develop talent will only accelerate as forces like AI and automation reshape entire industries and professions.”
Jake Schwartz
CEO and Co-Founder, General Assembly
“We’re looking for candidates who are passionate and driven to succeed in their particular area, who learn new concepts and technology quickly, who are curious and innovative and who have a strong sense of integrity.”
Shannon Garcia
Senior Vice President of Recruiting and Human Relations
“Collaborate, Innovate, Accelerate is our strategy at The Boeing Company. Revolutionary advances in technology have translated to amazing new products in our businesses, which highlights the need for changes to the education and training of our future workforce. We need these changes to start earlier and to include both technical and soft skills, such as critical thinking, problem solving and working with diverse teams.”
David P. Eddy
Site Director of Boeing Colorado
In fall 2017, America Succeeds released The Age of Agility: Education Pathways for the Future of Work to call attention to the misalignment between what is being taught in schools—both K-12 and higher education—and the knowledge, skills, and behaviors required by the modern workplace.
Forward-thinking corporate executives, academics, technologists, and economists may not often agree, but on this they are virtually unanimous: the disruption we’re just beginning to experience will rival any technological upheaval in history in both scope and impact.
The report presents compelling data about this seismic shift. It shows how some companies are adapting. It explores how each one of us will have to take ownership of a lifetime of learning, a constant process of retraining and reeducating ourselves as the world around us lurches into the uncertain future.
In the report, America Succeeds committed to partnering with local stakeholder groups in cities and states across the country to facilitate community conversations, and ultimately actions, on what the future of work and the Age of Agility means for restructuring—as radically as deemed necessary—the way we deliver education.
With the support of our national sponsors and tour co-hosts, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute, we launched a national tour in April 2018.
At each stop, we convene business leaders, education experts, and policymakers for a solution-oriented discussion on what the future of work and the Age of Agility means for restructuring the way we deliver education. These Summits are designed to generate actionable policies, strategies, and tactics to improve education locally, plus provide open-source content to share with the world.
