Business Idea: A Way To Help Rebalance The Skills-to-Worker-Availability Imbalance
This idea has been posted on kern.al – if you like it, click the link to go upvote it. https://kern.al/idea/a-more-efficient-way-for-companies-to-train-for-the-positions-they-need
Unless you’ve been living under a rock the past few years, you know that there is a huge dislocation in the jobs arena here in the United States – lots of workers are available but not necessarily with the right skills. This dislocation is particularly acute in the technology and health-care sectors but also affects the “blue-collar” sectors as well (electricians, plumbers, handymen etc.)
And the problem will get worse. Lots of workers will see their jobs evaporate as robotics, AI and other technologies replace them.
The solution of course would be a massive, on-going jobs-retraining program, funded by the federal government.
But I’ll sell you a bridge in Manhattan if you think that’s gonna happen.
So, the solution to the problem is left up to the companies that require the skilled workers.
Except that these companies love shooting themselves in the foot – they’re not really doing the thing that would have the greatest effect in the shortest period of time – hiring and training from scratch for the skills they need.
One reason for the hesitancy is that it’s expensive to hire and fire workers that don’t work out after training. And the opportunity cost of taking your best, most skilled workers off the job and use them as trainers is HUGE.
So there needs to be a way to incentivize these companies to make massive investments in training without the dual risks they face.
Enter My Unnamed Idea
What if we could get companies to commit training resources without the cost of hiring unproven workers? And what if we could get workers who are willing to be trained on their own time matched with those companies?
Now, why would workers be willing to go through training without being paid? Because the companies have made a commitment to hire X number of people from the cohort to fill positions. And workers who are, maybe, collecting unemployment or who has time on their hands can get training for free with a potential high-paying job at the end of the process.
For example, lets say that a company requires 10 workers for blockchain developer positions. They would come to this UnNamed SaaS site where there might be a large group of potential workers willing to go through training for these positions. The company makes a contractual agreement via the SaaS service that they will hire 10 workers from the cohort. And they also make a contractual agreement that at least 65% of the training will be LIVE – i.e.: no unsupervised video-only training.
At the end of the training, the company will be able to pick out the 10 best candidates out of, say, 100 or 200 folks. The rest of the folks can then go on to apply at other companies.
Smart companies will realize that it’s a great way to leverage the talents they already have instead of going out there and competing with thousands of other companies for the small pool of existing talent.
The Reality
The reality is that, of the 100 people that might go through the training, only 25 might complete it. That’s just how life is.
But, at the end of the day, the cost to the company for the training might be X dollars instead of 2X dollars – they do not have to pay hefty recruiting fees for folks that might not work out among other savings.
And, if they do not provide the very best training resources designed to bring out the best in the cohort, then they’ll end up contractually owing the SaaS service a whole bunch of money for the people they did not hire.
In other words, they’re incentivized to do their very best to train the cohort.
Drawbacks
The most obvious drawback is that a company can just go out and do this themselves without the SaaS service in the mix. I bet if any of the big tech companies ran an ad that offered to train anyone and will guarantee a hire of X number of people, they will get thousands of responses.
The downside to that for smart folks is that any company can say that they will guarantee hiring “X” people and then go back on their word with no consequences Which means the very best, smartest folks who can see through the potential BS might not join the cohort.
The SaaS service is effectively acting as an escrow agency, guaranteeing that the jobs availability is real – if the company does not hire the agreed number from the cohort they’ll need to pay what is effectively a break-up fee that will be distributed among the participants.
The other drawback is that this might be tougher to do for jobs that require more hands-on training: electricians, robotics engineers, rocket engineers etc. BUT, it might be a great way for companies to set up a preliminary training program to vet potential for a more in-depth course for the best candidates in the cohort.
Wrapup
The entire talent training process is broken in my opinion. Companies have tons of talent but aren’t doing enough to leverage it. This is one way to do so in an efficient way with lowered risk.
It’s also a huge education and marketing challenge for the SaaS service to convince companies to do this!
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