3 minutes
Time to hit the books again? According to a CareerBuilder survey, nearly a third (32 percent) of employers have increased their educational requirements over the past five years. More than a quarter (27 percent) are hiring employees with master’s degrees for positions primarily held by those with four-year degrees in the past, and 37 percent are hiring employees with college degrees for positions that had been primarily held by those with high school degrees.
More than 2,300 hiring and human resource managers in the private sector participated in the nationwide survey, conducted online by Harris Poll on behalf of CareerBuilder from Nov. 4 and Dec. 1, 2015.
What Employers Are Looking For
According to the survey, of the employers that have increased their education requirements in the past five years, most have done so for middle-skill jobs:
- entry-level or low-skill: 46 percent
- middle-skill: 61 percent
- high-skill: 43 percent
When asked why they are hiring more employees with college degrees for positions that had been primarily for those with high school diplomas, 60 percent of these employers said skills for these positions have evolved, requiring higher educated labor, and 56 percent said they’re able to get college-educated labor for these positions because of the tight job market.
As a result of increasing their educational requirements, employers have witnessed a positive impact on:
- higher quality work: 57 percent
- productivity: 43 percent
- communication: 38 percent
- innovation/idea generation: 37 percent
- employee retention: 32 percent
- customer loyalty: 25 percent
- revenue: 21 percent
Higher degrees not only boost candidates’ chances of being hired, but they can help their chances of getting promoted as well — more than a third (36 percent) say they are unlikely to promote someone who doesn’t have a college degree.
Companies Take Responsibility for Training
Not all the pressure to increase their education is on employees, however. Some companies are taking a proactive approach to bridging the skills gap and overcoming the talent shortage by reskilling employees themselves.
More than a third of employers (35 percent) trained low-skill workers and hired them for high-skill jobs in 2015, and a similar proportion (33 percent) plan to do the same this year. Similarly, 64 percent of employers said they plan to hire people who have the majority of skills they require and provide training for the rest.
To help employees gain the skills they need, half of employers pay for training and certifications that employees earn outside the company, and two in five employers (40 percent) send current employees back to school to get an advanced degree — with 23 percent funding it partially and 12 percent providing full funding.
Others are taking training in house. Nearly seven in 10 employers (68 percent) said their company offers training programs to employees, and the majority of these employers say these training programs offer soft skills (71 percent) or hard skills (72 percent).
“Continuous training empowers employees. It gives them the confidence that they are up to date with new developments in their industry and have a stronger understanding of the company’s future,” says Rosemary Haefner, chief human resources officer for CareerBuilder. “One of the biggest excuses to putting a training program in place is often the perception that it will take too much time; however, there is no investment you can make that will do more to improve productivity in your company.”
