Innovative Workforce Lab Tackles Middle-Skills Gap

Over the past year, the Bay Area Council’s Workforce of the Future committee, co-chaired by Teresa Briggs, Vice Chair and West Region Managing Partner at Deloitte LLP and Glenn Shannon, President at Shorenstein Properties LLC, has worked towards gaining new insights into the workforce development landscape in the Bay Area. As the middle-skills gap continues to widen, there becomes a greater need for collaboration between companies looking to hire, the job seekers of today, and the local educational institutions preparing the employees of tomorrow. It was from this that the “Workforce of the Future” Lab was born.

On February 22, key figures from the corporate, public and nonprofit sectors joined forces to address these issues head on. The “Workforce of the Future” Lab, sponsored by Deloitte, was convened to be a platform to identify gaps in information about job availability and workforce capability, with the goal of closing the middle-skills gap through collaboration.

“Companies are saying they have jobs available, but need qualified candidates to fill them. Simultaneously, educational institutions are saying they have talent available, but lack visibility into job opportunities. Clearly, there’s a disconnect,” Briggs said. “Our goal is to not only address this divide, but work together to identify challenges and develop solutions.”

With the Lab completed, the group will move towards identifying key takeaways and actionable methods of collaboration across institutions. To engage in our Workforce of the Future policy work, please contact Senior Vice President Linda Bidrossian.