This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Jan. 29, 2013 - A breakdown of findings on the state of the St. Louis workforce as it pertains to the biotechnology industry will be among the highlights of a half-day seminar at BRDG Park next week.
“It’s geared primarily towards employers, folks in economic development and government, the folks that are hiring people or preparing them for the workforce,” said Steve Long, associate vice chancellor of workforce solutions for St. Louis Community College.
The Feb. 4 event is the third of four related seminars to take place in the area. Sessions on health care and manufacturing were held last year while an upcoming event on the information technology field will take place in March.
“What we did this year for the first time is we disaggregated the data and looked at the responses by industry sector,” he said. “We wanted to see if there was value for folks in breaking this out by their industry sector and getting more specific about what they need.”
The discussion will be led by Kelly Gillespie, executive director of the Missouri Biotechnology Association, one of the event’s sponsors. Other sponsors include BioSTL, the St. Louis Regional Chamber and Growth Association and the Missouri Mathematics and Science Coalition.
Long said that the talk will allow individuals from industry associations, education and government to address the issue of what employers are looking for in today’s competitive hiring environment.
“We put together a half day workshop to help people hear about and give us input into what their workforce training challenges are in their sector,” he said.
The report, which included input from 1,200 employers across the 16-county metropolitan area, found no problems in biotech that weren’t faced elsewhere.
“The biotech sector mirrored some of the same challenges other folks were finding,” Long said. “It certainly mirrored the fact that those industries were growing and starting to recover from the economic recession but they still found challenges in finding a skilled workforce. A lot of those (challenges) are not so much in the technical skills area but in the soft skills area.”
Those “soft skills” included things like the ability to work in teams and solve problems. Asked about shortcomings of recent new hires, nearly 60 percent of employers cited lack of communication or interpersonal skills as the top answer.
A majority also expressed concern over poor work ethic, lack of critical thinking and a lack of general knowledge about business and industry. Poor work ethic was the biggest complaint cited in 2011.
By contrast, only 37.5 percent of employers mentioned lack of technical skills and just over a quarter cited lack of computer skills, the smallest single category.
Ironically, Long noted that this differed from perceptions of the graduates themselves.
“We also interviewed our graduates from many of our programs and they felt like they were up to speed in their soft skill areas,” he said.
Long said he looks forward to the event and what the conversation might bring.
“It’s about engaging in a dialogue with the folks who show up,” he said. “Hopefully, they will be folks who can give us some feedback about the kinds of things we can do to better prepare people for the workforce in their sector.”
In addition to Gillespie’s presentation related to the report, Ben Johnson of BioSTL will speak about diversity within the industry followed by a talk on educational challenges and a question and answer session with the audience.
Breakfast is included in the $49 fee for the three-and-a-half hour event, which will kick off at 8:30 a.m.