#TalkAboutWork: The Words of the Workforce

As job seekers and employers grapple with the economic recovery, language is one of the key components to be addressed in the workforce world. Words have power. How we talk about workers matter, including what are the accepted words and phrases that get all stakeholders on the same page so we can help workers move forward.

Recently, a group of workforce-related organizations and WorkingNation released a field guide—The Words of the Workforce—which serves as an overview of key terms and concepts related to workers and workforce development. We designed the guide to be a living document, subject to ongoing feedback, input, and critiques, to ensure it’s as helpful as possible.

Our intent is for the guide to promote equity in opportunity, training and employment through the specific and thoughtful use of language. Examples in the field guide include:

What is skills-based hiring?What is degree inflation?What is work-based learning?

This language and more were the subject of an energetic #TalkAboutWork Twitter chat Wednesday, with participants offering their thoughts about the influence of language and its significance for workforce stakeholders. Here are some of the insights and observations from that discussion.

Byron Auguste, CEO and co-founder of Opportunity@Work, notes the importance of workforce terms being direct and on target.

A1: Lazy language makes for hazy thinking.It’s time to stop addressing what people don’t have, & start recognizing what they do have. Employers must start using the term STARs (Skilled Through Alternative Routes) to describe workers without four-year degrees.#TalkAboutWork https://t.co/VfFoUZ4WIB— Byron Auguste (@byron_auguste) September 22, 2021

Ohio Workforce Coalition says language is key to the entire workforce process—from how it’s talked about from the beginning to the subsequent results.

A1 Language is also critical to measuring outcomes and impact of our work. We can’t count what we can’t commonly define. #TalkAboutWork— ohiowfc (@ohiowfc) September 22, 2021

Ashley Putnam, director of the Economic Growth and Mobility Project at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, says misused terms are barriers to results.

#TalkAboutWork Terms shape our policy decisions. When we frame job seekers as low-skill, we seek to address the skills gap without addressing the larger opportunity gap.Our terms are often informed by our biases, and thus limit our solutions. https://t.co/fNw1OPihUv— Ashley Putnam (@AshleyAPutnam) September 22, 2021

STRIVE, a nonprofit that helps people acquire skills that lead to sustained employment, notes misunderstanding around the phrase “skills gap.”

A2: Skills gap. People often use it to describe ways in which a talent pool is lacking, instead of a general mismatch of skills. It shifts attention away from the #responsibility of employers to #upskill their workforce or do away with unnecessary requirements. #TalkAboutWork— STRIVE (@STRIVEINTL) September 22, 2021

Peter Callstrom, president and CEO of the San Diego Workforce Partnership, says there is more to a job than just a job.

A2: When we #TalkAboutWork we must talk about #jobquality. It's not just perks, job quality must include opportunities and meet the employee's needs. The @sdworkforce has created a framework for building job quality into your #workdev approach: https://t.co/HDXzkiqJOB— Peter Callstrom (@PeterACallstrom) September 22, 2021

Handshake, an early career network that helps students embark on their careers, says it’s problematic that soft skills are difficult to quantify.

A2: Soft skills! Employers need talent with them, but struggle to measure something so intangible. To better understand them, we encourage organizations to double down on internships, micro-internships, and mentorship for young talent????https://t.co/Sa3gspjmDb#TalkAboutWork— Handshake (@joinHandshake) September 22, 2021

Skills for Chicagoland’s Future is a public-pri...