Credentials

Getting Credentials Right

March 14, 2019
Clearer standards could help narrow the skills gap, NIST/ WorkCred study finds

As manufacturers consider candidates to add to their talent pool, what do you think indicates a better predictor of success: credentials or experience? While the U.S. manufacturing skills gap seems to widen each year, hiring managers may soon realize that employees with the right credentials may be just what the sector needs to fuel the next talent boom—and the economy.

A recent Workcred report sheds light on the potential of credential use in U.S. manufacturing. But it also delves deeper to reveal just how credentialing can improve what matters most: helping employers keep pace with the demand for new and changing workforce skills.

As the executive director of Workcred, an affiliate of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), I am dedicated to the mission of strengthening workforce quality by improving the credentialing system, ensuring its ongoing relevance, and preparing employers, workers, educators, and governments to use it effectively.

We know this: Consumer demand will fuel the next wave of technological innovation, with a projected 3.5 million new manufacturing jobs over the next decade. Alongside this rapid increase in output and productivity is the daunting prediction of a skills mismatch leading to a workforce shortage and as many as 2 million job vacancies within the sector. Credentials are one solution to the challenges of upskilling workers and evaluating relevant attributes of potential workers.

Workcred's newest report, entitled Examining the Quality, Market Value, and Effectiveness of Manufacturing Credentials in the United States, provides insights on how manufacturers use and determine the value of credentials to meet their talent needs.

The study was funded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) and is freely available for download. The findings detail recommendations for manufacturers, credentialing organizations, education and training providers, accreditors, and policy makers.

Bring Transparency to Credentialing

The study revealed that many manufacturers do not know what credentials are available or how they are relevant. Confusion over an expanding credentialing system points to a major challenge: employers who do not know what credentials are available cannot recognize the unlocked potential that credentials may have, especially in the face of the growing skills gap. The findings also suggest that credentials are not routinely required or used as a major factor in hiring or promotion decisions: while 45% of manufacturers responding to the survey said they prefer credentials, 30% reported not using them at all. The top two reasons that manufacturers said they did not use credentials were because they felt credentials were not relevant to the jobs in their facility and that credentials did not make a difference in an individual’s performance. For those who selected the latter, 66% felt that experience is a better predictor of performance, and 36% said they needed to retrain credential holders anyway.

Yet on the flipside, the report confirmed manufacturers believe that credentials could serve as a critical resource if they focused more on hands-on skills, addressed soft skills, and were better aligned to job-specific skills.

How to Use Credentials to Meet Organizational Needs

To help strengthen the quality, value, and effectiveness of manufacturing credentials in the U.S., the report features recommendations for manufacturers, credentialing organizations, education and training providers, accreditors, and policymakers. Recommendations specific to manufacturers address the need to:

  • Support efforts to increase transparency about the purpose, use, and competencies of credentials
  • Promote competency-based apprenticeships
  • Align competencies and create a continuous feedback process
  • Increase opportunities to demonstrate workplace behaviors
  • Increase opportunities to earn credentials that also assess employability skills in secondary schools
  • Increase engagement of manufacturers in the development of credentials
  • Develop credentials for growing and evolving roles

Increased productivity and output are good news predictions for the manufacturing sector. The skill shortage can be alleviated with better understanding and use of credentials to assure that we can offer a skilled workforce to fill the demand and to upskill our existing workers, too. Workcred is already working with NIST MEP and manufacturers to identify where additional research may be needed to improve understanding of the effectiveness and return on investment of credentials in this important sector.

Roy Swift, Ph.D., is the executive director of Workcred and served as the chief workforce development officer at the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). Workcred, a nonprofit formed in 2014, has a mission of strengthening workforce quality by improving the credentialing system, ensuring its ongoing relevance, and preparing employers, workers, educators, and governments to use it effectively. Its vision is a labor market that relies on the relevance, quality, and value of workforce credentials for opportunities, growth, and development.

About the Author

Roy Swift | Executive Director

Dr. Roy Swift is the executive director of Workcred and served as the chief workforce development officer at the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). His previous position at ANSI was as the senior director of personnel credentialing accreditation programs, where he built ANSI's internationally recognized personnel credentialing accreditation programs. Prior to ANSI, he was a consultant to educational, certification, licensure, and health care organizations. From 1993-1998, he was executive director of the National Board for Certification in Occupational Therapy (NBCOT). This appointment followed a 28-year career in the United States Army Medical Department. In his last position, he was chief of the Army Medical Specialist Corps in the Army Surgeon General’s Office with policy responsibility for Army occupational therapists, physical therapists, dietitians, and physician assistants throughout the world.

He has served on many national committees, non-profit Boards of Directors, and federal and state government advisory committees. He currently serves on the Apprenticeship Powered by Industry (API) Working Group and the Executive Advisory Council at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science’s Interprofessional Healthcare Workforce Institute. Dr. Swift has served as chair of the Assembly of Review Committee Chairs of the former Council on Allied Health Education and Accreditation of the American Medical Association; chair of the American Occupational Therapy Association Accreditation Committee (Academic Accreditation); and on the Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs Advisory Committee for Certification. Dr. Swift recently served on an Institute of Medicine of the National Academies Panel dealing with Provision of Mental Health Counseling Services under TRICARE, and a planning committee for the future of Allied Health Practice. In addition, Dr. Swift recently chaired an international working group within the International Accreditation Forum (IAF) to recognize personnel certifications among member countries through the development of multilateral recognition arrangements. He is also active on working groups related to personnel credentialing in the International Organizational for Standardization (ISO) in Geneva, Switzerland, and is a guest lecturer at the University of Geneva on credentialing.

Dr. Swift holds a B.S. in occupational therapy from the University of Kansas, an M.S. Ed. from the University of Southern California, and a Ph.D. in continuing and vocational education with an emphasis in continuing competency in the professions from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has also successfully completed the University of Chicago’s three-week management development course.

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