Does this sound familiar?

• “We’ve been talking about these skill shortages forever! How do we get traction on our workforce problems?”
• “How can we build more productive relationships with schools in our region who should be a pipeline for talent?”
• “There must be other approaches that we’re overlooking to recruit and retain the people we need?”

Here are three things that will help you break out of your rut to make real progress on your most critical talent challenges. Start by thinking outside your organization.

1. Assume workforce development is complex, confusing concept.

If you’re not confused about solutions for critical skill shortages, then you’re not paying attention. Sometimes the solution requires a big picture approach, like how to transform our state’s education system. But just as often the issue requires laser focus. Where do we get more electrical engineers, or how do we improve retention of new nurses in our community hospital, for example?

Recently, I participated in a national talent conference sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, which has been a leader in trying to fix broken “talent pipelines” in different regions and industries. Topics addressed in the conference included how to:

• Make marginalized groups (e.g. ex-offenders, unemployed poor) more employable.
• Support competency-based hiring.
• Promote more inclusive hiring strategies.
• Use data to effectively identify specific skill needs & evaluate solutions.
• Learn from one region’s effective apprenticeship program.
• Create a more digitally resilient workforce.
• Identify “upskilling” strategies that work.
• Finance workforce development initiatives more creatively.
• Reimagine high school education to increase awareness of potential careers.

Is your head spinning yet? Mine was. Building tomorrow’s workforce in today’s economy is a classic blind-men-and-the-elephant-problem. Almost everyone “sees” the problem – and potential solutions – differently.

To increase your chances of success define what is inside and outside your problem space and make sure there is shared agreement about this. It may be that your focus is too narrow, or are you trying to “boil the ocean,” tackling challenges too broadly? Are you trying to impact the overall talent supply in your region or industry? Or are you just trying to fix a specific problem, e.g. onboarding new hires for efficiently? Get clear agreement on what success will look like!

2. Collaboration within and across companies is essential to solve skill shortages long term.

Many workforce problems today are too big for companies to solve alone. Increasing the supply of welders, specialty nurses, or data analysts takes cooperation from a range of players. Collaborating with talent suppliers, i.e. schools, and other companies often will be essential to train and recruit skilled workers needed.

But collaboration is hard. It takes committed, passionate leadership, patience to get buy in from those you need to participate, and specific problem-solving skills. Leading a collaborative effort involving employers and educators takes sophisticated leadership, which is often underestimated. Collaborative leaders must be widely known and respected by organizations involved to coordinate a diverse network of key stakeholders.

The group also needs specific collaboration skills, which are increasingly devalued in a culture dominated by technology-intensive communications. A recent Harvard Business Review article spells out six essential collaboration skills. These include teaching people to:

• Listen more and talk less,
• Speak with clarity and to avoid abstractions
• Seek out win-win interactions

These may sound like third grade skills, but they’re often missing when diverse groups try to work together. Solving complex talent supply challenges not only requires key stakeholders – employers and educators – who are willing to cooperate, but they must have the skills needed to collaborate.

3. Learn & leverage other’s solutions: Solving workforce shortages means learning from other industries and regions.

Unless you’re in journalism, music, or video game design, chances are your industry or region is experiencing critical skill shortages in certain jobs. The good news is there are countless innovative initiatives underway trying to improve the talent pipeline in the U.S. For example, Kentucky has 11 multi-employer collaboratives trying to address workforce needs in sectors such as health care, manufacturing, construction, logistics and technology. And UpSkill Houston has made great progress in major industries in that region.

Getting outside your company and region will open you up to new ways of thinking. A lot of smart people are working on answers today. Ask the CEO of your chamber of commerce or workforce development board who you can learn from locally. And follow my Smart Workforce blog where I report on innovative solutions that I learn about from my ongoing research.

Our understanding of every major social problem evolves. Talent shortages are no longer novel and they aren’t going away in your work lifetime. We have to learn to adapt to them. To “move the needle” (my favorite cliché this year) on these issues, leaders must recognize the complexity of workforce challenges, seek opportunities to collaborate on solutions, and learn whatever they can from other innovative practitioners. Contact me or sign up for my newsletter if you think I can help.