While plenty of managers talk about the impact of AI, remote work, technology and the need for technical knowledge, Tarrant County employers cited another key challenge: hiring candidates with strong people skills.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That from a survey<\/a> of more than 100 groups about workforce readiness and hiring conditions across Tarrant County conducted by the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce in the fall.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of people look at soft skills as supplemental,\u201d said Shanna Salda\u00f1a, vice president of operations at Building Pathways, an organization dedicated to career development in the construction trades. \u201cThey are not. They are foundational.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Salda\u00f1a said many prospective construction employees may have many of the skills required to do a job but not the people skills required to work on a job site.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re not prepared to walk onto a job site where you could have two or three different trades, all trying to move in their same space, all trying to work together,\u201d she said. \u201cWe are really working to help make sure that they understand that being able to ask a question without fear of being looked at as if you don\u2019t know something is key. Having the courage to be able to ask a question can be the difference between going home at the end of the day safe or not.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Survey respondents reported that they are willing and able to train for equipment operation, industry-specific systems, regulatory knowledge and technical certifications. However, they are far less confident in candidates\u2019 ability to handle and improve deficiencies in communication, critical thinking or emotional intelligence once an employee is hired.\u00a0<\/p>\n Many times, an employee will look good on paper and interview well but not work out because of such failings, said David Campbell, senior vice president at Huitt-Zollars, an engineering firm.\u00a0<\/p>\n Those at his firm must be able to work as a team no matter their other qualifications, he stressed.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe all remember team projects in college. They all went great, right? Everyone pulled their weight, right? Everything in my world is a team project, so it matters that they can work as a team,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Fort Worth Chamber<\/a> presented the finding from its employer survey on workforce skills gaps at the Build Your Fort Worth Workforce Summit<\/a> on Wednesday at Texas Wesleyan University.\u00a0<\/p>\n Respondents were asked about their ability to attract talent to Fort Worth. Nearly half identified traffic and commute time (46%), along with the cost of housing (45%), as meaningful barriers to recruitment.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not a high-cost-of-living area relative to other places in the country,\u201d said Mike Coffey, president of Imperative, an employment background investigations firm, who moderated the panel on workforce skills.\u00a0<\/p>\n Coffey said for many industries, employees have a difficult time getting from where they live to where they work.<\/p>\n \u201cI hear a lot of the people who would take those server jobs, those hotel jobs, those roles, they\u2019re having a hard time getting them to work, because those aren\u2019t jobs that are going to necessarily pay them to have reliable transportation all the time,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n While soft skills are important, many industries reported that workforce strength in technical areas was either moderate or strong.\u00a0<\/p>\n Hiring difficulty in technical skills exists but is not consistently aligned with the highest pressure points for employers, according to the survey.\u00a0<\/p>\n Those on the panel expect AI to change the workforce of the future.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re going to have a huge middle sector that\u2019s going to have to be highly skilled, highly trained, and they\u2019re going to be those experts, and we\u2019re going to have less entry-level jobs for the workforce,\u201d said Renee Parker, business services director for Workforce Solutions for Tarrant County. \u201cI think that\u2019s great because we\u2019re going to have people at a higher skill level, and they\u2019re going to make more money. So I think we\u2019re all trying to get on top of AI.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n