It's well-documented that the skilled trades have been experiencing multi-pronged labor challenges. These include skyrocketing demand coinciding with labor scarcity, burnout and high turnover rates in certain job categories, more competitive and expensive hiring, and growing skills gaps. As such, employers are facing serious headwinds when it comes to finding available, qualified talent to fill (and stay in) open roles.
Considering the current state of labor in the trades, employers need to make talent management a top priority from end to end – for example, thinking about how they’re recruiting, retaining, and rewarding employees. While there are a lot of factors that go into effective talent management, training and development is one major key to this equation and can help create a more skilled and engaged workforce. For instance, when employers understand how to leverage personnel certifications throughout the talent lifecycle, they can combat ongoing labor and skills gaps and ensure a brighter future for the industry.
Certifications are closely tied to shifting job skills, making them an important asset in talent management. In other words, these credentials validate that employees have practical skills, up-to-date and industry-specific knowledge, and competency to perform their daily tasks. Zooming out, certifications are also helping the trades industry to bridge critical skills gaps, ensure projects meet evolving standards, and increase the overall performance and productivity of the workforce.
Today’s trades employers should be using certifications strategically to make sure they’re recruiting workers with the right knowledge and skills for any given job. To do so, they can highlight specific certifications in job postings, or even filter applicants by the certifications they’ve earned, to attract candidates with the desired credentials. Further, they can incorporate a roadmap of internal and external training or certifications into their onboarding process to guide new hires’ professional development.
However, it’s not only new hires who need upskilling. Employers should also focus on developing their current employees’ skills to align with the realistic demands of their roles. To meet this end, some employers are offering financial assistance or tuition reimbursement to encourage employees to earn certifications that will help them advance their careers. Additionally, they might reward them during performance reviews when they do obtain new, relevant credentials to increase retention rates and job satisfaction.
But how, exactly, do employers know which certifications their candidates should have under their belts or their existing workers should pursue? Job task analysis is a great method for employers to better understand what workers in different roles do all day, down to the minute details, and what knowledge and skills they need to perform their jobs successfully – information that can inform employee certification programs or requirements.
Through this process, employers collect data about all the activities and tasks individuals are responsible for in their specific roles, and what these employees need to know to succeed. By doing so, they can better understand how to attract qualified candidates, how to fairly evaluate workers’ performance in these roles, and what training is most necessary for their workforce. For example, if a job task analysis shows that facility managers need to demonstrate a mastery of electrical safety, employers could prioritize certifications like NFPA’s Certified Electrical Safety Worker (CESW) or Certified Electrical Safety Technician (CEST) programs when hiring or upskilling workers in these positions.
Performing job task analysis helps employers create a blueprint for successful certification programs. While there is no one way to approach these assessments, there are some commonly used tactics to identify the essential tasks and responsibilities of a role. These include market research, observation, surveys and questionnaires, and interviews and focus groups with employees and subject matter experts. When completed successfully, employers will be able to define the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) required for each job performance requirement and build their certification programs around the real-world competencies their workers need.
To assist with efforts to understand the KSAs related to a specific role in their company, employers can review the JTAs of relevant personnel certifications related to that role. For instance, if their facility employs professionals to maintain its water-based fire protection systems, such as sprinkler systems, they should review the job task analysis for NFPA’s Certified Water-Based Fire Protection System Inspection, Testing, and Maintenance (WBITM). Organizations like NFPA develop certifications through extensive industry research and collaboration with subject matter experts, ensuring they accurately reflect the essential skills, knowledge, and tasks required for successful performance. By leveraging these existing JTAs, employers can form a solid baseline that aligns with industry standards and best practices, providing a structured foundation from which to tailor the analysis to meet their specific organizational needs.
This approach saves time and ensures that job task analysis is comprehensive and aligned with the competencies recognized as critical within their industries. It will help employers identify any potential gaps in their current role descriptions and training programs, ultimately leading to more effective hiring, onboarding, and professional development strategies.
Not only does focusing on certifications ensure new hires and existing workers are well qualified for their roles, but it also leads to other long-term benefits for employers. First, making professional development an organizational priority and cultivating a talent pool that holds industry-recognized certifications can improve a company’s credibility. For example, certified employees are likely to apply the skills they’ve acquired through their training to their work in the field, making fewer mistakes and boosting the overall performance of the company. Certified workers also tend to be more efficient and productive, as well as satisfied in their roles, helping their organizations reduce turnover and lower costs. In fact, LinkedIn’s 2023 Workplace Learning Report found that while 93 percent of organizations were concerned about employee retention, the top way they’re working to improve retention is by providing learning opportunities.
Employers who take certifications seriously in their talent management strategy can reap all the above benefits: improving their company’s reputation, performance, employee engagement, and even their bottom line. But most importantly, by certifying their workers strategically using techniques like job task analysis, they’ll also help close pressing labor and skills gaps in the trades and foster a sustainable pipeline of talent for years to come.
Dan Pickel is Director of Certification and Accreditation at NFPA.
