Solve the number one problem with today's young workforce—the soft skills gap The number one challenge with today's young talent is a problem hiding in plain sight: the ever-widening soft skills gap. Today's new, young workforce has so much to offer—new technical skills, new ideas, new perspective, new energy. Yet too many of them are held back because of their weak soft skills. Soft skills may be harder to define and measure than hard skills, but they are just as critical. People get hired because of their hard skills but get fired because of their soft skills. Setting a good example or simply telling young workers they need to improve isn't enough, nor is scolding them or pointing out their failings in an annual review. However you can teach the missing basics to today's young talent. Based on more than twenty years of research, Bruce Tulgan, renowned expert on the millennial workforce, offers concrete solutions to help managers teach the missing basics of professionalism, critical thinking, and followership—complete with ninety-two step-by-step lesson plans designed to be highly flexible and easy to use. Tulgan's research and proven approach has show that the key to teaching young people the missing soft skills lies in breaking down critical soft skills into their component parts, concentrating on one small component at a time, with the help of a teaching-style manager. Almost all of the exercises can be done in less than an hour within a team meeting or an extended one-on-one. The exercises are easily modified and customized and can be used as take-home exercises for any individual or group, to guide one-on-one discussions with direct-reports and in the classroom as written exercises or group discussions. Managers—and their young employees—will find themselves returning to their favorite exercises over and over again. One exercise at a time, managers will build up the most important soft skills of their new, young talent. These critical soft skills can make the difference between mediocre and good, between good and great, between great and one of a kind.

From the CEO and President of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) comes the ultimate guide to transforming the way we select, retain and train our employees in a radically changed business environment. With the growth of remote work and an increased focus on diversity and inclusion, companies are increasingly finding themselves in a war for talent as they source and recruit candidates from all over the world. They need to find new ways to contact people and new sources of talent. They need to create an enduring and tangible culture that helps everyone feel empowered to do their best work. And they need to develop inclusive organizations that leverage differences for growth and innovation. Informed by more than 70 years of experience and expertise and propelled by extensive original SHRM research, Reset delivers a candid and forward-thinking vision for leaders to reimagine their company cultures in a time of global upheaval. Part call to action, part strategic roadmap, Reset challenges business leaders' underlying assumptions about workers and the workplace, delivers practical strategies for finding and keeping the talent needed to make businesses successful, and introduces dynamic tools to sustain that success over the long haul. Now is the time for leaders to completely reimagine, reorganize, and Reset their operations to create a more daring, resilient and sustainable future. This is the book that will guide them exactly when they most need it.

Recognizing the difficult time most youths face in finding a good job after high school graduation, the Austin (Texas) Independent School District developed strategies to improve the transition. A high level of collaborative activity was already underway in Austin between the school district and the community, but most programs had been started without linkage to each other or to the curriculum or instructional practices. Recommendations were made to design a system that would do the following: (1) improve career foundations (enhanced basic skills, thinking skills, personal traits, and career awareness and exploration for all youth; to develop learning and training records and career passports to document and signal career foundations, achievements, and experience); and (2) develop learning and training paths from high school into career opportunities in the workplace. Key principles underlying this strategy are to improve communication between industry and school personnel and to link work opportunities to effort and achievement in school, thereby strengthening incentives for students to learn. A proposal was made to implement the program with one school feeder school system in the district as a model. (Contains 189 references.) (KC)

4C’s; Communication, Commerce, Connectivity and Culture are the building blocks of an economy. How well an economy will grow or perform will depend on how strong these four pillars are. Communication leads to sharing of information among individuals. It is important for any business to have the right kind of communication channel. Commerce, provides goods and services for the society and its people. Connectivity provides the right infrastructure and system for those goods and services to reach the market. Lastly, culture helps to retain the indigenous value in those. SIMSARC 2018, organised by Symbiosis Institute of Management Studies, focussed on the aforementioned idea and invited eminent speakers from academia and industry, all over the world, to share their views on the importance of the 4Cs; Communication, Commerce, Connectivity and Culture for businesses and society. The conference had 4 sub-themes viz. Communication, Commerce, Connectivity and Culture which were the plenary sessions for the conference. The highlight of the “communication: Role of AI, Big Data and IoT in Business” track was the papers which were from broad range of Internet of things (IoT), big data, role of technology, Artificial Intelligence among other aspects of communication. The panel speakers gave insight as to how communication is important for business not only for across boundaries but within a country as well. Another session was on “Culture: An indigenous way” where speakers deliberated on the cultures prevailing in different organisations, countries and societies. From a ‘we together’ attitude in some country to a ‘me first’ attitude in the other, cultural similarities and dissimilarities across nations were discussed in this track. The session witnessed some relevant questions from the audience on issues of language barriers and its effect on businesses. Language and cultural barriers are something which are inevitable but one needs to be adoptive and should learn languages to mitigate these barriers. “Connectivity: Backbone for development” was another plenary discussion where increase in connectivity through various social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp was discussed and deliberated where the focus was whether human beings are still emotionally connected or not. The critical role of technology was emphasized along with importance of human to human interaction. No matter how much technology comes in play, human connections will never die as this was concluded by speakers as Technolgoy may not be able to take away the emotional connect. Another track, “Commerce: Fuel for economy” where the panellist spoke about growth, price discrimination, financial markets, inequality etc. Investor’s education is one of the most important aspect to take the investors to level where they understand financial market and this will help in investment activity in the market. Sustainability was another concern highlighted by the speakers and they pointed that policies should work towards attaining sustainability in the market and try to bridge the gap between skills and jobs available in the country. Researchers from all over the country, belonging to academic institutes and industry, presented their research ideas on the 4C’s. These research works ranged from digital transformation, IOT, team dynamics and organisation culture to infrastructural issues, e-commerce, banking and corporate governance, the research works presented covered a plethora of policy issues where each one of them is the need of the hour. The deliberations from renowned academicians who came from different parts of the world along with top industrialist, bureaucrats, entrepreneurs, NGOs immensely contributed to the existing bodies of work. They emphasized on the importance of right policies to promote communication, connectivity, facilitating commerce and preserving culture among societies. Overall, the conference witnessed a brainstorming session with scholars and experts and it surely did pave the way for future research.

Collaboration between those working in product development and production is essential for successful product realization. The Swedish Production Academy (SPA) was founded in 2006 with the aim of driving and developing production research and higher education in Sweden, and increasing national cooperation in research and education within the area of production. This book presents the proceedings of SPS2024, the 11th Swedish Production Symposium, held from 23 to 26 April 2024 in Trollhättan, Sweden. The conference provided a platform for SPA members, as well as for professionals from industry and academia interested in production research and education from around the world, to share insights and ideas. The title and overarching theme of SPS2024 was Sustainable Production through Advanced Manufacturing, Intelligent Automation and Work Integrated Learning, and the conference emphasized stakeholder value, the societal role of industry, worker wellbeing, and environmental sustainability, in alignment with the European Commission's vision for the future of manufacturing. The 59 papers included here were accepted for publication and presentation at the symposium after a thorough review process. They are divided into 6 sections reflecting the thematic areas of the conference, which were: sustainable manufacturing, smart production and automation, digitalization for efficient product realization, circular production, industrial transformation for sustainability, and the integration of education and research. Highlighting the latest developments and advances in automation and sustainable production, the book will be of interest to all those working in the field.

This book explores innovative pedagogical practices and teaching and learning strategies in the engineering curriculum for empowered learning. It highlights the urgency for developing specific skill sets among students that meet the current market recruitment needs. The authors present a detailed framework for fostering a higher level of competence in students especially in their communication skills, their knowledge of media and technology tools, and their leadership skills. The book offers examples of new and effective teaching strategies including cognitive, metacognitive, and socio-affective strategies which align well with the existing and evolving technical curriculum. The book will be of interest to teachers, students, and researchers of education, engineering, and higher education. It will also be useful for English language teachers, educators, and curriculum developers.

This edited book addresses a range of aspects of internationalization in vocational education and training (VET) in different countries. It considers the impact of internationalization and student mobility on VET at the sectoral, institutional and individual levels as the sector emerges as a key tool for social and structural change in developing nations and as a flexible and entrepreneurial means of growth in developed nations. The book explores not only the effects of the neo-liberal market principle underpinning VET practices and reforms, but importantly considers internationalization as a powerful force for change in vocational education and training. As the first volume in the world that examines internationalization practices in VET, the book provides VET and international education policymakers, practitioners, researchers and educators with both conceptual knowledge and practical insights into the implementation of internationalization in VET.