S3 Ep1: Discussing America's Upskilling Challenge with Jason Tyszko

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Welcome to TalentWise, the podcast where
we unpack the
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challenges and solutions shaping today's
workforce. I'm
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Danny Markstein, and today I'm joined by
Jason Tyszko.
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Senior Vice President of Policy and
Programs
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at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Foundation.
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Jason sees workforce trends up close
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across industries and states. In this
episode, we discuss what
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separates high-performing communities from
those still struggling.
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How employers can lead on talent pipelines
and skills-based hiring,
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and what leaders should focus on as AI
changes the way work gets done.
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Jason, it is a pleasure to speak with you
today.
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Thank you for joining us this morning on
TalentWise.
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Thank you, Danny. It's a pleasure to be
here.
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We want to kind of start from
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Policy to practice, you have spent your
career working at the
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intersections of business, education, and
workforce development.
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As you look back, what are the experiences
that most shaped
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how you think about America's workforce
challenge today?
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I would cite that as you know, I spent my
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kind of the first half of my career in
state government.
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Probably a little less than half. I might
have been here longer than I like
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to think. But when I was in state
government, that's where I really cut my
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teeth on all things economic development,
education, workforce, all the different
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state agencies on behalf of the governor
and his office and engaging business
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as well. But I kind of came up from more
of an economic development lens.
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So I saw workforce development as a
function of economic development.
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But as I've gone through that journey, I
learned a great deal.
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And when I transitioned moving from then
Chicago to Washington,
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D.C., and I began working for both the
U.S. Chamber of Commerce
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and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Foundation.
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It was an eye-opening experience because
what I had to
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do was challenge a lot of the assumptions
I came up with.
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working in state government or at least
beginning my career there.
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And I was told that business will not
organize itself. It's
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a collective action problem. I was told
business will not share.
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Primary source data because it is
proprietary. I was given every reason
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one could think of for why I shouldn't try
something different in
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terms of organizing a new approach at the
U.S. Chamber. But we challenged
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those assumptions, and I'm glad we did
because we learned a great
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deal. And our first major program, which
continues to this day.
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So it's been going on, I believe now over
12 years strong.
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The U.S. Chamber Foundation, you have the
opportunity to work with employers
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and workforce leaders across virtually
every industry and in every state.
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When you take a step back and look
nationally, what are the
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biggest forces reshaping the workforce
over the next decade?
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Yeah, when I step back and kind of look at
the US workforce.
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writ large, the thing that keeps me up at
night.
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is in a in a disruptive age of AI.
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And regardless of even AI, just the
dynamism of the economy as we know
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it, and whether it's AI or something else,
call it quantum computing.
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Whatever it may be, like as more and more
disruption becomes the norm.
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And the dynamism becomes the norm.
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How on earth are we going to?
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Upskill and reskill 180 million plus
workers routinely and at scale.
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so they don't fall into the safety net,
let alone be captured by it.
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And there isn't a playbook or a toolbox
big enough.
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to address that problem in our entire
structure.
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for the education and workforce system
wasn't built to solve that problem.
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We could pay lip service to it. There are
islands of excellence
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and experiments that have gone well or
poorly.
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But
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We have yet to really come to terms.
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the real problem we're solving for.
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And we could look at kind of
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early in the pipeline and all the
challenges
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that remain there, whether you're talking
about
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you know, early childhood education, K-12
education, even college education. But
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For those in the workforce today who need
to upskill and reskill,
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routinely and at scale.
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What is the solution for them?
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And we're not there yet.
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And we don't have a lot of time. So that's
where I've been spending
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my time thinking. And we have some ideas
and solutions that might help.
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Cut away at that problem, certainly, no
silver bullets.
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Many employers tell us they don't simply
have a hiring
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problem, they have a talent pipeline
problem.
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How has your thinking evolved about what
it really takes to build
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a sustainable workforce pipeline,
especially given what you just
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said about the need to upskill and reskill
so many people?
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Yeah, something we pointed out in the
first paper
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I ever produced for the Chamber
Foundation.
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which was which introduced our talent
pipeline management initiative for
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the first time and the concept of a talent
supply chain. Certainly not
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the first ones to use that metaphor, but
we are, I believe, the first
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ones to go beyond the metaphor and
actually articulate what that means
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in terms of a change management framework
for employers and their partners.
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Part of that, what we pointed out is: you
know, if we're kind of,
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you know, I might oversimplify here, but
if we're kind of looking at,
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you know, our our history and workforce
development, at least within the past.
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You know, 50 years or so. But what you're
going to find is there was
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a movement to kind of go to the spot
market. A lot of employers kind
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of got out of the workforce planning space
and the preferred approach
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was your needs will be met in the spot
market. And that's probably
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the more efficient way of going about
building and keeping a workforce.
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But we realized or we came up against the
limitations
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of that approach as the economy shifted.
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as as industries changed and as company
needs.
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And the spot market was no longer doing
it. So you saw
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a lot of frustration where, yeah, we could
show that there's
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lots of jobs open and lots of people
looking for jobs.
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But structurally, why aren't these things
marrying up the way they used
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to? And that's where people started
introducing the concept of a skills gap.
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And that whole industry came up. And we're
still talking about it today.
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So just because there's talent there, it
doesn't mean that they have
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the capabilities to enter the job
successfully, at least not to a point
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where a company is willing to take the
hiring risk at that point.
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So, TPM very much came up in that
environment where we tried to.
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kind of rewrite the script on that and
bring back the lost art.
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workforce planning.
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but to do it in a very particular way. And
one thing that kind
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of differentiated what we were doing in
TPM is we saw this as
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collective action for a majority of the
job creators out there.
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These are small to mid-sized businesses
that unto themselves do not have enough
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Consistent demand to really leverage a
response from a lot of their education
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and training partners who they may or are
currently working with.
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But if they were able to kind of pool
their demand
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and do something akin to a shared
procurement.
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that kind of evens out a sufficient level
of demand over time.
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That's very much the TPM way. You could
certainly
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do it as a single company, but one of the
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the things that makes it special is this
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idea of forming an employer collaborative.
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to pool that demand and to be hosted by an
organization that can manage
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the talent supply chain on their behalf.
So that could be outsourced in
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many respects. But for the education and
training provider, now the upside is.
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Companies actually using a change
management framework to actually
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produce all the information we need —
primary source information about
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what they need, when they need it, where
they're going to get it from.
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How they're going to know if it was
successful, what pain points they're
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trying to address, so they come prepared
with a shared demand.
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That could actually enable a pipeline to
be formed where there's
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wins on all sides, wins for the education
and training providers
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who are preferred providers for those
employers.
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Wins for the employers because their pain
points are finally being
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addressed, and wins for learners and
workers who have a pathway.
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that's going to get them there.
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In supply chain management, We say you
manage time, quality, and cost. So
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you're going to get a quality education
and the fastest amount of time at
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the lowest possible cost. There's going to
be a job waiting for you at the end.
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So everybody could win, but it does take
effort. You can't go
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to the spot market and find that. And what
we have found in our
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11, 12 plus years of implementing TPM is
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when employers organize and take action.
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You get results.
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And we've got a lot of stories about how
companies
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benefit. But if the pain point isn't big
enough,
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To get a company to really leverage this
tool, let alone
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pursue the tool in coordination with other
like-minded companies
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who, in some respects, they may see as
competitors.
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If the pain point ain't big enough, it's
hard to make the case to do it.
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So, I like to say it's a scalpel more than
a broadsword. And a company doesn't
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need to do this for every position. But,
what we like to say is for those
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positions or functions in your business.
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that you live or die on. They are your
competitive advantage in many respects.
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If those positions go unfilled, that does
real business harm.
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That is where you need to focus your
planning efforts.
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Knowing that there are other positions
where you're gonna have churn,
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it's natural. You can go to the spot
market or have a less sophisticated
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solution, and that's okay. You gotta get
focused, segment those jobs
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where it makes the most sense to put this
kind of effort in.
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That's how you're gonna be successful. So
it's not all or nothing. You have
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to have a nuanced approach and know where
to apply planning and where not to.
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Conversation among those employers has
shifted in many cases, and again, to
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your point, kind of making
generalizations, shifted from degrees to
skills-based.
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versus credent you know, credentials
versus competencies.
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Where do you see the greatest
opportunities and biggest misconceptions
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when it comes to skills-based hiring and
preparing people for careers?
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At the end of the day, an employer is
hiring a person.
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They're not hiring your credentials.
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They're not hiring a skill, they're hiring
a person,
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and a person is the sum total of their
experiences.
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Their capabilities and skills, their
pedigree and education and training.
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their network and social capital.
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Now in some positions, some of this way
more than others.
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Person is a complex story. So, where I
kind of look to and where I've
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spent my time professionally over these
past years is the LER for learning
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and employment records. It was an acronym
coined during the American
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Workforce Policy Advisory Board, which we
participated in. And we were
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supporting a lot of that work through our
T3 Innovation Network, which
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continues to this day and is stewarded by
the Chamber Foundation.
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But why I like that movement is creating
these digital records of experience,
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whether they're work or education based or
even community based.
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We say learning and employment, but it's
really any experience can be documented
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and validated and used as data in a
process like skills-based hiring.
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This is the future. And as we get more and
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more better and we democratize the
ability.
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To create records about people's
experiences and to validate
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those. This no longer has to happen in a
classroom. This
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isn't solely the responsibility of the
registrar anymore.
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They're still very important. They're
friends of ours. We like them.
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We want to expand it. I want HR to be the
new registrar.
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I want employers to be the new educators.
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I want LERs to be the new transcript, at
least in certain settings. So I
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think we need to get in that business. And
the upside of that is it allows
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us to bring all of that to the table in a,
what we call machine actionable way.
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Because for a lot of companies, they're
not going to be looking
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at, you know, the fax machine for the
resume coming in or someone
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walking in the door. You'll always have a
little bit of that.
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Technology is going to be doing a lot of
the heavy lift. And if they're
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sorting through dozens, if not hundreds,
if not thousands of applications.
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We need to make sure that no skill,
experience, or credential
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gets left behind in that review. And all
of that can be rendered.
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as data.
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So for me, I'm like, bring everything you
got and make sure
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it is data because any given employer
might be looking at
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a different combination or weighting these
things differently.
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I will never go in and say it's skill, all
skills are nothing
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at all, or it's the credential or nothing
at all, or.
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I mean, you could have all those things
and no experience
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and you might not even get an interview.
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So I think we just need to be kind of a
little sober in
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our analysis. A lot of these things could
be like fad-like.
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And I think we just need to recognize that
people are complex
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beings and we need to make sure that we're
giving them every
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tool to express the totality of what they
bring to the table.
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Where I do get excited about the skills
movement
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is it's arguably one of the spaces
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where we we could be doing better at.
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And
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It's not to say it's going to take over or
render things
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like degrees obsolete. I don't think
that's the case at all.
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If we all get better at skills, including
how we acknowledge,
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demonstrate, or express skills coming out
of a post-secondary
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or higher education setting, that's a good
thing.
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People could better articulate their
skills. That's a good
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thing. If they can unpack their
experiences and credentials
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in the form of skills, that's great. And
if an employer
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can better validate the skills required
for the job and express those.
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and a job description or posting.
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That's a good thing.
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So I wouldn't put these things against
each other, but I
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think what we've seen is everyone kind of
recognizing if
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we do better at skills, we can all do more
with each other.
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You mentioned the dynamic environment in
which all of this is happening,
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the context in which all of this is
happening. When you think about AI,
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and even automation and how they're
changing the ways in which work gets done.
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How should employers and educators balance
preparing people for today's jobs?
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also building sort of adaptability for
jobs that may not even exist yet.
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Ah yes, the crystal ball question.
00:14:20.198 --> 00:14:23.109
I don't have a crystal ball. And I think
if anyone tells you
00:14:23.109 --> 00:14:25.923
right now that they know what the jobs are
going to be and
00:14:25.923 --> 00:14:28.688
how AI is going to specifically shape them
going forward.
00:14:29.190 --> 00:14:31.285
I don't think they're being entirely
honest forthcoming
00:14:31.285 --> 00:14:32.656
or they're they're they're prideful.
00:14:33.574 --> 00:14:34.224
We don't know.
00:14:35.014 --> 00:14:37.953
Exactly, what's going to happen. But
that's not exactly
00:14:37.953 --> 00:14:40.624
a new problem. What might be new is the
intensity.
00:14:40.998 --> 00:14:42.960
of the disruption and the frequency.
00:14:43.526 --> 00:14:46.011
But we've been dealing with disruption for
some time
00:14:46.011 --> 00:14:48.304
and frankly, we haven't dealt with it very
well.
00:14:48.870 --> 00:14:50.480
So I think we know what not to do.
00:14:50.918 --> 00:14:53.200
and that's to rely on traditional labor
market information.
00:14:53.926 --> 00:14:58.928
What I think we can do is, I might not be
able to see entirely 10 years out.
00:14:59.558 --> 00:15:03.152
But for a lot of companies, I can get a
fairly accurate two-year projection.
00:15:03.686 --> 00:15:05.330
It'd be even more, depending on the type
of
00:15:05.330 --> 00:15:07.088
industry. If you're if you're kind of in
like,
00:15:07.526 --> 00:15:09.168
the utility space, for example, you might
be
00:15:09.168 --> 00:15:10.736
able to do more of a five-year projection.
00:15:11.718 --> 00:15:13.680
I think two years is kind of my rule of
thumb.
00:15:14.342 --> 00:15:18.353
And if you're talking with employers and
getting more dynamic, validated
00:15:18.353 --> 00:15:21.584
signals from the source, that's so
important to routinely.
00:15:22.054 --> 00:15:25.200
Produce good information about changing
job requirements.
00:15:25.926 --> 00:15:27.873
That's the best information you could have
in
00:15:27.873 --> 00:15:29.776
the moment. I need to know what's
happening.
00:15:30.438 --> 00:15:33.840
six months from now or a year from now,
not 10 years from now.
00:15:34.374 --> 00:15:36.016
Because I don't know what's 10 years from
now.
00:15:36.518 --> 00:15:39.525
But if I can understand how to fine tune
what someone needs to know
00:15:39.525 --> 00:15:42.576
and be able to do based on the best
available information right now.
00:15:42.950 --> 00:15:45.584
coming from the employers themselves who
are doing the hiring.
00:15:46.278 --> 00:15:47.088
That's as good as gold.
00:15:47.590 --> 00:15:50.768
And I think we we need a s what then
happens is
00:15:51.238 --> 00:15:54.224
How do you create the struct, the
adaptability?
00:15:54.598 --> 00:15:56.912
within the pipeline, if you are getting
00:16:00.390 --> 00:16:05.082
Showing change in those requirements.
That's the hard part: the adaptability
00:16:05.082 --> 00:16:08.848
of the pipeline to say, I understood this
was important then.
00:16:09.318 --> 00:16:10.704
This is important now.
00:16:11.334 --> 00:16:12.944
We built the pipeline for then.
00:16:13.574 --> 00:16:16.368
How do we react to the new now?
00:16:17.030 --> 00:16:18.544
this cohort we're engaged in.
00:16:19.206 --> 00:16:22.863
That's where we need to kind of rethink
how we deliver some of these things.
00:16:22.863 --> 00:16:26.567
Maybe, you know, I got some ideas about
how to maybe kind of deconstruct some
00:16:26.567 --> 00:16:30.224
of these pipelines and make them more
modular, more adaptive and responsive.
00:16:30.598 --> 00:16:33.616
But that is, I think, a larger structural
system problem.
00:16:33.990 --> 00:16:37.857
That we have where even if we solve this
signaling problem, which I think
00:16:37.857 --> 00:16:41.513
is the ultimate thing and where I spend a
lot of my time is we need a
00:16:41.513 --> 00:16:45.168
faster, better, clearer signal as changes
are happening in real time.
00:16:45.862 --> 00:16:49.624
Even if you solve for that, you have a
whole structural adaptability
00:16:49.624 --> 00:16:52.944
problem that I don't think we've yet begun
to crack the nut.
00:16:53.446 --> 00:16:55.952
on how to solve for that one, but we're
certainly going to try.
00:16:57.094 --> 00:16:58.704
Stakes certainly are high.
00:16:59.302 --> 00:17:02.156
You've dedicated your career to
strengthening
00:17:02.156 --> 00:17:05.136
our nation's workforce and its
competitiveness.
00:17:05.542 --> 00:17:10.190
As you look ahead, what gives you the most
optimism about where we're headed?
00:17:10.190 --> 00:17:14.416
And what challenge do you believe we
simply cannot continue to ignore?
00:17:15.974 --> 00:17:18.035
I think we've, you know, in an
unstructured
00:17:18.035 --> 00:17:19.952
labor market, we've done amazing things.
00:17:20.774 --> 00:17:23.696
Provided a lot of freedom in terms of how
to organize a
00:17:23.696 --> 00:17:26.672
workforce, how to reward that workforce,
how to grow it.
00:17:27.622 --> 00:17:31.096
How to contribute towards someone's upward
mobility or transferability
00:17:31.096 --> 00:17:34.223
of skills to other companies to the extent
that they're working
00:17:34.223 --> 00:17:36.208
with a kind of first employer of choice.
00:17:36.742 --> 00:17:39.184
So I think we've done a lot of things
really well.
00:17:39.558 --> 00:17:44.144
but we can't rest on our laurels. And I
think the as I mentioned earlier.
00:17:44.582 --> 00:17:47.554
The upskilling challenge is coming, and
that's going
00:17:47.554 --> 00:17:50.640
to require a public-private solution if we
think that.
00:17:51.206 --> 00:17:52.874
Government's going to come in and save the
00:17:52.874 --> 00:17:54.384
day here. We got another thing coming.
00:17:54.854 --> 00:17:58.367
And I wouldn't say it's a state problem,
it's a local problem, it's federal,
00:17:58.367 --> 00:18:01.648
it's all of their problems, but it's also
the private sector's problem.
00:18:02.054 --> 00:18:04.881
And we're going to have to own this one
too. And we have a
00:18:04.881 --> 00:18:07.952
responsibility. But I do think we've
learned a lot in terms of.
00:18:08.358 --> 00:18:11.216
how the employer-employee relationship is
managed.
00:18:11.590 --> 00:18:14.736
and how it's managed well, and including
the sharing of
00:18:15.398 --> 00:18:19.408
benefits and risks, whether they be in
healthcare and flexible spending.
00:18:20.198 --> 00:18:23.845
Retirement, I think we now need to turn
our attention to upskilling. So
00:18:23.845 --> 00:18:27.800
that's why one of our kind of big ideas
we're working on, which was a product
00:18:27.800 --> 00:18:31.704
of our talent finance initiative, is this
concept of a skill savings account
00:18:31.704 --> 00:18:34.992
where it would function much like an HSA
or FSA, but for skills.
00:18:35.462 --> 00:18:39.115
An employer-owned debit-style account
where an employer doesn't
00:18:39.115 --> 00:18:42.363
have to do a $5,250 reimbursement per
section 127 of the
00:18:42.363 --> 00:18:45.552
tax code. I could give you $500 cash
upfront right now.
00:18:46.150 --> 00:18:50.667
Can match your dollar for dollar up to a
certain value. But how are we giving
00:18:50.667 --> 00:18:55.126
people, again, not thousands, but how do I
give you a few hundred to upskill
00:18:55.126 --> 00:19:00.112
on demand this weekend and knock out a
quick course on AI basics offered by an
online
00:19:00.518 --> 00:19:01.552
post-secondary provider.
00:19:01.990 --> 00:19:05.499
So, as we've been kind of sketching this
out, we think there's a path
00:19:05.499 --> 00:19:08.956
to actually get a third of the workforce
to open these accounts with
00:19:08.956 --> 00:19:12.566
their employers to get the first $1,500
in, which would generate nearly
00:19:12.566 --> 00:19:15.973
$100 billion net new money for upskilling
and reskilling that's not
00:19:15.973 --> 00:19:19.685
coming out of the taxpayer pocket. It's
just not taxing the contributions
00:19:19.685 --> 00:19:22.736
coming from the employer-employee. And if
we could do it for
00:19:23.174 --> 00:19:25.712
for all the things flexible spending
accounts.
00:19:26.150 --> 00:19:27.568
go towards if we could do it.
00:19:28.230 --> 00:19:31.152
for health savings accounts, by God, I
hope we could do it for skills.
00:19:31.526 --> 00:19:34.497
And I think this is a way to meet the
workforce where it's at. But
00:19:34.497 --> 00:19:37.648
that's a way of kind of bringing public
and private partners together.
00:19:38.022 --> 00:19:41.005
To say it's not about a big appropriation
or trying to
00:19:41.005 --> 00:19:44.208
double down on any of the parts of the
system we have now.
00:19:44.678 --> 00:19:47.380
How do you get new money in the system?
How do you solve
00:19:47.380 --> 00:19:49.744
that? People can't pay for this and do it
easily.
00:19:50.534 --> 00:19:53.347
I think we could do a good experiment we
want to pursue is
00:19:53.347 --> 00:19:56.208
this concept of skill savings account
where we think it's a
00:19:56.614 --> 00:19:58.499
a a way that kind of meets the employer-
employee
00:19:58.499 --> 00:19:59.952
relationship where it's currently at.
00:20:00.550 --> 00:20:01.456
not a foreign concept.
00:20:02.054 --> 00:20:05.001
And we can get employers to put the first
dollars in those
00:20:05.001 --> 00:20:07.846
accounts to get things moving. And then I
think the onus
00:20:07.846 --> 00:20:10.640
is on the providers out there, whether
existing or new.
00:20:11.206 --> 00:20:15.434
To be able to meet that market, where it
might not be someone enrolling in
something
00:20:15.434 --> 00:20:19.409
that gets an ITA, let alone a Stafford
loan or Pell Grant. But if someone comes
00:20:19.409 --> 00:20:23.184
in and says, I got 750 bucks and I need to
knock out a course this weekend.
00:20:23.718 --> 00:20:26.064
Can you meet that market where it's at and
then give them?
00:20:26.854 --> 00:20:30.369
Digital record of their learning outcomes
or skills that they can put in
00:20:30.369 --> 00:20:34.128
their digital wallet and use to express
themselves in a resume in the future.
00:20:35.366 --> 00:20:38.381
We're confident that we're going to figure
this thing out. I will
00:20:38.381 --> 00:20:41.581
never underestimate American ingenuity and
inventiveness. And I think
00:20:41.581 --> 00:20:44.595
this is a big problem. It keeps me up at
night, but I think we're
00:20:44.595 --> 00:20:47.888
going to come up with big ideas and big
solutions, and I'm here for it.
00:20:48.966 --> 00:20:52.685
Thank you, Jason. I cannot tell you how
much we appreciate your
00:20:52.685 --> 00:20:56.403
joining us today. We know how important
this work is to you and
00:20:56.403 --> 00:21:00.240
how impactful you have been throughout the
course of your career.
00:21:00.614 --> 00:21:02.997
We're grateful to you for taking the time
00:21:02.997 --> 00:21:05.264
to join us today. Really appreciate it.
00:21:06.054 --> 00:21:08.400
Danny, it was my pleasure. Thank you for
the opportunity and
00:21:08.838 --> 00:21:11.184
feel free to reach out anytime I could be
of some help to you.
00:21:11.846 --> 00:21:15.536
We'll do it. I hope everyone listening at
home will enjoy their commute.
00:21:16.134 --> 00:21:16.976
Join us next time.
00:21:17.510 --> 00:21:18.288
Thanks again, Jason.
00:21:18.822 --> 00:21:19.216
Thank you.