Vocational Readiness in Modern Business

Vocational Readiness in Modern Business

According to Casner-Lotto, Rosenblum, and Wright (2009), one of the current problems in American business is the relative lack of preparation of workers entering the professional workforce. In some respects, that is attributable to the poor state of the American educational system that graduates high school students without the most basic skills necessary to perform standard professional tasks. The authors suggest that may be equally true of many college programs because of their focus on learning methods and materials that ignore the importance of critical thinking skills and intellectual creativity. Other critics of American public education have blamed political ideology, such as the conservative Right Wing championed by the former presidential administration of George W. Bush that completely undermined the crucial importance of respect and appreciation for scientific reasoning and intellectual objectivity (Mooney, 2005).

The lack of preparation for vocational success that is typical among new entries to the American workforce presents a Catch-22 situation for many large corporations. For one example, American Express had been providing the necessary remedial training for new hires who lacked basic skills for success in modern business; the company eventually suspended those efforts because of a high turn-over rate among young employees (Casner-Lotto, Rosenblum, & Wright, 2009). In effect, American Express had been paying the cost to train the future employees of other companies.

Other typical deficiencies include the lack of training in interpersonal and other non-technical vocational skills in academic technical training and insufficient attention to ethical issues in many modern business administration programs (Casner-Lotto, Rosenblum, & Wright, 2009). The authors suggest that the solutions to those problems likely include necessary changes to academic programs as well as to better designed professional apprenticeships, internships, and training programs offered by modern businesses.