Healthy Spaces Podcast: Season 4, Episode 3 - Climate Talent

Nearly 70 million working-age Americans have no college degree. At the same time, there’s a growing talent shortage across industries, including climate tech and manufacturing. We can’t risk missing out on a group of prospective employees with the skills and experience to help solve big challenges—like climate change. So how can companies and organizations bridge this gap and effectively build an innovative workforce of the future?

In this episode of the Healthy Spaces podcast, host Dominique Silva speaks with Opportunity@Work CEO Byron Auguste and Trane Technologies’ VP of Talent Betsey Strobl about innovative approaches to workforce development and the importance of skills-based hiring over traditional qualifications.

Listen to the full episode to learn more about the Tear the Paper Ceiling campaign and other industry-shaping initiatives that are bridging the talent gap and cultivating tomorrow’s workforce.

Episode Guests 

Host: Dominique Silva, Regional Marketing Leader, Trane Technologies 
Guest: Byron Auguste, CEO, Opportunity@Work 
Guest: Betsey Strobl, VP of Talent, Trane Technologies

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Dominique: A college degree has long been a requirement for many jobs. But why? When it comes to solving big challenges, like climate change, we need everyone. Thankfully, many companies are already starting to think differently about how to build the workforce of the future.

[00:00:21] Betsey: Everything we do across Trane Technologies is around doing things that are better for the world, Right. We think specifically around our 2030 commitments. We would talk about opportunity for all. So, really what's at the heart of workforce innovation is also thinking about challenging our traditional norms and really making sure that we've got innovative ways to kind of remove barriers and broaden and diversify our talent pools.

[00:00:42] Dominique: And innovating our approach to workforce development isn't just about keeping up. It's about challenging our assumptions and thinking in a new way.

[00:00:51] Byron: I think what might excite me most in this work to tear the paper ceiling is to see how much we're getting this sort of mutuality of success because companies, particularly companies, that are focused on emerging industries where there's lots of new opportunities. They really do need new talent, and it actually doesn't work to just keep the old ways going. When companies make the switch from awareness to action great things can start to happen really quickly.

[00:01:20] Dominique: You just heard from Betsy Strobl, Vice President of Talent at Trane Technologies, as well as Byron August, CEO and co-founder at Opportunity at Work.

[00:01:31] Dominique: And I'm Dominique Silva. And you're listening to Healthy Spaces, the podcast exploring how technology and innovation are transforming the spaces where we live, learn, work, and play.

[00:01:43] Dominique: In today's episode, we will learn about innovative approaches to workforce development and the importance of recognizing skills over traditional qualifications. We'll explore the tear the paper ceiling campaign, which advocates for skills-based hiring to unlock the potential of millions of talented individuals.

[00:02:03] Dominique: We'll also discuss how companies are implementing workforce innovation strategies to bridge the talent gap and promote diversity. That includes hiring more women in advanced manufacturing.

[00:02:22] Dominique: First, we speak with Byron to find out how his organization is helping employers to find what he calls stars.

[00:02:30] Byron: I came to Opportunity at Work after 20 years working in the private sector, and then a couple of years in government, where I was working with communities across the country and kept hearing from the private sector and public sector employees that we can't find the talent we need. And yet, in those same communities coming across people who were working, who were skilled, who would say, I know what I can do, but no one will give me a chance. Despite all of the opportunities there were, and all of the need, honestly, for talent, a lot of people felt stuck, and when you dug into it, the problem wasn't with the people, the problem was with the system. So, Opportunity at Work grew out of that observation, and Opportunity at Work is focused on the 70 million Americans who are skilled through alternative routes, STARS. They don't have bachelor's degrees, but they do have skills, and it turns out that these 70 million skilled workers are overlooked to a degree that really hobbles our economy, and they really are the key to unlocking the talent pool for these industries of the future. So, Opportunity at Work helps to get that word out to drive awareness, and action on sourcing STARS talent helps industries to figure out if you're not going to screen people out based on the pedigree they lack, how do you screen them in based on the skills they have, and then to take that to scale through movements like the tear the paper ceiling campaign and coalition, and working with talent platforms, and the places people hire to help them develop the tools to screen people.

[00:04:08] Dominique: Oh, I love those words, tear the paper ceiling, and I know we're going to have the opportunity to dig into that a little bit later. What you're proposing here, Byron, is really truly disruptive, right? It's changing this model where it's so much easier to pull together a job description and have those requirements and request a bachelor’s degree, so I'd love for you to talk us through what value you see for companies that are actually investing in people skilled through alternative routes?

[00:04:36] Byron: Everyone, when they step back and think about it, understands the following, that most of the skills you need on the job are skills you gain on the job. The best companies are very intentional about how they develop people's skills and how they move them through a career path, and many companies do that for their executive ranks. So really in a sense, it's taking the best practice and applying it to everyone. That's one way to think about it. We're not really inventing a new thing. People have been learning for as long as there's been a civilization, or in fact, longer. And so, what we're saying is that that the right kind of learning should lead to higher earnings. So, the companies that do this best, they do it a variety of ways. Apprenticeship is a common method, but there are many other ways to go about it. I think the most fundamental thing is to recognize that if stars are half of your skilled talent pool, that if you don't have a star's talent strategy, you don't really have a talent strategy. You only have half a talent strategy.

[00:05:36] Dominique: That makes a lot of sense. Where did the term tear the paper ceiling come from? I'm curious.

[00:05:43] Byron: We launched the campaign in late 2022 and Opportunity at Work has worked with a coalition of over 70 companies and workforce organizations here in the United States, and with the Ad Council, which in the U.S. does public service campaigns. Some of them are famous and iconic, and one that is becoming famous and iconic is the tear the paper ceiling campaign which has had over four billion media impressions so far just in less than two years and the essence of the campaign it's mainly stars talking about their own lived experience, their own skills, what they bring to the table, and the ways in which they've been overlooked, or they've had to work around the current system rather than the current system trying to tap into their talents on purpose, and it's been very powerful. It resonates a lot, and the idea of tearing the paper ceiling is this reliance on bachelor's degrees and in fact, what goes with it in terms of alumni networks and the sort of routes that really exclude a lot of people. And it's saying that really this barrier is paper thin because you can see, if you open your eyes, you can see the skills that people bring and the work they do, and that's what they should be judged on. It's also a ceiling because we limit people's growth and it's resonated with people also because this idea of alternative routes when you talk to the five million stars in the United States who have actually worked their way around these barriers and are in high wage jobs and are doing jobs, you say, oh, I wouldn't source someone without a degree for that. Well, millions of people are doing those jobs. That's what they say we bring, I've got the same skills. I just got them a different way. I came through another route, and I think it's just really tapped into something very profound in people.

[00:07:31] Dominique: So, Byron, you've mentioned a few times the coalition and how important that is, right, to make your mission successful. Can you tell us a little bit about your partnership with Trane Technologies?

[00:07:42] Byron: Trane Technologies, has been the first advanced manufacturing company to join Tear the Paper Ceiling, and that's been a wonderful addition. A lot of the original partners came from fields that are more software kind of based technology. But of course, the work that Trane does is very technologically advanced. I mean, and that's true of advanced manufacturing in general. I think it's ironic that when people are working with special purpose computers and digital tools and really kind of embedded software rather than general purpose software, we suddenly call it a different thing, but the fact of the matter is, so much of the economy, including what's historically been thought of as the industrial economy, is part of the knowledge economy and in some ways developing people and developing a workforce that is able to make the same type of judgments while doing so in an environment that might be much more physical, sometimes remote. I think it's so interesting because these are some of the most skilled jobs, but they're jobs that you really gain the knowledge you need through application, and through apprenticeship, whether that's formal apprenticeship or not. And so, Trane has brought, I think, both a sense of urgency because of the pace at which we need to build out the clean energy economy and a history of investing and investing in developing people's skills.

[00:9:05] Dominique: So, in addition to creating a sense of urgency, but also bringing in the investment, it's also been a big priority for Trane Technologies to hire more woman into the industry. Can you talk to us a little bit about the role of women in skills-based hiring for industries like ours?

[00:9:28] Dominique: Skills based hiring highlights the benefits of focusing on abilities rather than formal qualifications. This approach not only unlocks hidden talent, but also diversifies the workforce.

[00:9:41] Dominique: And it's especially effective in bringing more opportunities to women in advanced manufacturing, a sector traditionally dominated by men.

[00:9:53] Byron: I do think skills-based hiring is really valuable for expanding to more women in advanced manufacturing, more women in infrastructure, and the reason is this whether it's college or whether it's skilled trades, a lot of the traditional pathways by which people enter the industries of advanced manufacturing and infrastructure and many related to clean energy those pathways tend to be dominated by men historically, and whatever the nature of the work was 50 years ago associated with these pathways, there's absolutely no reason today why they should be so dominated by men, but those are sort of institutional pathways. So, when you think about not just skills based hiring, but an entire skills based practices end to end in talent sourcing, we talk a lot about skills proximity and in Opportunity to Work, we have a database of 140 million job transitions and the skills distance from every job to every other job and what you can see is there are many, many, many millions of women who might be in lower wage jobs, but the skills they're using in those jobs are actually quite close and proximate to the skills needed in some of these emerging industries. So, if you take a skills proximity view, you're going to pick up a lot more women, in particular a lot more women who are skilled through alternative routes, women stars, than you will if you just look at where have we sourced talent before, through what channels? Because the channels have been narrower than they need to be going forward in the future.

[00:11:26] Dominique: All right, I'm going to ask you a slightly off script question, Byron, but there's enough people here to stop me. So, this is a technology and innovation podcast. It's our fourth season. For four seasons now we've been talking about how new innovation and technology is helping us to address big challenges like climate change. There's probably a lot of people listening to us now who are already working in the industry and excited about the future, but hopefully we have a lot of listeners who are excited about the industry and what's happening and want to be a part of it and yet they might be looking at their diplomas on the wall, their paper ceiling, if I can use our expression and wondering, gosh, do I meet the requirements, right? Am I ever going to meet the requirements? So, what advice would you give to those listeners who might have their own, a paper ceiling of their own?

[00:12:22] Byron: If you are motivated and excited by being part of the transition, call it the clean energy transition, I think it's important to realize that there are jobs of a very wide variety. There are not only engineering jobs and manufacturing jobs, there are distribution jobs, there are sales jobs, there's supply chain management. So, when people take a purely industry point of view and they say, well, I'm not part of this industry so how could I be part of it? If you actually take more of an occupation and a skills point of view and actually one thing, that sort of leaps out in the data is that there are jobs, very common jobs but we call them gateway jobs, that people can move into from a lot of different let's say lower wage jobs can move more quickly from into sort of higher wage jobs, and I think this is important for the industry to think about too. So, for example, there are roles in clean energy that are much more about customer contact and helping advise customers on how they move. If you're working in a call center, if you're doing kind of support, product support or things like that, you actually have a lot of the skills needed to transition. And my advice would be, you don't have to look very far afield from the type of work you're doing right now. You should maybe look first at some similar work that gets you into the field and companies need to look. That's why if companies look on the basis of skills, rather than just is this the type of resume I've seen for the last 10 years, then companies can source a much wider diversity of talent and diversity in every meaning of the word.

[00:13:59] Dominique: That's really great and very practical advice, Byron. Thank you for that. And we actually have a saying at Trane Technologies that every job is a sustainability job because really when you connect what you're doing to our purpose, whether you work in marketing, finance, legal or engineering, right, we all bring the purpose to life, and that is to challenge what's possible for a sustainable world. It sounds like we have so much to be excited for the present, but what's next? So, what are you most excited about as folks are coming together to tear the paper ceiling?

[00:14:35] Byron: I think what might excite me most in this work to tear the paper ceiling is to see how much we're getting this sort of mutuality of success because companies, particularly companies, that are focused on emerging industries where there's lots of new opportunities they really do need new talent, and it actually doesn't work to just keep the old ways going. If you're trying to move quickly, you cannot scale up middle schoolers through STEM education fast enough. Of course you should have STEM education, and of course you should have college, but you need many alternative routes. And when companies make the switch from awareness to action where they're saying now we will figure out our way of sourcing stars talent great things can start to happen really quickly. And then when you see the effect it has on stars, especially when, there's intention work and you get cohorts of stars coming in, and so you have peer groups, and you then tap into new networks, and people start bringing, other people they know, you can really get a flywheel spinning and that's a wonderful thing, and this is part of that journey to unlock all of our talents because we need all of the talents for the work ahead. Work is solving problems, and last I checked, we're not running out of problems. So, let's get to it.

[00:15:57] Dominique: We just heard how skills-based hiring can unlock hidden talents and diversify the workforce. But how do companies implement these innovative staffing strategies on the ground? Here's Betsey to talk about how Trane Technologies is making these concepts a reality.

[00:16:18] Betsey: It's not, I don't know, unlikely or unheard of to think about workforce development. I think it's, you know, pretty broad in the industry or across industries to think about it. But, you know, our Trane Technologies, we talk about it a little bit differently, probably very much tied to our purpose as an organization, and also because we need to innovate. I mean, I think from a workforce perspective, and this is an adage, you know, the war for talent. It's been around for like a long time, but it’s just gotten harder. Skills are changing faster. Technology is being, I don't know, blown apart day in and day out. There are things moving faster, so to keep up, to be competitive, we need to actually look at our workforce in a totally different way. We need to innovate for it, and so we actually built the workforce innovation team a couple of years back, really thinking about what are the partnerships we need to put in place, what are the pathways we're going to create, and then what are the programs we want to put in place to make sure that we're building future pipelines of talent while also cultivating the talent we already have to keep up with and actually to get ahead of the trends and the challenges that are faced in the labor market.

[00:17:27] Dominique: Interesting. Now is, is this something that would be related to sustainability commitments as an example?

[00:17:34] Betsey: Well, sure. I think everything we do across change Trane Technologies is really around doing things that are better for the world, right, and we think of specifically around our 2030 commitments, we would talk about opportunity for all, and so really what's at the heart of workforce innovation is also thinking about challenging our traditional norms and really making sure that we've got innovative ways to kind of remove barriers and broaden and diversify our talent pool. And so, when we think about inner opportunity for all, that's really around opportunity for all. Like, what are the communities that we work in? How are we making sure that people around have sort of access to great careers? So, we're broadening those talent pools. We've got better access to talent and talent has better access to us, and that's really in keeping with those 2030 commitments.

[00:18:20] Dominique: I just found out that recently Trane Technologies removed a four year degree requirement from many roles across the company, so can you talk us through this decision and what impact you've seen it having on the hiring process?

[00:18:36] Betsey: Yeah, and there's a couple of pieces of work, certainly when we think about really re-looking at what's required for any role and to be successful across the organization, so we think about, you know, skills, not schools, performance, that pedigree, results not requirements, and one way that we've done this, like one really tangible example, is really looking at job descriptions. Maybe it seemed really simple, but if you think about accessibility, if you think about a candidate, you know, a job seeker, that maybe first intro to an organization is through that job description, and so we've really done some work to really update those to look at the content, to really widen that talent pool. So, we make sure that we use language that's like inclusive, engaging, and really differentiates us. We think about skills that a candidate must have versus how they were acquired. We focus on some of those adjacencies, adjacent skill sets and adjacent industries, not just, you know, our own industry, or the specific skill set, but what's maybe around that like we're all about potential. We believe that we have really robust learning and growth here on the job at Trane Technologies. We've got an incredible system of things that come together to help people kind of thrive once they get here as well. And then, of course, we still have degree requirements, but only when necessary to do the job. And so, those are some of the pieces that we really employed when we've done work here, and we've removed that 4 year degree for your degree requirement for more than a dozen types of what I'd call critical roles across the company. So, some examples would be like account managers, plant supervisors, you know, maintenance managers, transportation planners, testing engineers. I mean, this has really helped us truly widen the talent pool of candidates that we can go after, and which helps us bring in a more robust experience and perspective to the organization.

[00:20:36] Dominique: Can you talk to us a little bit more about the Trane apprenticeship program?

[00:20:40] Betsey: One of the ways that we've really worked on sort of programming, as we think about workforce innovation, is to build a nationwide Trane apprenticeship program, and this is really around how we think about building apprentices across the organization for our commercial businesses. And, one of the things that we did is really, you know, look at the department of labor and get this credential that's an accreditation very, very exciting. Something that's really, I think, special about this as well, our apprentices are paid as they go out, so you're really paid to learn and you're learning, you're developing, and with this learning and developing, this is a sustainable career over time as well. And, when we think about a sustainable career, if I just think about what the market is for HVAC technicians, I mean, it's projected to have nearly 38,000 openings for HVAC technicians projected each year on average over the next decade, right? And so, if you just think about what we're then doing is saying, hey, come join us we'll teach you what you need to know, and we'll pay you to learn, and this national accreditation, it's not easy to get right, but we have such robust methods in place for our learners to really build these skills. Additionally, part of what makes this a such a kind of wraparound program is the use of mentors, right? So, this mentorship is a key component of these best-in-class programs of which our apprenticeship program is one of, and that program standard is that we make sure our apprentices learn from at least one senior technician, and they've got e-learning that's developed into it. Our mentors have multiple ways to connect throughout their experience. So, we support our mentors and our trained apprentices, so we've really got this nice sort of wraparound program to make sure that our apprentices are learning and growing, and I would say nearly all are stars, like 98 percent, are those folks who are skilled through alternative routes, and do not have that four year college degree.

[00:22:43] Dominique: Implementing workforce innovation through apprenticeship programs is key to building sustainable careers and meeting market demands.

[00:22:51] Dominique: By offering robust mentorship and hands on learning, companies can attract a diverse range of talent. But how can organizations ensure that they're also achieving gender balance? And why is it so important?

[00:23:10] Betsey: We're just not getting our fair share, and really it's an attraction element for us across Trane Technologies, and if you look at the world today, and you look at the graduate pool, we know that women are actually graduating from college at a higher rate than men, but our makeup isn't quite there yet, and in keeping with our 2030 commitments, we're really, we've got a goal of around 100 billion gender parity as we look at paradigm for parity as well. And so, we just are taking actions to continue to, you know, create that balance and all that we do, and right, we're a company that thrives on innovation. We know when we've got greater diversity across all of our teams, we just do better, and so we're really pushing for that attraction element, and so we do a lot of sourcing. And one of the things we've been focusing on this year is to push from a brand perspective. I mean, Trane Technologies is in fact, still kind of a newer company, and so how do we get our story out there that we're a great place to work, that we've got incredible rewards and benefits, that really we offer an environment to help uplift and thrive? And so, that's been a lot of work that we've been doing to tell those stories celebrating women and sustainability, focus on, you know, the work that we do across our ERG really getting the story out there from a perspective around our employee value proposition, and I already mentioned a lot of the work that we're doing from a tactic perspective, which is really around job descriptions, around making sure we're widening the talent pool that we're looking outside, and those adjacent industries and not just HVAC to really widen the talent pool and increase our attraction, so that we can see that pipeline increase and broaden our representation.

[00:24:55] Dominique: Interesting, so Betsey, what's next? What keeps you awake at night in a good way? We don't want to hear about nightmares, not on this podcast, but what are you excited to tell us about?

[00:25:06] Betsey: Gosh. I think you can tell I'm excited about just about everything. I mean, I think I'm just super privileged. I think I have, you know, one of the best jobs probably that exists, certainly in our organization, but in any organization, right, where I get to focus on bringing out the best in people every day and helping people both in our organization today, and the people that want to join our organization, you know, meet their fullest potential to really do something that will change the trajectory of the planet, right, for good, and we're really focused on how we create those bold solutions, right, for sustainable careers, how we really curate an inclusive and uplifting culture for like all of our people, right? The people who are here and can't imagine leaving and those who want to join us, and that we're really trying to change the paradigm to pair talent with our biggest opportunities, and I think we've started some pretty incredible work. Whether it's through this skills sort of focus strategy, our Trane apprenticeship program, this partnership with opportunity at work, really, really pushing ourselves to think differently and therefore act differently. So, it's all exciting. I think there's a lot of reason for us to be positive about what's moving forward. I think for talent who's really passionate about purpose driven work, there’s no better place to be, and please find us on LinkedIn and apply now.

[00:26:28] Dominique: A big thank you to Byron and Betsey for joining us on today's episode, where we discussed innovative approaches to workforce development and the importance of skills-based hiring in unlocking hidden talents and promoting diversity. At Trane Technologies we believe that every job is a sustainability job, and every role provides an opportunity for impact.

That's why each week on the podcast, we'll feature how someone is building healthy spaces in their organization or community. This week, we're sharing a submission from Gabrielle Toomey in Enterprise Marketing in Davidson, North Carolina. Gabrielle is building healthy spaces in her organization by sourcing sustainable items for Trane Technologies merchandise store. From t shirts to cups and bags, she's ensuring that all branded materials align with the company's sustainability values. Gabrielle, thank you for everything you're doing to make your organization a more sustainable place to work. Would you like to share how you're building healthy spaces too?

Well, to share your story, visit us at Trane Technologies.com/healthy spaces podcast. Thank you for listening in to the healthy spaces podcast. Where we explore how climate technology and innovation are transforming the spaces where we live, work, learn, and play. That's it for today's episode. We'll see you next time.