Strategies for Narrowing Skills Gaps

Monday, June 17, 2013 at 2:00 p.m. EST - by Michael Ferraro, Jacqueline Burandt, Tracey Warland-Panhofer

Skills shortages continue to be a hot topic for business leaders, training professionals, and the organizations they serve. Despite the lingering effects of the recession, employers continue to struggle to find highly skilled and qualified employees. Policymakers highlight skills shortages as one of the reasons why unemployment rates continue to be high.

The June issue of Infoline "Strategies for Narrowing the Skills Gap" defines the challenge backed up with data, explains the role of the training professional to close skills gaps, and details a six step action plan to address skills gaps in organizations.

Join ASTD for a conversation with University Health System and Wells Fargo for an inside look at how these organizations narrowed skills gaps in their workforce, step by step. Both organizations will describe the skills gap they tackled, the methods used to address it, and the results achieved.

Communities of Practice: Career Development

Authored By:

Michael Ferraro
Michael is President & CEO of TRAINING SOLUTIONS, Inc. based in Chantilly, VA and is a public policy advisor to ASTD.
Jacqueline Burandt

Jacque Burandt, MEd, leads the Center for Learning Excellence at University Health System (UHS) in San Antonio, Texas with responsibility for planning, implementing, and evaluating workplace learning for more than 5,000 employees at twenty sites. UHS received the following recognitions: 2009, 2010 and 2011 American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) BEST Awards; 2012 Learning Elite and 2011 Training Top 125. Burandt was awarded the 2012 Learning in Practice Award for Collaboration; 2006 Gold Learning in Practice Award for Creative Alliances and the 2008 Silver Learning Team Award by Chief Learning Officer magazine.

Jacqueline.Burandt@uhs-sa.com
Tracey Warland-Panhofer

Tracey Warland-Panhofer is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and Certified Financial Services Auditor (CFSA) with external and internal audit experience within the capital markets, insurance and banking industries.

Tracey worked as a Senior Audit Manager at Wells Fargo & Co. for over a decade and had audit responsibility for a number of key audit projects and high-visibility special reviews with a specialization in Finance and Corporate Activities, Wholesale Banking, and Basel II Capital Requirements.

She has been a member of the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) since 2002, and served on the Board of the San Francisco Chapter for three years. Additionally, Tracey is a member of the AICPA and has served as a panel speaker on International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). She recently accepted a nomination to serve on the IIA global Academic Relations Committee.

Tracey began her career in the United States with KPMG, LLP, San Francisco in audit services where she was primarily focused on financial services clients. Tracey holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting as well as a Masters in Business Administration.

She currently works as a Learning and Development Consultant within Corporate Human Resources at Wells Fargo and supports the Internal Audit department. Tracey.Warland@wellsfargo.com