A 2006 report by The Conference Board found new entrants to the workforce unprepared for work.

A 2009 report shows that nothing has changed.

During the second quarter of 2008, The American Society for Training and Development, The Conference Board, Corporate Voices for Working Families, and the Society for Human Resource Management surveyed 217 employers in manufacturing, financial services, non-financial services, education, government, and other nonprofits. The survey examined their training practices for newly-hired graduates from high school, two-year colleges, and four-year colleges.

You can read a summary of the resulting 2009 report here. The most disturbing findings include:

• More than 40% indicated a “high need” for programs in critical thinking
• Nearly 70% indicated a “high need” for programs to foster skills in creativity
• Significant gaps in training programs designed to increase awareness of ethics and social responsibility
• Sizable gaps in basic skills programs to improve reading comprehension, writing, and math

The report exposes the failures at all levels of our education system. Graduates suffer. Because older workers are postponing their retirements, “recent graduates with inadequate workforce skills will be at a disadvantage both during the recession and once the economy improves.”

Some companies are choosing not to hire graduates who are unprepared. For example, American Express screens applicants through a detailed hiring profile that eliminates the need for remedial training, which allows American Express to focus its training dollars on career development instead.

The report identifies several steps you can take to improve workforce readiness:

• Thoroughly screen applicants for their job readiness
• Provide readiness training within a culture committed to training
• Form strategic partnerships with local colleges
• Integrate workforce readiness training with job-specific skills and career development training
• Align training content with current and future company needs
• Communicate to the public that new workers must come prepared with basic and applied skills
• Participate with educators on developing workforce readiness skills through mentoring, internships, and other learning opportunities
• Adopt better internal tracking of training costs and quality to document the cost of poorly prepared new hires
• Encourage focused philanthropic spending on workforce readiness
• Focus public policy discussion on the need to link K-12 education, technical schools, and college education with workforce readiness skills

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