New Collar Jobs: 7 Smart Moves to Fix Skills Gaps

New collar jobs may be the way forward for HR pros and their organizations.

New collar workers tend to have technical fluency, manual capability and adaptability. And new collar jobs are becoming the backbone of the ever-changing economy, according to a report from LinkedIn.

In fact, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that about 60% of new jobs will come from occupations that typically don’t require a degree – aka new collar jobs – by 2030. 

“Some of these roles will pay well and undergo the new-collar transformation reshaping the labor market today,” the LinkedIn researchers noted.

Is your organization ready to embrace, promote and nurture new collar jobs? You’ll want to be, and here’s help.

Who’s Filling New Collar Jobs?

If blue collar employees are traditionally trade workers, and white collar workers are traditionally those with four-year degrees, then let’s take a closer look at how to define new collar workers.

“What we’re starting to realize is that both of those terms leave out a tremendous segment of our population: smart, high-aptitude, and in many cases skilled individuals who, for whatever reason, decided not to pursue a degree — the new collar workers,” says Don Gannon-Jones, former VP of Content at Karat.

The newest new collar workers are in good company: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Michael Dell, Jack Dorsey and Larry Ellison — all billionaires and founders of major tech companies — were new collar workers before we called them that!

Today, as AI accelerates change across every industry, new collar jobs are popping up in almost every industry. The BLS report shows them in construction and installation, maintenance and repair, transportation, healthcare, technology and practically every industry that touches those.

Benefits of New Collar Jobs

The good news: Because new collar jobs don’t require degrees, but do require adaptability, you can likely train tenured or new employees for the role you need to fill. This is especially important because the roles will likely evolve, too, and degree-less employees can continue to pursue training and certifications that will only make them more valuable.

Continuing ed courses, online classes, certification programs, boot camps and intentional upskilling efforts are popular and relatively inexpensive — especially compared to a four-year degree — to get up to speed on technology. New collar employees only need relevant skills to get a foot in the door.

Case in point: “I also don’t have a degree. I was a trade apprentice, and I’ve learned about technology, tech education, assessment and leadership through on-the-job work and being given an opportunity to learn and grow on the job,” says Gannon-Jones.

What else can new collar workers bring to the table: “Aptitude. Productivity. Actually-useful-on-the-job skills,” says Gannon-Jones. “In my experience, they can also bring a greater sense of humility and a strong desire to learn the business from the inside out.”

Finding New Collar Workers

You don’t have to look far to find people to fill evolving new collar jobs. Current employees already understand the business and have institutional knowledge that can’t be replaced. Then it’s just a case of upskilling or reskilling.

There’s also a new generation of young adults, soured by rising college costs and potential student loan debt, who’ve pursued alternative routes such as trade school, certifications and the school of hard knocks.

Both are strong candidates for new collar jobs. 

Here are three tips to find, recruit and hire them through your internal mobility programs and traditional outward recruiting efforts:

• Go through job descriptions and delete requirements or preferences for degrees — except in fields where a degree is a hard requirement, such as law, finance and medicine. In those cases, ask for the specific degree that is required for the role. On the fence about dumping the degree requirement? “Ask yourself, ‘Are there other ways to become well-educated for this role?'” says Gannon-Jones. Example: Many software engineers have a computer science degree, but a job candidate can get those skills from a coding program. So, no need for a degree.
• Be clear that you’re looking for specific job-relevant skills. List those as the absolute make-or-break for the role. Don’t list nice-to-haves because you can probe for those in interviews. Describe the specific aptitudes that are important to your organization — for instance, collaboration, professionalism and collegiality. Or whittle it down to the specific aptitudes that are important to the role.
• Assess skills and abilities as you interview. Evaluating candidates based on what they can actually do, rather than relying on where they’ve worked or studied, will help you find better-fit employees.

Help New Collar Workers Succeed

“Because only a small share of today’s workforce is equipped for this evolving world of work, companies will struggle to fill these roles,” the LinkedIn researchers predicted. “Leaders therefore have a strong incentive to widen how they define and develop skills.”

And that’s the key: Recognize that new collar roles will continue to evolve – probably more so than traditional jobs have in the past decades. Training and reskilling will likely always be essential in the new collar world. 

Invest in new collar employees, and you’ll help them succeed. Four tips:

• Offer opportunities to continue to learn and grow on-the-job in different ways. Expand technical training to opportunities to develop communication, leadership, business decision-making and feedback skills. When you invest in these softer skills, employees are more valuable to your entire culture. That’ll make them more loyal to you.
• Set up mentorships. This is especially helpful in smaller organizations where time and resources for more formal training are limited. Mentors don’t need to have a degree either. Your internal experts from all walks of work can help new employees adapt to your workplace. 
• Broaden their view. Expose new collar workers to situations and experiences outside their normal work groove. They need to see the “why” behind operations and business decisions. That may be having them attend operations meetings, shadowing C-level leaders or spending time in different departments.
• Redefine worker success and do performance appraisals to reflect that. For example, you might add room between “Does Not Meet Expectations” and “Meets Expectations” for a worker who’s developing into their role. You might create new reasonable expectations for how long that will take. And you’ll want to find a mechanism to identify high-aptitude, strong performers who you can nurture and grow into future leaders.