Training Tomorrow’s Highly Skilled Healthcare Professionals
To meet the needs of current and future patients, the healthcare industry needs many more qualified nurses and health support professionals. New industry recommendations, healthcare reform, and an aging U.S. population have led healthcare organizations to prefer degree-prepared workers. Healthcare and nursing professionals who obtain bachelor’s or advanced degrees can better prepare themselves for careers in research, education, administration, and sought-after specialties.

To discuss possible educational pathways for healthcare personnel, Apollo Research Institute convened an expert panel of leaders from 2-year and 4-year colleges along with healthcare employers and researchers. Moderated by Dr. Tracey Wilen-Daugenti, Vice President and Managing Director of Apollo Research Institute, the panel discussed the rising educational qualifications that employers seek; the value of bachelor’s and advanced degrees to skill acquisition; and the challenges that nontraditional students often face in balancing work, home life, and classes. Panelists also offered advice and recommendations for students considering a healthcare career path.

Read a summary of the panel’s insights and recommendations.

Life in the 21st-Century Workforce: Pittsburgh and Phoenix
As part of a multi-city study of the U.S. employment landscape, Apollo Research Institute released Life in the 21^st-Century Workforce for two metropolitan areas: Pittsburgh and Phoenix. The study explores employer and worker perspectives on the education and skills that are needed for workforce success. Each report was released at Career Innovation 2012, a career event series presented by Career Builder and University of Phoenix.

Study Ranks Three Most Important Leadership Attributes
As part of Apollo Research Institute’s ongoing women’s leadership study, researchers surveyed more than 3000 male and female managers across generations and industries to discover what attributes they deemed most important for effective leadership in the 21^st century. Among the preliminary findings: Respondents ranked confidence/assertiveness, creative problem solving/the ability to think outside the box, and being motivating/empowering as the three most important attributes for effective leadership.

Both men and women rated women as more empathetic and ethical/transparent leaders, and both men and women stated that male leaders were more confident/assertive and more comfortable taking calculated risks. Women managers believed that women leaders had the edge in creative problem solving, collaboration/inclusiveness, being motivational/empowering, and resolving conflict, whereas male managers rated male leaders higher on being strategic/visionary, resolving conflict, being motivating/empowering, creative problem solving, and making decisions quickly.

If you are a female business owner or corporate leader (director-level or above), please contact us to participate in our ongoing research on education, careers, and leadership. 

Future Work Skills 2020: Why the Human Touch is Still Critical
With smart machines and computers assuming an ever-greater share of routine workday tasks, some may wonder whether humans will be squeezed completely out of the workplace. For example, fewer workers are now needed to assemble cars, harvest crops, or judge the potential of an oil deposit. But machines can’t extract the deeper meaning from the data that underlie these processes, or understand their ethical, moral, and quality of life implications.

Rising use of workplace automation will make uniquely human skills more valuable, particularly the process of sense-making: the ability to craft high-level insights from data and experience that aid in making decisions. As computers and automation continue to assume rote industrial and white-collar tasks, sense-making will become a vital skill, one of 10 described in Future Work Skills 2020, a report by Institute for the Future for Apollo Research Institute.