American Employees Aren’t Happy. The Antidote Starts in High School.

American employees aren’t happy. Harvard researchers unveiled that finding last month in a new book, “Job Moves.”  But many in the business community have long known this to be true: As those academic researchers found, voluntary quitting is driven by fundamental misalignments between individuals’ personal lives and their professional goals.

So often in business, successful personnel decisions hinge on the "fit” between a person and a role. But the incontrovertible reality is that millions find themselves in jobs unaligned with their personal strengths.

But the problem doesn’t stem from corporate culture or individual motivation. Instead, the foundation for this systemic problem starts years earlier: in high school. That’s because the orientation of American education has failed to expose students to the best-fit career options to begin with. Americans were set up to be dissatisfied before they even entered the workforce. Here’s why.

Across American schools, pedagogy continues to focus on core subjects – Algebra, Physics, 18th Century Literature, and the like. We test proficiency in those subjects, and if test scores are high, public education has done its job well.

But we’re focused, as a nation, on the wrong outcomes – because we’re testing for the wrong things.

Right now, we test for subject-matter proficiency when we need to be preparing children for the test of life. Instead, the metric upon which we should be basing educational success should be premised on whether we’ve exposed children to a wide range of career options and paths, as well as whether children are equipped to pursue careers that accentuate their strengths.

We need to empower children to identify the right professional “fit” for them. Then give them the tools to pursue it.

It’s a simple and elegant solution, yet a radical concept.

Introspection and self-reflection aren’t just valuable attributes that employers crave. They’re crucial skills for developing successful and self-aware individuals. That’s especially true in an age of artificial intelligence and a future one of quantum computing.

Working collaboratively, thinking critically, knowing your personal strengths, and taking command over your own growth and life pathways — these will be the skills most prized in this century and the next.

But right now, American secondary schools aren’t equipped with the tools to nurture these skills because they are so focused on transmitting facts.

Not building skills for the rest of life.

That’s why my organization, the Education Revolution Association, is working to develop a first-in-the-nation life skills curriculum to be taught in secondary schools. This new effort is premised on life discovery, understanding oneself, exposure to various careers, and finding the path that’s right for each individual child.

Our curriculum starts with self-discovery, driven by no-stakes personality and communication style assessments like CliftonStrengths and 16Personalities. These assessments help students cultivate a deep, personal understanding of their individuality, ultimately guiding them toward careers that align with their strengths.

Consider this: 80% of Fortune 500 companies use some form of personality testing to vet or promote employees. These assessments can also help educators personalize their academic teaching, tailoring instruction to student’s strengths or weaknesses and preparing them for the future.

Introducing this low-cost, high-value, real-world solution can help students find best-fit career paths and provide teachers with instructional insights they’ve never had – all while developing long-term skills that benefit the workforce and economy.

Then, students should be introduced to the vast array of career options available to them. Every high school in every community across the country should collaborate with local businesses, chambers of commerce, and other partners to expose students to these diverse pathways.

Every day should be career day in American high schools.

But on top of that exposure, too many young people today don’t know how to conduct themselves in professional environments – interviewing for jobs, writing professional emails, and more. They also lack the confidence to manage their lives. One statistic showed that fewer than half (47%) of American juniors and seniors feel prepared to manage a savings or checking account.

Hard skills matter.

Clearly, a stark gap exists between classroom learning and real-world expectations, which are increasingly intensified by rapid technological advances. Life preparation coursework – incorporating not just financial literacy, but real-world job skills and exposure – is desperately needed.

While the COVID-19 pandemic may have sparked the ‘Great Resignation,’ the reality is employee dissatisfaction stems from long-standing, structural realities about fulfillment in their jobs. The roots of that dissatisfaction started in high school.

Americans were on the wrong personal paths in the first place and only realized it years later when it was too late.

It has to change because right now, across America’s workforce, no one is happy.

Not employees who are resigning at high rates. Not employers who are frustrated with turnover. And -- most distressing – not our children, who aren’t being prepared for what’s to come.

Students should not be relegated to an educational status quo with archaic, decades-old structures. Just as the business world constantly evolves, public education should evolve with it.

We just need the will to employ bold solutions.