A new report from Harvard Business School examines the important role that America’s community colleges play in our workforce development. But The Partnership Imperative: Community Colleges, Employers, & America’s Chronic Skills Gap issues a challenge to educators and employers: the way we work is always changing, you must change with it.

Authors Joseph Fuller, professor of Management Practice and co-head of Managing the Future of Work Project at Harvard Business School – and a member of the WorkingNation Advisory Board – and Manjari Raman, program director of the project, write:

“The nature of work has changed dramatically across industries in the last few decades due to rapid and repeated waves of automation. Nowhere is this more evident than in middle-skills positions – those that require less than a four-year college degree but more than a high school diploma.

“America’s community colleges have been, and should remain, the education portal through which these workers pass. But increasingly, the ecosystem is in imbalance due to the growing gulf between those who teach and those who hire.

“Both educators and employers are failing to meet the challenge of the moment: how to create a steady pipeline of workers required to keep the U.S. economy competitive and prospering.”

The report takes it beyond the call the action, offering a vision and roadmap of how the nation’s community colleges and employers can meet that challenge by working together.

Read the full report here.