In my October article, I outlined five key trends shaping education and training in 2026. One of those trends—the ecosystem approach—highlighted that no single entity can or should tackle workforce development alone. This is where professional associations come in. I have a firm belief that professional associations, like those Holmes Corporation (HC) has been partnering with for the past 50+ years, are at the center of this revolution. They are uniquely positioned to serve as authoritative bodies, navigators, vital architects, and critical partners in a new educational ecosystem.
In September, I had the privilege of attending the Knowledge Leaders Forum in Deer Valley, Utah, where industry leaders engaged in deep discussions about how we can drive broader impact from our own companies’ perspectives. The mountain setting offered a chance to step away and hike between sessions—sometimes with colleagues, sometimes in solitude to collect my thoughts, and once with an unplanned moose companion who had his own ideas about the trail. Those conversations reinforced my conviction about the critical role associations must play going forward.
The Essential Role of Professional Associations in 2026 and Beyond
Professional associations are crucial to the new education ecosystem and should serve the market in ways that are different from the roles they may have traditionally played. They operate as a nexus point, linking industry needs, professional standards, corporate engagement, workforce development, and individual career advancement. This unique positioning allows associations to serve as both translators and facilitators. They convert employers’ real-time workforce challenges into relevant learning opportunities for professionals, while simultaneously helping companies identify and access qualified talent through trusted credential verification and member networks.
Associations maintain deep relationships across all three stakeholders. They work directly with industry leaders and corporate partners to understand emerging skill requirements and business challenges. They develop standards, credentials/certifications, and learning pathways that address these specific needs while serving the career goals of individual professionals. And they provide connection points, through job boards, networking events, corporate training partnerships, and skill-matching programs, that bring professionals and employers together within a framework of verified competencies and shared industry language.
This three-pronged relationship strengthens the entire ecosystem, reducing hiring friction for companies, creating clear career pathways for professionals, and ensuring that industry standards evolve in step with market demands. No other entity operates at this critical intersection with the same level of trust, authority, and reach.
Looking ahead to 2026 and beyond, associations can fulfill this essential role through three core functions that serve professionals, companies, and the broader industry:
- Defining and Upholding Professional Standards
Associations are the stewards of their profession’s body of knowledge and standards. Their most critical roles include:
- Setting Benchmarks: They define the core competencies, best practices, and ethical codes for their field, ensuring a consistent, high standard across the industry.
- Developing Certifications: Associations create and manage the most respected, expertise-driven certifications and credentials. These programs provide an external, unbiased validation of a professional’s specialized knowledge, which is highly valued by employers and the public. Accreditations issued by associations signal trust and quality in a crowded education marketplace.
- Curators and Providers of Relevant Content
In an age of information overload, professionals rely on their association to curate and deliver only the most relevant, high-quality, and up-to-date educational content.
- Bridging the Skills Gap: Associations are uniquely positioned to identify emerging industry trends and quickly develop targeted training, microcredentials, and reskilling programs to address immediate skills shortages.
- Flexible Delivery: They can serve the market by offering and embedding credentials and certifications in flexible learning models, whether it’s within a degree-granting program, through corporate upskilling initiatives, or as stand-alone offerings to individuals looking to advance their career.
- Fostering Community and Applied Learning
Education is not just about content; it’s about context and connection. Associations excel at creating environments where knowledge can be applied and shared.
- Workforce Development Hubs: Associations facilitate networking, mentorship programs, and defined career pathways, which uniquely position them to link their skill taxonomy to career paths and jobs. Mapping and translating skills to a common taxonomy can reduce market friction and help align the workforce to career opportunities and skills matching with roles.
These connections aren’t just valuable for individual career growth. They create talent pipelines that help companies find qualified professionals while giving members direct pathways to employment opportunities within their industry.
The future of work, and the education and training ecosystem that supports it, has always been an exciting place to be. From the days of Aristotle to the growth of guilds and early-stage apprenticeships, through the design of our modern K-12 and post-secondary landscape, and now to today’s acceleration of tech-enabled solutions, we have consistently sought the best ways to transfer knowledge to the greatest number of people. It is just happening at an incredible speed. I am excited for HC, other edtech companies, Associations, educational institutions, corporations, and workforce initiatives can work together to redesign and re-engage the workforce in transformative ways. The only constant is change, and change that is happening at an incredible rate, driving innovation and outcomes at massive scale.
