tcoxen's blog

A bill has passed in Pennsylvania to permanently fund Industry Partnerships:

The Pennsylvania Fund for Workforce Solutions, Keystone Research Center, PathWays PA, PA Partners and other workforce leaders from across the state achieved a major win after working together to protect their state’s sectoral strategy infrastructure. After a vigorous statehouse battle, Pennsylvania lawmakers—led by Senator Brubaker (R-36)—voted unanimously to permanently establish the Industry Partnerships program as part of the state's workforce development strategy.

Read more here.

Corporation for a Skilled Workforce recently worked with Pennsylvania Partners to put together a two part webinar series on sustainability of industry partnerships. Slides are available through the Pennsylvania Partners website. The first webinar focused on financial sustainability and included presentations from Jim Lauckner, Rhandi Berth, and Susan Thomas. The second webinar looked at aspects of sustainability beyond the money, and included presentations from Scott Sheely, Dazzie McKelvy, Jeff Marcella, and Laurie Black. A recording of the second webinar is also available.

We've just added several new reports to the library. In the research and report section you'll find likes to a summary of state sector activity in the fall of 2010 from CSW, profiles of sector initiatives from NNSP, a guidebook for workforce partnerships from the National Fund for Workforce Solutions. Under the evaluations section, there are a couple of updates from the Sectoral Employment Impact Study and the second annual evaluation report from the National Fund for Workforce Solutions.

In these tough economic times, employers can improve their fortunes by investing in training and career development for their frontline employees, according to a business brief recently released by the National Network for Sector Partners (NNSP). From Hidden Costs to High Returns, Unlocking the Potential of the Lower-Wage Workforce is based on structured interviews with employers around the nation who have achieved significant bottom line benefits by undertaking innovative training and career development efforts targeted at their lower-skilled, lower-wage workers.

Click here to download a copy of From Hidden Costs to High Returns: Unlocking the Potential of the Lower-Wage Workforce and find out what companies around the nation are doing to position themselves and their workers for success in the post-recession economy.

This toolkit was designed by the Center for Energy Workforce Development (CEWD) to help CEWD determine how successful their workforce development efforts have been. It evaluates change at the employer level, but results from several employers could be rolled up to help an energy industry sector partnership evaluate outcomes.

Evaluation and metrics are a critical link in any planning process ... But evaluation is not the first step. Workforce planning begins with the company business strategy and continues to a set of key workforce strategies, including strategies for workforce development. These strategies will guide the creation of a workforce that is the right size and has the skills and competencies to keep the business strong and competitive.

The evaluation process described in this tool kit can be used as a framework for measuring any workforce strategy, but the key performance indicators and critical success factors are specifically created to measure what matters most in the creation of career pathways to energy jobs in the skilled trades.

This recent report - Workforce Innovations: Outcome Analysis of Outreach, Career Advancement and Sector-Focused Programs - looks at three targeted approaches to employment services offered by New York City's Center for Economic Opportunity, Small Business Services department (SBS-CEO). One of these is the Workforce1 Transportation Career Center, which is a sector-focused one-stop center working with both job seekers and incumbent workers in the transportation industry.

The evaluation found that Transportation Career Center participants are placed at higher rates, have higher hourly wages and more weekly hours at placement than participants served by the non-sector focused Workforce1 Career Centers. Additionally, the evaluators used a cost-benefit analysis to estimate savings associated with the three SBS-CEO employment programs, and found that:

The 5-year net benefit associated with the Workforce1 Transportation Career Center program is estimated to be over $37 million and net return-on-investment is estimated to be 910 percent (range of 850 percent to 1,110 percent). That is, every dollar invested in this program in 2009 will result in $9.10 return to taxpayers over the five years.

Download the full report to learn more.

There have been lots of new additions to sectorstrategies.org in the last few days.

In the library, we've added links to reports on health care strategies in both North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

New additions to the toolkit include industry sector analyses across several industries and a process guide for local sector initiatives from Maryland. From Wisconsin, a great example of a concise and attractive messaging document that explains the state's sector strategy and how it fits in with the state's career pathways initiative.

As always, we look forward to receiving your submissions to the site.

Participants in the Acclerating State Adoption of Sector Strategies project (see About Us for more information) will certainly remember Fred Dedrick.  Dedrick was involved in the project while serving as Deputy Secretary for Workforce Development in Pennsylvania, and was a great source of information and insight on the creation of the Pennsylvania Industry Partnership Program.

Now Dedrick has been named Executive Director of the National Fund for Workforce Solutions.

“The economy is a great motivation for me. People are facing very, very difficult times – so it’s an important motivator to make sure we do the job well,” Dedrick said. “Joining the National Fund is a great opportunity to work with people throughout the country committed to helping low-wage workers build a career. Together with our regional partners we can have a national impact on workforce development strategies.”

Click for more information.

A recently released baseline evaluation report on the National Fund for Workforce Solutions offers helpful insights on the impact sector strategies can have on low-income, low-skilled workers and also highlights some of the opportunities and challenges that face the national initiative that is working to build workforce partnerships rooted in industry sectors and improve labor market outcomes for both low-income individuals and employers using three approaches: sector initiatives, career pathways programs and workforce intermediaries. 

The State Sector Strategy Toolkit is a collaboratively developed, web-based tool intended to help states to design and implement statewide sector policies and frameworks that position their regions to strengthen regional, skills-based economic competitiveness.

In October, there was a joint meeting of the Learning Network and Policy Academy. I spent that time interviewing state sector leaders from across the country about their experiences. Now, when you visit the toolkit, you'll be able to hear what they had to say. Each module includes a 1-5 minute clip related to that subject. Here's a sneak peak from the introduction, where they answer the question "What do you know now that you wish you'd known then?"

Please check these new video additions out, along with all the other valuable tools and ideas you'll find in the toolkit. And as always, if you have something you'd like to add, please email me!