EMPLOYER SERVICES IN TIMES OF ECONOMIC CHANGE

1. EMPLOYER SERVICES IN TIMES OF ECONOMIC CHANGE NAWB Forum, Washington DC March 26, 2019 Employment and Training Administration

2. Your Panel Facilitator: Christine Quinn, DOLETA, Regional Administrator Region 5 Chicago Matt Falter Project Director|Ohio Business Resource Network Workforce Initiative Association Mark A. Stankiewicz Program and Services Coordinator Connecticut Department of Labor Business Engagement Andra Cornelius, CEcD Senior Vice President, Business & Workforce Development CareerSource Florida Jim McShane, MPA Chief Executive Officer CareerSource Capital Region Cameron Cassidy Manager of Service Delivery Workforce Snohomish Sharon Johnson, Ph.D. Chief Executive OfficerShenandoah Valley Workforce Development Board, Inc. Employment and Training Administration

3. Our Goal Today • Provide tools that you can use to build your Business Services Teams • Self-Assessment • Plans • Showcase the Work of Cohort • Provide “ah ha” moments from the Teams • Help you move forward with a new focus

4. The Cohort The case: This continues to be a near unanimous challenge in the field---how to better integrate partners regionally to provide a more coordinated set of solutions for business demand. Even the most advanced WF areas acknowledge room to improve here, especially in terms of bringing in ‘new’ core partners to form a united front to industry. Conducting business engagement in a truly regional setting • Integrated business services as main organizing thrust for foundational WIOA concepts • Must go deep into how different models work • Cohort needs to be mix of state + regional players • Focus on process + relationships • Cohort needs to include members not part of WF system • Bring in models we know are working/worked • Cohort members: leaders + learners

5. How to Get Started Integrated Business Services Framework Key Terms Used: • Business services: for the purpose of this project, business services is a term to describe the act of engaging businesses to identify and ultimately solve their talent needs. Business services is a comprehensive, value-added set of strategies, activities, and partnerships designed to support and promote economic prosperity by providing valuable solutions for the needs of businesses. • Integration: Per WIOA, states and regions are focused on integrating their business services across core and key partners as a means for providing a more comprehensive and customized set of solutions for businesses. • Regional: While this framework and self-assessment tool largely describe serving businesses within an economic region, states play a critical—and multi-dimensional—role in supporting these efforts.

6. Self-Assessment

7. Plans

8. Breaking it Down… Engaging with Business and Delivering Solutions Vision Snohomish County is continuing to build an Integrated Business Solutions Consortium to deliver effective solutions to businesses through a county-wide, strategically unified approach. All consortium partners approach business engagement with a shared over-all strategy to provide full wrap-around solutions through the myriad of available services within the entire consortium.  Demand Planning Sustainability & Continuous Improvement Outreach and Communication

9. Vision Definition: A vision that is specific to guiding an integrated and high-quality business services system. Indicators of Success: • A state/regional vision exists for coordinated and aligned business engagement/services • The vision is inclusive of all partners that play a role in the regional talent pipeline from economic development, education, and workforce development. • The vision of shared business client ownership and accountability is institutionalized across agencies/programs. • Leadership buy-in exists across partnerships for demand-driven, coordinated services and shared performance goals & outcomes

10. Demand Planning Definition:To develop innovative and integrated business services, regions must understand their regional economies, business climates, and demand for labor and services. Demand planning develops the process and systems by which business intelligence and labor market information are shared across partners, and uses that data to coordinate regional partners on target industries. Indicators of Success: • Make quality regionalized labor market information consistent and accessible to all partners • Ensure all business reps have a clear understanding of the region’s overall business and economic climate, including key industries, business lifecycles, workforce trends and needs. • Partners use shared data as they approach and work with business—there is consensus among partners on key target industries, critical occupations, etc. • Business intelligence—or tracking business engagement activity—is managed across key partners through a Customer Relationship Management (or related) system. • Business outreach/solution representatives (across partners) share intelligence and coordinate and strategize follow-up.

11. Engaging with Business and Delivering Solutions Definition: A strong business engagement strategy builds on information learned during the demand-planning process by ensuring that partners regularly coordinate on business engagement and service delivery, and that business outreach representatives have the skills and knowledge necessary to develop and deliver data-driven solutions. Indicators of Success: • Roles and responsibilities, as it relates to business engagement and follow up, are understood and embraced by all partners (within the larger shared vision). Coordination planning across partners occurs regularly. • Business outreach representatives have the skills in building meaningful relationships with businesses, both individually and in the context of multi-business industry partnerships. • Business outreach/solutions representatives are adept at collecting key business needs/information when meeting with business, maximizing their contact and providing partners with referrals for the sake of all-encompassing solutions. • An understanding, from working with key businesses, the natural progression/mobility of workers in all targeted industries/occupations (i.e. career ladders/lattices) • Trust exists with businesses and key target industries to build innovative business-focused programs and services • Integrated business services represent “the whole” when in front of business. Follow up regularly includes bringing in the partner/resources to address the solution.

12. Outreach & Communication Definition: A shared message and brand is crucial for communicating with the business community. Indicators of Success: • There is an adopted shared message for communicating to the business community the vision and strengths of the state’s/region’s integrated business services system • Services being presented to businesses—from across partners—are not siloed or menu-driven, but focus on delivering solutions to expressed business needs • Messaging centers around concepts important to businesses including how these services will impact profitability and productivity • There is a consolidated brand and it is embraced by all partners serving businesses

13. Sustainability & Continuous Improvement Definition: Integrated business services—from the vision to the execution and underlying structure—must be sustainable over time with built-in mechanisms to assess progress and make real-time adjustments. Indicators of Success: • Coordinated cross-partnership measures (i.e. quantifiable goals that likely go beyond WIOA measures) have been developed around engaging and serving businesses • A statewide or regional structure is in place (e.g. cross-partner committees, dedicated teams) to guide, implement and sustain this work • An effective staffing structure exists to support both industry sector partnerships (i.e. regional industry-wide business engagement) and the day-to-day business outreach operations • Cross-agency training is in place to ensure all partners are aware of the solutions inherent in this type of approach

14. “Ah Ha” Moments

15. Links to Resources • Sector Strategies Tool Kit:  https://careersourceflorida.com/sector-strategies • FloridaFlex Tool Kit:  https://careersourceflorida.com/partner-toolkit/ • Skills Gap Study:  https://careersourceflorida.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/2018-3-21_CSF_SkillsGap_Booklet_Digital_FINAL.pdf • www.mycareerpathways.org and we plan to expand this to all six LWDBs. • https://www.careersourcecapitalregion.com/about/partners/florida-georgia-workforce-alliance • Workforce Initiative Association www.thebrn.net

16. Questions