In 2005, we began reading Thomas Friedman's The World Is Flat. Some 500 pages later, we recognized that in order to work effectively with business and job seeker customers, the workforce development system must undergo a seismic shift in its approach.
Without realizing it, we 'd already been evolving our consulting practices and services to more closely align with flat world principles. We'd been using process mapping and standard-setting with Boards and One-Stops for several years, and we had developed a model of One-Stop service delivery that was based on preparing job seekers for work in a global economy. Once we read what Friedman had to say, though, this catapulted us even further into the future as we began exploring the implications of Friedman's findings for the work of the Workforce Boards and the One-Stop system.
In today's global economy, we believe that the workforce development system must focus on a core set of practices in order to be effective.
- Board Standard-setting
- Process Mapping
- Focus on Employability and Ongoing Support for Eliminating Worker Skill Deficits
- Focus on Continuous Career Planning and Management
- Continuum of Services Strategy
These are the practices we work with our clients to implement.
Board Standards
Businesses have learned that setting standards is a critical strategy for ensuring success. For every business function that they provide, they have set key outcomes and process standards for how these functions will be carried out. These standards are based on customer needs and requirements, not just on compliance with laws or regulations.
We believe that Workforce Boards need to do the same. They must go beyond the requirements of WIA and TANF regulations to set customer function-based standards that reflect the kinds of standards businesses use in serving their customers. And, they must have processes in place to ensure that One-Stop Partners and others are providing services according to these standards.
Process Mapping
For over 30 years, businesses have been mapping their processes and identifying opportunities for continuous quality improvement. This push for leaner, more efficient ways of doing business that bring added value to every customer interaction has become even more pronounced in the last 10 years with the rise of companies like Walmart, UPS and Dell.
We believe that to be successful in a global economy, Workforce Boards and One-Stops must apply similar strategies to understand their processes and make appropriate changes. Customer expectations about "quality service" are being formed by people's interactions with private sector companies who have mapped their processes. The workforce system must adopt similar strategies to meet these expectations.
Focus on Employability and Addressing Worker Skill Deficits
Job skills and requirements are changing more rapidly than ever before, which makes life-long learning and skill development an imperative for all workers. Further, most jobs require unprecedented levels of basic and workplace literacy skills. Many workers are simply unprepared to meet these demands.
To effectively ensure that businesses will have access to the trained workers they need when they need them, Workforce Boards and One-Stops must be more forward-thinking. They must focus on working with businesses and educators to develop career paths and lattices that help job seekers develop a wide array of skills. They must not only be working on identifying the jobs and skill needs of today's jobs, but they must also be working on the jobs that will exist tomorrow. Life-time employment is gone, replaced by continuous skill enhancements for life-time employability.
Focus on Career Development and Management
In
an economy where job descriptions and requirements are continually
changing, job seekers must actively manage their careers. They must
have ongoing access to information about how skill requirements are
changing, what education and experiences are needed to be competitive,
etc. This is the only way that they can ensure that they are responding
appropriately to the needs of businesses and preparing themselves for
future changes.
Workforce Boards and One-Stop systems need to support this process by providing job seeker customers with the supports they need to develop and implement longer-term career plans. The focus can't just be on getting the next job. Workers need support in planning for a series of jobs and for ongoing skill development.
Readiness for Employment and a Continuum of Services
Some workers in your community have few skills and many barriers to long-term, self-sufficiency employment. Others are highly skilled with few barriers. Still others fall somewhere in between.
The role of Workforce Boards is to ensure that local businesses have access to the trained workers they need when they need them. To meet this need, one of the key issues that Boards have to face is the recognition that because workers are at various levels of preparedness for work, a range of services must be available through the workforce system.
More than that, both Boards and One-Stop systems must recognize that these needs for services don't go away just because funding may not be forthcoming from WIA or TANF to provide them. A person's need for literacy skills development exists whether or not the individual is eligible for One-Stop services and regardless of the funding that's available to pay for those services. It is the role of Boards to determine how these needs can be met if they are truly going to ensure that businesses have access to skilled workers.
