Workforce development
Workforce development is an American economic development approach that attempts to enhance a region's economic stability and prosperity by focusing on people rather than businesses. It is essentially a human resources strategy. Workforce development has historically been found in two forms: place-based strategies that attempt to address the needs of people living in a particular neighborhood, or sector-based strategies that focus on matching workers' skills to needs in an industry already present in the region, such as healthcare or manufacturing. Some contemporary workforce development programs attempt to combine elements of both approaches, linking employment training with other government programs and community resources to provide wraparound services.
History
The responsibility for workforce development in the United States has rested on the government's shoulders for at least a century, since the advent of public schools.[1] This formal system of education replaced earlier days in American history when students whose parents desired them to learn a trade other than their parents' were apprenticed. Informal schooling took place at home, depending on the household's ability and income level. Public schools were created to prepare students to earn a living wage by providing them with skills such as reading and arithmetic. However, an employer still typically provided vocational training on the job.
Traditional workforce development has been problem-focused.[1] Economic development practitioners evaluated neighborhoods, cities, or states on the basis of perceived weaknesses in human resource capacity. However, recent efforts view workforce development in a more positive light. Economic developers use workforce development as a way to increase equity among inhabitants of a region. Inner-city residents may not have access to equal education opportunities, and workforce development programs can increase their skill level so they can compete with suburbanites for high-paying jobs.
Workforce development has also expanded beyond the notion of employment or vocational training.[2] Workforce development today often takes a more holistic approach, addressing issues such as spatial mismatch or poor transportation to jobs. Programs to train workers are often part of a network of other human service or community opportunities.
The American Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (WIA) demonstrated growing importance of the workforce development concept in the political arena. The act created Workforce Investment Boards which brought workforce development to the forefront in states and localities across the United States while highlighting the importance of the community's involvement in developing workers' skills. The role of industry clusters is also considered in some contemporary workforce development programs.
Approaches to workforce development
Two approaches to workforce development have emerged. The sectoral advocate speaks for the demand side, emphasizing employer- or market driven strategies, whereas the place-based practitioner is resolutely a believer in the virtue of the supply side: those low-income job seekers who need work and a pathway out of poverty. However, contemporary strategies often use a mixed approach.[3]
Sector-Based Approach
What is a Sector-Based Strategy?
Sector-based approaches consider the sectors, or industries, in a region that are in need of specific workplace skills. They focus on the demand side of workplace development and consider the industries in which it is most likely that new employees will be hired. Sector-based programs may have higher entrance requirements than place-based strategies because their ultimate aim is to aid the sector at which they are targeted, not to increase the general hirability of the most disadvantaged residents.
The sector-based approach has been used successfully in Massachusetts in the healthcare industry to address the direct care worker needs of long term care (Extended Career Ladder Initiative-ECCLI) and to reduce the nursing shortage (Nursing Career Ladder Initiative-NUCLI), and to tackle the workforce needs of manufacturing, biotechnology, financial services, and other industries through the BEST and BayStateWorks initiatives. Massachusetts was recognized by the National Governors Association as one of five leading states in the nation advancing the sector-based approach. [4]
Mechanisms
Sector-based initiatives are targeted to a specific industry, with solutions that are tailored to satisfy the needs of the industry. The goal is to create education, training programs, and other support mechanisms that are customized to the workplace of the specific industry. Thus the program fits the needs of both industry employers and workers who want to improve their skills and advance their career development.
The programs are typically created through partnerships (between invested employers, unions, Workforce Investment Boards, one-stop career centers, adult basic education providers, community based organizations, community colleges and other institutions of higher education, and other training and service providers). Thus significant community involvement is needed. More specifically, sector based strategies require the involvement of an intermediary with deep knowledge of the industry who will facilitate partnership development and the creation of solutions.
Many sector initiatives provide strategies for improving the employability and career path development for low-income, low-skilled workers. Through workforce development, systemic change is created that benefits both employers and workers.[4]
Challenges
- Skills Gap
In the context of globalization, many employers are searching for skilled workers or looking for ways to upgrade the skills of their current workers in order to be more productive and competitive. Meanwhile, there are far too many unemployed and underemployed workers without the skills need in the labor market.
- Rapid Change
As technological advances create an ever-changing economic environment and fierce competition from other states and countries, it is necessary to build a worker pipeline that is highly skilled and able to respond to workplace changes as they occur.
- Low Literacy and Educational Level
Current data indicate that only three of every four students who begin ninth grade graduate from high school four years later.
Key Elements of the Sector-Based Strategy
- Creating Partnerships and Network
A multitude of sectors and individuals will be involved in that the issues of workforce development are complex and multi-faceted. Partnerships of invested stakeholders bring together the variety of perspectives needed to fully understand problems and the resources necessary to create sustainable solutions.
- Establishing Innovative program model development
Innovation based on the cycle of research, program model development, evaluation, identifying and sharing learning, and improving the program model based on what has been learned (and then beginning the cycle again) is crucial.
- Leveraging private and philanthropic funds through public funds
Public funds are precious and scarce. They should be used to their fullest potential to leverage private resources for workforce development. Sector-based strategies are designed to leverage private and philanthropic funds via using public funds.
Place-Based Approach
What Is a Place-Based Strategy?
Place-based approaches, which consider the supply side of the workplace, are primarily focused on the characteristics of people in the region/community where the training program will be located. Place-based strategies often help participants gain initial access to the labor market while addressing other essential concerns to the region, notably, housing development. For example, the low-income and less-educated unemployed workers who lived in the inner city areas may lack “critical” skills such as Basic English reading and writing ability to obtain the job. In general, place-based approaches aim at training the unemployed workers and enhancing their skills for reinterring the labor market.
Where are Place-Based Strategies Appropriate?
Autor (1998) states that the expansion of the knowledge-based economy in recent decades increased demand for labor in all sectors, but the skills required for these jobs also increased, leaving many low-income workers outside of the new job market. This is where place-based approaches come into play. For example, for information technology (IT) industries, the job skill requirements are usually higher than for other industries such as manufacturing, which may increase the difficulty for low-skill job seekers to obtain these positions. (Stoll 2004) Building and strengthening the link between low-skill workers and available job opportunities has become a one of the largest issues for place-based approaches.
Neighborhood and Community Development
When place-based approaches focus on where people are, community or neighborhood development can be achieved through these programs simultaneously. William JuliusWilson (1998) indicated that place-based efforts seek to create community level outcomes that represent a turnaround of the environments that perpetuate joblessness and concentrated poverty. Furthermore, Giloth (2000) stated [5]
"Place-based efforts also seek to saturate neighborhood environments with workforce-related activities by raising the neighborhood (or housing project) employment rate and the number of residents engaged in education and training, so that work-related habits, networks, and models and opportunities permeate a given neighborhood."
In sum, place-based approaches help not only the unemployed or low-skill workers but also help businesses grow and may encourage new businesses to locate in the local community. Place-based approaches are often focused on the culture of work to help participants learn skills such as phone etiquette or punctuality.
Elements of Place-Based Programs
Place-based approaches have provided an ideal framework for state and local government to address the issue of unemployment and poverty problems in local communities or regions. Stoll (2004) categorizes two main approaches, the basic education approach and the work first approach, after examining the history of workforce development policies and programs. Blakely and Leigh (2010) provide several human resource programs which target on unemployed workers in specific regions, for example, workforce investment boards (WIBs) and customized training programs which specifically address the current skill needs of a specific firm or group of firms.[1]
Additionally, Steuart (2003) proposes four key factors that are necessary in a place-based approach: joined up structures, people, investment, and infrastructure.[6] “Joined up structures” refers to the need for community and government collaboration to ensure successful implementation of a workforce development program. In some cases the program is funded by a local government, but instruction takes place at a nonprofit organization, for example. The commitment of many people is also needed for a successful program. Third, Steuart remarks on investment as a means to improving the equity of a neighborhood, a traditionally place-based concern. Last, infrastructure refers to items needed for a place-based strategy, such as physical buildings, social capital, and financial resources.
Combined approaches
Some approaches now combine a focus on place with an evaluation of sectors that face a workforce or skill shortage.
Evaluation techniques
Researchers have used multiple methods to determine whether workforce development programs are successful. Generally, researchers want answers to questions such as whether programs result in higher employment among participants, whether employment is long-term, and whether participants make higher wages than before they entered the program. Some methods are qualitative and some are quantitative.
Random Assignment Evaluation
Random assignment is often viewed as the most preferred method of evaluation. Researchers randomly assign individuals to participate in the program or not, eliminating bias resulting from individuals’ self-selection to participate. However, this method is often impractical in real situations,[7] especially due to political implications of purposely keeping some individuals out of the program.
The Mott Foundation’s Sectoral Employment Impact Study, which commenced in 2003, was one of the first large-scale evaluations to use a random-assignment model. The study found significant impacts of sector-based workforce development strategies. Participants were more likely than non-participants to be employed and to have higher earnings.[8]
Cost-benefit analysis
Cost-benefit analysis compares the costs of implementing a program to the benefits accrued to stakeholders. A cost-benefit analysis can demonstrate whether a program saves money for the government due to lower welfare or social service needs, and whether a program will raise the average earnings of participants. Even if a program results in net costs to the government, if every dollar the government spends results in more than a dollar earned by program participants, it may be a worthwhile endeavor.[9]
A limitation of cost benefit analyses is that some benefits and costs cannot be expressed in dollars.[9] For example, the emotional stability that results from the security of a job is difficult to quantify. Although methods exist for monetizing factors like these, but some evaluators choose instead to focus only on factors that can be reliably measured.
Changes over time
A time series regression model takes data from multiple points of time and measures whether significant effects can be seen before and after a program was administered. If differences are strong enough, the regression line generated from this approach will change slope at the point at which the program took effect.
The comparative interrupted time-series analysis employed by Bloom in evaluating the Jobs-Plus program in public housing developments used a time-series regression that included multiple baselines.[10] This method allowed the Jobs-Plus evaluation to pinpoint the effect of changes in a particular housing development that did not take place at other locations.
Interviews to determine institutional strengths
Lausch and Osterman’s 1998 evaluation of Project QUEST, a workforce development program in San Antonio, Texas, suggests that cost-benefit analyses and random-assignment evaluation techniques are often not feasible choices for evaluating an existing program.[7] They use a series of interviews to develop an understanding of the program’s strengths, a method used elsewhere in other case studies.[11]
References
- ^ a b c Blakely, Edward (2010). Planning Local Economic Development. Sage.
{{cite book}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) - ^ Giloth, Robert P. (2000). "Learning from the field: Economic growth and workforce development in the 1990s". Economic Development Quarterly. 14 (4): 340–359.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ Giloth, Robert P. (November 2000). "Learning from the field: Economic growth and workforce development in the 1990s". Economic Development Quarterly 14 (4): 340–359.
- ^ a b Article From Commonwealth Corporation
- ^ Giloth, Robert P. (2000). "Learning From the Field: Economic Growth and Workforce Development in the 1990s". Economic Development Quarterly. 14 (4).
- ^ Steuart, Penelope. "Place Based Approach" (PDF). Retrieved 12 November 2010.
- ^ a b Lautsch, Brenda (1998). ""Changing the Constraints"". In Robert Giloth (ed.). Jobs and Economic Development. Sage. pp. 214–233.
{{cite book}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) - ^ Elling, Duane. "Sectoral Employment Programs: Demonstrating impacts, value of job training". Retrieved Nov. 5, 2010.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help) - ^ a b Greenberg, David. "Welfare-to-work program benefits and costs: A synthesis of research" (PDF). MDRC. Retrieved Nov. 5, 2010.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) - ^ Bloom, Howard S. (2005). "Place Randomized Trials: Experimental Tests of Public Policy". Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 599: 19–51.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help); Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ Clark, Peggy (1995). "Jobs and the Urban Poor: Privately Initiated Sectoral Strategies" (PDF). Retrieved Nov. 5, 2010.
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