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.
The types of partnerships workforce development programs employ has changed as well. In the 1990s, sector-based workforce development programs were most commonly found in nonprofit, community-based organizations, but today they are more likely to be tied to community colleges. Additionally, sector-based programs are now more likely to be paid for by government funding rather than private donations.[3]
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.[2]
Sector-based approach
Definition of 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.
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 strategies are designed to fit the needs of both industry employers and workers who want to improve their skills and advance their career development. Appropriate strategies are typically created through network and 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) and the partnerships are designed to connect low-income and disadvantaged individuals with employment in jobs that offer the promise of financial stability and economic opportunity.[5] 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.In addition,instead of a one-company-at-a-time approach, a sector strategy involves government working side by side with industry leaders to help an entire sector become more competitive.[6] Through such strategies for improving the employability and career path development for low-income, low-skilled workers, systemic change is created that benefits both employers and workers.[4]
Bedrock of the sector-based strategy
- Identify Target industry and population. [7]
A detailed assessment of job clusters, skill gaps and target population lays the foundation for further step.
- Creating Networks and cooperating with invested stakeholders
- Employer Involvement
Employers will be encouraged to participate in training programs like devloping curriculum, join sector evaluation and assessment, and commit to job shadow.[5]
- Establishing an appropriate program model to identify activities to conduct.[4]
The model should be based on the data and previous assessment which help the cluter of occupations find the best way to achieve their ends by means of limited resources.
- Leveraging Private and Philanthropic Funds through Public Funds[4]
Some government grants require a percentage of funding to come from private sources, which ensures that the community and targeted industry are invested in the program before it starts. Public sector financial support would often be small and city support would have to leverage private sector investments.[6] And the public funds have responsibilities for ensuring those individuals and groups most in need of assistance can benefit from sector-based strategies.
Expected Barriers
Several potential barriers exist for employing sector-based workforce development strategies. First, there is a skills gap between what workers know and what employers need. Second, rapid change makes sector-based strategies difficult. Last, potential workers suffer from low literacy or educational levels. Workforce development programs will have to teach basic skills like reading as well as giving instruction in more specialized tasks.[4]
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.
Place-based strategies have been criticized for their focus on finding jobs for participants quickly, rather than evaluating the quality of those jobs.[8]
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.[9]. 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.[10] 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 Julius Wilson (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.[11] Furthermore, Giloth (2000) stated [12]
"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."
As an example, the federally sponsored Jobs-Plus program heavily utilized place-based programs to create a “culture of work” in the Housing and Urban Development (HUD) housing units in which it was implemented. Some examples include signage in the apartment buildings and training on essential job skills like answering the phone. Jobs-Plus was found to have a significant, positive impact on increasing earnings, decreasing unemployment, and decreasing dependence on welfare.[8]
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.
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.[13] “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. For example, Instituto del Progreso Latino in Chicago, Illinois focuses on the Latino population of the city (addressing a place-based need) but provides training in specific sectors, such as manufacturing and nursing.[14]
Successful Conditions for Workforce Development Programs
Although workforce development strategies vary by whether they are focused on demands due to the location or from industries in the area, or both, common threads run through the success stories evaluated by economic developers thus far.
Ties with Employers
Both sector and place-based strategies emphasize the importance of ties with the employers. Even in place-based strategies focused on finding work quickly must tie efforts to employers to determine who is hiring.[8] These relationships should occur before the program is implemented to help shape a curriculum that responds to the employers’ needs.[15]
In place-based programs, this may entail determining general skills that are lacking in a specific population such as English-speaking skills. For sector-based programs, skills will be much more specific. For example, Project QUEST created a brand-new certification program in response to employer needs [16].
Workforce development programs can be evaluated based on the strength and number of ties with community employers during the creation stage of the program, as well as their ongoing participation to constantly assess which skills are most needed. As Giloth’s (2000) assessment of the history and future of workforce development concluded, “Employer leadership is key to long-term reform” of workforce development systems.[2]
Ties to Community Resources
Both place and sector based programs benefit from a strong network of ties to community nonprofits and other resources. Many programs have found community colleges to provide the needed support, but any “base in a strong community organization” is beneficial for a workforce development program.[16] Nonprofit organizations have been found to be essential for successful sector-based programs, despite the programs' inherent focus on industry and employers.[17]
Nowak (1997) believes community ties can be problematic when they are limited to the immediate neighborhood in which the program is located, however. He proposes that program developers must understand of the entire region’s economic trends and provide participants links to opportunities outside the neighborhood.[18] Labor markets are not restricted by city or neighborhood boundaries as they once were, increasing the need for ties with nonprofits and other organizations beyond the scope of the neighborhood.[2]
Financial and Other Needed Assistance for Participants
An adverse financial situation can be a huge detriment to workforce development program participants. There are a variety of ways to address these needs, but the important aspect appears to be that financial difficulties in particular are not ignored. Other individualized services such as childcare or help overcoming substance abuse are also an important component of workforce development.[1] [15]
A strong workforce development program will provide assistance in the areas most needed by program participants, most notably financial assistance. This does not necessarily mean the program provides finances; in some programs mentors helped workers find government or nonprofit sources.[15]
Adaptability
Programs must be flexible, so that they can change when market or workforce conditions change.[15] One marker of adaptability is the presence of mechanisms to listen to what the community saying, evidenced by the close ties with community stakeholders and nonprofits as explained above. However, this may be an issue of organizational culture as well.
Adaptability is closely tied to scale and sustainability. Giloth proposes that these attributes can be obtained by investing in the best practices of setting goals and keeping track of progress. Successful programs continually update their goals. Responsive information systems must be in place to obtain information about the job market and employers’ needs.[2]
Organizational Capacity
It perhaps goes without saying that successful organizations possess the capacity for implementing large-scale programs deeply invested in the community’s culture and needs.[2] Although programs certainly do not need to internally provide all support mechanisms such as childcare, they should have adequate organizational capacity to assist participants in finding the type of support they need. Furthermore, maintaining current, constant communication with employers and with nonprofits and other community organizations requires significant staff time. Successful programs are prepared for the amount of work it takes to implement a workforce development program.
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,[16] 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.[19]
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.[20]
A limitation of cost benefit analyses is that some benefits and costs cannot be expressed in dollars.[20] 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.[8] 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.[16] They use a series of interviews to develop an understanding of the program’s strengths, a method used elsewhere in other case studies.[17]
References
- ^ a b c d Blakely, Edward (2010). Planning Local Economic Development. Sage.
{{cite book}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) - ^ a b c d e f Giloth, Robert P. (2000). "Learning from the field: Economic growth and workforce development in the 1990s". Economic Development Quarterly. 4. 14 (340–359).
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ Conway, Maureen (2007). "Sector Strategies in Brief" (PDF). Aspen Institute. Retrieved 22 November 2010.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) - ^ a b c d e Article From Commonwealth Corporation
- ^ a b United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta
- ^ a b A Case Study For a Sector-Based Economic Development Strategy
- ^ Conway, Maureen. "Sectoral Strategies for Low-Income Workers" (PDF). Retrieved Summer 2007.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help) - ^ a b c d Bloom, H.S. (2005). "Using place-based random assignment and comparative interrupted time-series analysis to evaluate the Jobs-Plus employment program for public housing residents". Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 599: 19–51.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) Cite error: The named reference "Bloom 2005" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page). - ^ Autor, David (1998). "Computing Inequality: Have Computers Changed the Labor Market?". Quarterly Journal of Economics. 113 (4): 1169–1214.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) - ^ Stoll, Michael (2004). Melendez, Edwin (ed.). Communities and Workforce Development.
- ^ Wilson, William Julius (1999). The Bridge Over the Racial Divide: Rising Inequality and Coalition Politics. University of California Press. p. 8.
- ^ 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.
- ^ "Instituto del Progresso Website". Retrieved 15 November 2010.
- ^ a b c d Maguire, S. (2010). "Tuning in to local labor markets: Findings from the sectoral employment impact study" (PDF). Public/Private Ventures. Retrieved 18 November 2010.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) - ^ a b c d 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) - ^ a b Clark, P. (1995). ["http://www.aspenwsi.org/publications/95-OP11.pdf "Jobs and the urban poor: Privately initiated sectoral strategies"] (PDF). Aspen Institute. Retrieved 18 November 2010.
{{cite web}}: Check|url=value (help); Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) Cite error: The named reference "Clark 1995" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page). - ^ Nowak, J. (1997). "Neighborhood initiative and the regional economy". Economic Development Quarterly. 11 (1): 3–10.
- ^ 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)