|
 |
Growing the
Workforce
|
Workforce
enhancement becomes a centerpiece in region’s economic development.
By Michelle Cox
Build the workforce, and employers will come (and stay). That’s
the thinking behind the Region’s Workforce Initiative.
The recently launched private-sector initiative, which is one of
eight major initiatives charted by the RCGA board, is an effort
to enhance the workforce of the region, thereby retaining current
jobs and attracting new ones to the area, according to Terry Egger,
publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and RCGA Board vice chair
for workforce enhancement.
“Work can’t get done without talented employees. And if work can’t
get done, employers won’t come to, or stay in, the St. Louis region,”
Egger says. “As the workforce needs of business and industry change,
we must continue to provide the skilled workforce to meet those
needs or the jobs will go elsewhere.”
To help determine what needs to be done to enhance the workforce,
the RCGA engaged Paragon Decision Resources last year to conduct
a labor market assessment of St. Louis. The findings of that study,
released in August 2000, made some clear observations about the
St. Louis workforce, which included:
- The
overall quality is strong, but shortages in specific occupations
such as engineering, finance, healthcare, programmers
and systems analysts must be addressed.
- Employers
must be engaged to focus efforts and lead solutions.
- St.
Louis must grow its own workforce and recruit externally
to meet needs.
- Increased
participation in two-year and technical training schools
is vital.
|
To achieve this goal, the RCGA and its civic partners agreed to
implement six major milestones over the next 36 months. They are:
One
Create a regional talent portal using the Internet as a place to
gather information and create links to workforce education and training
resources in the region.
The portal, at www.stlouisatwork.com,
was rolled-out last March. Egger says the portal is a unique regionwide
resource for both employer and job seekers. “It’s easily accessible
to most people,” he says. “It’s available 24 hours a day, it’s anonymous,
and everything you need to find a job or find a job candidate is
right there.”
Currently, there are more than 41,000 candidates in the stlouisatwork
candidate pool, and new job postings are being added everyday. The
www.stltoday.com
portal in which the stlouisatwork job site is located is the biggest
and fastest growing Internet site in the region, with more than
447,000 unique users and more than 13 million page hits in May.
It penetrates 15.4 percent of all households in the region.
Two
Engage employers to lead the effort.
The RCGA met with a broad cross section of the region’s top employers
who expressed an interest in helping with the initiative but who
wanted direction as to what was needed from them. Employers provide
information about where the jobs are today in the major career paths,
where the jobs will be in the future, and specifically what skills
are required to go to work in those jobs. Additionally, employers
work in close partnership with the education and training community.
“Over the course of two years, we’ll meet with employers in all
the major industries and in the end, we’ll have defined the demand
side of the equation,” Egger says. “Then, we will provide this information
to our partners in education and encourage them to teach and train
to these skill sets.”
Three
Engage the education and training systems.
This milestone involves building business/education partnerships
to provide appropriate education and training for the workforce
of the future, according to John Baricevic, chairman of the St.
Clair County Board and a strong advocate within the region’s public
sector leaders for the regional workforce policy effort. “We’re
trying to bring the community to the understanding that you cannot
have a highly skilled workforce of the future if you don’t tie it
to education,” he says. “Thriving economies depend on an abundant
and well-prepared workforce—people with a well-rounded education
that has provided them opportunities to reach their highest potential.”
Several of these partnerships are already formed, as discussed in
the sidebar to this article.
Best
Practices Lead the Way in
Workforce Enhancement Initiative |
When making plans for improvement, it often helps to
examine and expand upon areas of strength. So, the Regional
Workforce Enhancement Initiative has incorporated a
number of “best practices” in the area of workforce
development, education and training as it rolls out
the six milestones of the initiative.
“There are already a number of existing resources in
the region that will help achieve our goals in the area
of workforce enhancement,” says Dick Fleming, president
& CEO of the RCGA. “We hope that by focusing on these
practices, and expanding the numbers of businesses and
people utilizing them, we’ll be able to make the region’s
workforce effort a competitive advantage for economic
development.”
A new program in biotechnology at St. Louis Community
College at Florissant Valley is one such “best practice.”
Richard Norris, senior project associate in biotechnology
at the college, has developed a two-year program that
trains students to enter the workforce in a plant/life
sciences career in response to recommendations in the
Battelle Study on this growing industry.
“Our students can complete this program and go right
into a job in the biotech industry, or they can go on
to a four-year degree program,” Norris says. Currently,
the college has an articulation agreement with Southeast
Missouri State University through which all of the credits
are accepted from Community College’s biotech program.
And, the college is completing a similar agreement with
the University of Missouri– Columbia.
“This program was developed in response to a push to
make the St. Louis area a hub for the plant/life sciences
industry,” Norris says. “Clearly, there is a demand
for these jobs, and if we train people for them here,
they will likely go to work here or return here after
completing a four-year program somewhere else.”
Another noteworthy resource in workforce development
is the Regional Center for Education and Work at the
University of Missouri–St. Louis. The Center is a collaboration
of the UM–St. Louis College of Education and other partners
who have interests in workforce development, training
and education.
Charles Schmitz, dean of UM–St. Louis’ College of Education,
says that pre-kindergarten through 12th grade education
is the largest and most powerful workforce development
system available. “We must quit thinking about the workforce
in isolation from education. The Center is fostering
the sharing of information and resources by bringing
the interested parties together in one place,” he says.
St. Louis Pathfinder Network is another best practice.
Pathfinder is an Internet-based database that allows
students and teachers to learn about work-based learning
opportunities within the region.
“Our intent is to tie work-based learning into conceptual
learning in the schools,” says Margaret Kenyon, RCGA
director of workforce development. “This will help teachers,
because it allows them to develop curriculum for students
that seems more applicable to real-world situations.
It will also help youth understand why they should take
certain courses or follow certain educational paths.”
Actively supported by the RCGA, and with the help of
funding from the State of Missouri, Pathfinder became
available in May to 35 school districts. Kenyon expects
major use to begin in September, after these districts
have had the opportunity to learn about the Pathfinder
tool and implement it in their schools.
Another strong workforce development resource, Ranken
Technical College, is going into high schools, as well.
The College is working to increase awareness, improve
perception and elevate interest in manufacturing-related
jobs.
Ranken President Ben Ernst says that some dated ideas
about manufacturing occupations prompted their college
to visit 35 regional high schools that have some kind
of metal manufacturing curriculum to find out what they
need to do to elevate interest in this advanced manufacturing
area.
“With the help of more than $100,000 donated from manufacturing
employers, we’re helping to improve these high school
programs, so that the students go on to post-secondary
programs and then jobs in manufacturing,” he says.
Ranken also is working with the RCGA and the East-West
Gateway Coordinating Council to implement a community-wide
marketing campaign about manufacturing occupations targeting
teachers and parents.
“Right now, some people are discouraging our youth from
considering manufacturing jobs because they have the
wrong idea about these jobs,” Ernst says. “They are
really doing these students a disservice, because this
industry offers good pay, good working conditions and
is a highly-skilled field.”
Not surprisingly, the Internet is also playing a key
role in disseminating information about best practices
in the area of workforce development in the region.
In fact, one of the partners in the workforce initiative,
stlouisatwork.com,
the region’s talent portal, has more than 41,000 job
candidates registered since March 2001.
“If you’re not doing the job you were born to do, then
you should visit our site,” says Ann Pluemer, stlouisatwork.com
manager. “It’s completely confidential, and you can
apply for a job on a consistent basis by having your
skills listed in the marketplace.” Currently, about
88 percent of the job candidates at the portal have
college degrees, Pluemer says.
The stlouisatwork.com
regional talent portal is a public-private partnership
designed to attract, train and retain a multi-skilled
talent pool in the metro area. It matches candidates
to jobs, screens candidates for employers, profiles
leading employers, provides information on training/education
opportunities and attracts new talent/business to the
region.
“We’re committed to the workforce enhancement initiative
in the region, and we think our site is helping to retain
talent and to bring new talent here,” Pluemer says.
The Public Policy Research Center at UM–St. Louis also
is making good use of the Internet to promote its work.
Alan Artibise, Ph.D., director of the Public Policy
Research Center at the University of Missouri–St. Louis,
says the Center’s use of the Internet is an effort to
provide information that is critical to planning for
education and training.
“People working in employment and training can look
at this site and get information that can be used to
help people prepare for employment,” Artibise says.
“The site also can be helpful in preparing curriculum.”
The first round of data is currently being collected
for the site, and then it should be updated about four
times per year.
Fleming concludes, “all of these best practices provide
evidence that St. Louis has great workforce enhancement
capacity, and we have excellent partners with initiatives
focused on meeting the current and future workforce
needs of employers.” |
|
Four
Engage students and teachers.
Charles Schmitz, dean of UM–St. Louis’ College of Education explains
that teachers need the training and the tools to help students become
involved in a rigorous academic program that creates relevancy in
their high school experience. Additionally, students need to see
what steps they should take to reach a certain professional goal,
and then be shown the paths to reach that goal.
Five
Develop a focused marketing strategy that promotes the varied career
opportunities that exist in the region.
Implementing this milestone involves marketing and communication
so that the employees of today and the future have a clear understanding
of the opportunities available to them. Ben Ernst, president of
Ranken Technical College, says a strong bias has developed toward
traditional four-year college versus advanced manufacturing vocational
education.
“Our research shows there is and will continue to be a large demand
for workers skilled in manufacturing jobs, but we need to educate
the public, particularly parents, teachers and counselors, about
these jobs,” he says. “People need to know about jobs before they
will take an interest in them.”
Six
Demand results and performance accountability from the education
and training system.
The accountability measures in this initiative are being finalized
as each of the discreet components of the initiative is developed
over the next 18 months. Egger agrees the region must concentrate
on steps that can be implemented right now, and address accountability
issues as we move forward. “We need to concentrate on what we can
do, and we’re seeing initial results already,” he says.
In addition to these initiatives, the RCGA has joined in partnership
with the area’s council of governments, the East-West Gateway Coordinating
Council, to craft an interstate regional workforce development plan—the
only one of its kind in the nation to receive formal designation
from the governors of two states. The regional planning process
is governed by a 38-member Policy Group comprised of leaders from
business, labor, education, state and local governments. At press
time, three advisory committees to this Policy Group were finalizing
strategy recommendations to improve business / educational linkages
in the Information Technology field, to strengthen private sector
involvement and utilization of the existing workforce development
system, and to articulate a set of forward-thinking metrics with
which to gauge the region’s progress in achieving economic and workforce
goals.
Employers interested in obtaining information on the Workforce Initiative
or on the Regional Plan can contact Mike Alesandrini at the RCGA
at 314/444-1144
Michelle Cox is a St. Louis-based free-lance writer.
|
|
|
|
|
-
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
-
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
-
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
-
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
|
