Workforce Developments

Grants to train health workers

DOLETA plans to give another $2.5 million in grants to train workers for long-term care positions in the health care industry. It's part of the president's High Growth Job Training Initiative, and you can read more about earlier health care grantees under the initiative here. It's a drop in the bucket compared to the size of America's health worker shortage, but it certainly beats solving our shortage by stealing those workers from other countries (or check out this post for more context).

Here are links to the solicitation and the Federal Register announcement. Deadline is April 5.

Hate your job? Join the club.

Turns out, the person in the next cubicle, further down the assembly line, or ringing customers up at the next cash register hates her job as much as you do. The Conference Board just issued results of a survey that finds job satisfaction has plummeted over the past twenty years. Less than half of all Americans are satisfied with their jobs today.

Perhaps not surprisingly, younger workers and those making less money are less satisfied than older workers and those earning more.

The study suggests that workforce development and career ladders in the workplace are particularly problematic. Less than 23% of workers are satisfied with bonus plans and promotion policies, and less than 30% of workers are satisfied with educational and job training programs.

Stemming midwestern brain drain

Indiana is experimenting with a new idea to try and keep educated workers in the state and reduce its workforce skills gap. 45% of college graduates leave Indiana after finishing school, and the state ranks 44th in its percent of workforce with college degrees. Governor Mitch Daniels has proposed creating "Hoosier Hope Scholarships" of up to $20,000 over four years that would include an incentive to keep college graduates in the state: Recipients who leave the state within three years after graduation would have to repay the money.

It's interesting to read about this in context of the experience of Massachusetts, the state with the second highest share of college graduates in the country. A recent study found a shrinking workforce there and falling labor force participation. Makes you wonder where all those college grads are going.

Indiana isn't the only Midwestern state trying to stem its brain drain. This article from Inside Higher Ed explores pros and cons of different proposals to "tether" college graduates to the state that educated them as they enter the workforce.

Persistence may also be futile

If you were wondering when you read my earlier post exactly where the Bush administration planned to get that $3.4 billion for a brand new Career Advancement Accounts program (I was curious myself), The Workforce Alliance has compiled a terrific table that makes it clear. They'd do it by zeroing out WIA, Wagner-Peyser, One-Stops, LMI and Work Opportunity/Welfare-to-Work Tax Credits. Total savings (at 2007 levels): $3.9 billion. For more info, check out TWA's more detailed analysis.

The administration unsuccessfully tried this last year. They're also attempting for the fourth (at least) year in a row to eliminate the Migrant and Seasonal Farmworker program. Considering the new majority in Congress, TWA points out they're likely doomed to fail again on both counts. I suppose we can give them a gold star for persistence. 

WIRED up!

DOL has just announced another $65 million in funds for the third generation of its WIRED initiative. The first generation launched in February 2006, and a total of $260 million in funds have been committed so far. The second round of grantees were given a head start with $100,000 planning grants, but my source at DOL tells me planning funds won't be available this time around. WIRED is designed to support worker prep projects in regional economies that don't neatly match county, workforce areas or other boundaries. Each WIRED region (one exception) includes several counties, and some cross state lines. Grants are for three years. Only governors may apply; each may submit applications for up to two regions in the state.

WIRED isn't for the triskaidekaphobic - each round has made grants to 13 regions. A total of 348 counties in 23 states (11% of all 3,141 U.S. counties), plus 8 municipios in Puerto Rico have received WIRED funds so far. The full solicitation can be found here. Deadline is (drum roll) Friday, April 13.

Paid sick leave is on the march

Got an email from Mary Rickard at ACORN last week, alerting me to their new campaign for paid sick leave for American workers. A 2004 study by the Institute for Women's Policy Research (click here for a summary) found that fully half of all workers don't get paid sick leave. Last week the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions held a hearing to discuss Sen. Ted Kennedy's Healthy Families Act, intended to address this problem. He introduced it last year (S.932), and plans to again this year.

Legislative action for paid sick leave is on the march. Earlier this month San Francisco passed a mandatory paid sick leave ordinance, and at least seven states are considering similar bills. (Click here for a summary of all state family leave legislation in 2006.) Kennedy's bill would require employers with 15 or more employees to provide them seven paid sick days per year to take care of themselves or a sick family member. 

I wrote in an earlier post about the business costs of "presenteeism," where people show up for work even though they're too sick or distracted by problems at home to be productive. They show up because they can't afford unpaid time off, or fear losing a job. Everyone needs and deserves to be able to take time off without those kinds of risks.

I've heard people complain that if workers are given paid sick leave then they'll use it for non-illness-related days off. Why should employers police the reasons their workers take days off? Those "mental health days" we all take are just as important as "real" sick days for keeping us healthy. I say offer the days off, build it into the budget, and let workers take them as they choose.

Is your company an addict?

I've just finished a fascinating book recommended by a Blogher reader: The Addictive Organization by Anne Wilson Schaef and Diane Fassel (Harper & Row, 1988). I found it while doing research on an earlier post about bad bosses, but this book looks at the organization more broadly.

I'm always interested in reading more on the field of what I call organizational pathology (recommendations, anyone?). TAO's subtitle says it all: Why we overwork, cover up, pick up the pieces, please the boss and perpetuate sick organizations.

Why do we, indeed?

Although TAO begins from the iffy "everyone's an addict" premise, it offers a useful lens to begin answering that question. Schaef and Fassel explain four ways in which an organization may be addictive:

1. A key person in the organization is an addict;
2. Employees who are addicts, adult children of addicts and co-dependents take those behaviors into the organization;
3. The organization is the addictive substance; and/or
4. The organization is an addict.

In addition to describing the "symptoms" one might see in an addictive organization, TAO is peppered with good examples from Schaef's and Fassel's consulting work with companies, nonprofit organizations and even religious orders. As you read, you'll probably recognize people you've worked with or organizations you've worked for.

Whenever I see a leader go down in flames - Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, Kenneth Lay, Dennis Kozlowski or William Aramony - my first thought is about all the people who worked for them and their organizations and made their nefarious deeds possible. These guys couldn't do what they did without a lot of help, and not since Nuremberg has "just following orders" been an acceptable excuse. TAO suggests some reasons why perfectly good, hard-working people might turn a blind eye to malfeasance, or even knowingly participate in it. For example, they might be co-dependents trying to "protect" a boss who's an addict. Perhaps they're addicted to the organization and the benefits it provides.

Schaef and Fassel recommend solutions that are definitely outside the mainstream of organizational consulting, centered around interventions that force the people in the organization to face their addictions and take responsibility for their own "recovery."

My major complaint about this book is one you may have read on this blog before: TAO is aimed at a white collar audience. Even though they provide some examples of pink collar co-dependent workers learning to stand up to addict bosses, most of the recommendations assume workers have more control over their day-to-day activities than many working class people do. Great for professionals, but what about the rest of the workforce? 

Nominations now open: Excellence in Economic Development Awards

Their slogan is American Jobs, American Values, so workforce development programs take notice. The Economic Development Administration (EDA) at the US Department of Commerce has just opened nominations for its 2007 Excellence in Economic Development Awards. Last year's winners are listed on EDA's awards announcement page (downloadable PDF of the announcement is here).

The competition is open to nonprofit organizations; local, state and regional governments; and universities and colleges. You can nominate an organization for a specific project, or for its cumulative work. There are seven categories, from rural economic development to economic adjustment strategies to technology-led economic development. Two of the five key criteria specifically mention job creation. Nominations must be received by close of business April 12.
 

ETA's 2008 budget request in historical perspective

How does funding for DOL's Employment and Training Administration (ETA) in the newly-proposed Bush budget for 2008, stack up historically? The complete ETA request totals $9.29 billion, down 1.2% from their request for FY 2007, and a 13% drop from their $10.63 billion request for FY 2006.

The proposed 2008 budget puts $3.4 billion - fully 37% of ETA's request - into newly-created Career Advancement Accounts. This concept was introduced under the name Innovation Training Accounts in the proposed 2006 budget, and as Personal Reemployment Accounts before that. 

How does current DOL rhetoric about the budget compare to previous years? Assistant Secretary DeRocco's press release this week highlighted preparing workers and developing their talents for a global economy as the emphasis in 2008. The focus for 2007 was "supporting an agenda for a competitive U.S. workforce." Last year's focus? Reform and consolidation that would "create greater state flexibility in exchange for increased accountability in preparing people to find and keep good jobs with growing wages."

"Our most pressing needs will never be met by government," says DOL official

I spent the first part of this week at a Latino Coalition conference on Families, Communities and Gangs. The luncheon speaker on Tuesday was Jedd Medefind, Director of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (FBCI) at the the U.S. Department of Labor. How you interpret his remarks depends on where you sit in the workforce development system. Here are the highlights:

People have seen the FBCI as a pot of money, or an effort to favor faith-based organizations over others. These visions are too small, Medefind said. The goal of the FBCI is to transform government. To reorient government away from thinking they can do it alone, toward joining with every willing partner out there. Especially organizations that share zip codes with the people they're trying to help, and those who "answer the phones after government workers go home."

He told the story of Father Damien, the famous Belgian missionary who ministered to lepers on Molokai in Hawai'i, in the late 19th century, eventually succumbing to the disease himself. Medefind said he learned three lessons from Father Damien's story.

1. The path of true service is a path of exposure to risk.
2. True service requires drawing near those to those we wish to serve.
3. The path of service is not nearly as glorious as we might expect.

If we keep these things in mind as we go about our work, he said, "we will be able to go the distance, by God's grace."

One of America's great strengths is "we know that our most pressing needs will never be met by government." To illustrate this he told the story of a drug dealer, addict and felon named Kenny, who lives in the DC area. Government can't save a man like that, Medefind said, because "government will never transform him, touch his heart, pray with him, or help him find a job. Government cannot do these things." Kenny did eventually turn his life around, with the help of the East of the River nonprofit organization.

Sector Skills Academy now accepting applications

The Sector Skills Academy is now accepting applications for its 2007 fellowships. To quote from their website:

The Academy provides emerging leaders with an opportunity for experiential learning with practical applications for present and future work in the sector field. Faculty and mentors are drawn from experienced leaders in the field of sectoral employment development. As a result of participating in the Academy, fellows are expected to apply the lessons they learn in ways that enhance their work in their chosen sector.

This terrific initiative is run jointly by three leading intermediaries in sector-based workforce development: The Aspen Institute Workforce Strategies Initiative, the National Network of Sector Partners, and Public/Private Ventures.

To learn more about the Academy, and about "sector-based initiatives," visit their website. Deadline to apply is March 16.

Passages: Steelworker leader George Becker

Former president of the United Steelworkers union George Becker passed away over the weekend at 78. He was first elected president in 1993, and served for seven years. Becker was a major player in union participation in the WTO protests in Seattle in 1999.

Becker was a second-generation steelworker, growing up in Granite City, Illinois. This story about his early days as a union rep comes from the detailed obituary on the USW website:

It was as a staff representative that Mr. Becker came into contact with the adverse effects of lead poisoning at a plant he serviced, National Lead, and his outrage over what he saw there led him to become an expert on occupational health issues.

Workers at the plant were punch drunk with lead poisoning. Mr. Becker discovered that the employer was saving money by nightly turning off the bagging system used to purify the air. Reforms were initiated, including clean changing rooms, mandatory showers before leaving work and lead testing for the plant's neighbors. He was soon pressing for safety and health reforms thorughout the District and the union.  

Later, in 1969, Becker testified before Congress as an expert on lead poisoning, in hearings that lead to the establishment of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

Who should pay for workforce development?

Who's responsible for developing America's workforce? How much of the burden should government share, compared to the businesses that hire those workers? It's fair to say that workforce development is underfunded across the country. Who can and should fill the gap?

Over at the Workforce Development blog, Jim Kissane has compiled some interesting data that merits a closer look. He concludes with a provocative question of what might be possible if corporations took back some of the growing share of money they've been distributing as corporate profits, and instead invested it in training and education for workers.

Let me build on his question. If businesses were to set aside those funds, how should they spend them?

Many companies develop in-house training systems, or hire third-party providers to create and implement customized worksite-specific training. On the other hand, when multiple businesses invest in sector-based training initiatives they're likely to reach a larger number of current and future workers. This model can also address general or soft skills that aren't specific to any single worksite. Groups of businesses across different industries in a city or workforce investment area can invest in comprehensive worker training programs designed to get more workers ready for the workplace, which may create more future workers. What about employer investments in adult basic education to address the gap in basic literacy and numeracy skills, either through higher taxes or support for nonprofit programs?

All these models and programs exist. Jim raises an important question - are businesses doing enough?

California Workforce Association conference

Registration is open for the Annual Spring Conference of the California Workforce Association. They're also calling for presenters, and there are exhibit opportunities. Click here for all the details.