Workforce Developments

Texas integrates. Workforce and education data, that is

Last month I posted on my own blog about listening to Dr. Catherine Pareonseault, Senior Education Specialist - Academic Programs in the Academic Affairs and Research Division of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) talk about the terrific data sharing that was going on between K-12, higher education, and the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) in Texas.

I was intrigued (and jealous!) hearing her talk about how they were able to track people from high school through multiple stops in two and four year institutions, then several years out into the workplace. Determined to learn more, I followed up and a few days ago had a chance to speak with Dr. Gabriela Borcoman, one of the lead staff in the THECB Division of Planning and Accountability and integral in the development of the Automated Student and Adult Learner Follow-Up System (ASALFS).

Most basically, I was curious about the architecture of this multi-system data integration. In essence, THECB collects data from the various post-secondary systems in the state (public and private). They also collect data from K-12 schools, and they collect data from the TWC on their participants. Dr. Borcoman explained how this model – everything funneling up to the THECB – was critical because FERPA rules make it difficult for educational institutions to share data with workforce boards or other government agencies. Then she and her staff do the data matching and analysis, all based on social security number. Their analysis and reports are made available to institutions across the systems. All of the agencies share the cost of the data analysis efforts by contributing funds based on the number of enrollments (and because this reporting is mandated by the State legislature, there is limited griping I am told).

So what kind of reports and analysis are they working on? More than I can write about here. Most of it has to do with where enrolled students end up 1, 2, and 5 years after enrollment. Do they transfer? How well do they do when they transfer? Complete a degree or certificate? What is their GPA?

Do they get jobs? In what industry? At what salary? In what zip code? In what occupation? For their annual reports they are able to report on 75% of enrollees (they can’t track individuals who leave the state, people who end up in prison, or otherwise disappear). When I asked about surprises in the data, Dr. Borcoman had many. A few for you:

• In North Texas, the match between what local workforce boards identified as high-growth occupations had hardly any overlap with the most common occupations for very recent graduates in the region. Time to look critically at how those high-growth occupations were being forecast.

• Even when policymakers are right about certain things – e.g. oil and gas industries are going to be a key driver of job growth in Texas – there is risk of missing nuance. Do you know what occupation a recent graduate is most likely to get when he/she joins the oil and gas industry in Texas? Accounting. Yes, I see the irony in that, but as workforce professionals let’s focus on what this means programmatically – train more accountants.

• There were significant gaps between the average starting salaries reported by post-secondary institutions (especially private institutions) and the actual average salaries of graduates at 1, 2, and 5 years out. This is important data for a number of reasons, not the least of which is incoming students taking out large loans anticipating large post-graduation salaries.

• Low transfer rates are a problem in Texas as they are in much of the country. Many two-year institutions in Texas thought that their low transfer rates were due to the fact that previous tracking only counted whether students who had more than 30 credits moved on to a four-year institution whereas anecdotally, they believed they were actually transferring many students who had accumulated just a few credits. With this improved data integration, they were able to count more carefully. It turns out that even when accounting for all those students who move from two-year to four-year institutions with fewer than 30 credits, the transfer rate barely inched up 2%.

• Finally, some of the cohort tracking is great. For instance, a cohort of 1998 7th graders found that while the African American males struggle to complete high school (of 21,000 African American 7th graders, less than 13,000 completed high school by 2004), roughly 75% of those who do complete high school enroll in post-secondary institutions. But then they struggle to finish, with only about 1,500 earning any type of degree or certificate by 2009.

And more.  If you want to dive in, see ASALFS, High School to College Linkages, and  Community College Transfers.

The point here is that as cliché as it is, information is power. This kind of information enables administrators and policymakers to better understand what is happening as individuals move through our educational and workforce systems and into their careers. Dr. Borcoman says progress is slow, but institutions in Texas are beginning to take note of this information and think about how to scale up programs and practices that are working and re-focus initiatives that aren't.

She talked about a culture shift – a move towards data-driven decision-making and away from anecdotal and status quo-driven decision-making. The data certainly doesn't provide all the answers, and it doesn't explain how to navigate the political and budget intricacies of cross-system actions, but it can help focus the conversation on tackling the right issues.

In my home state of California I suspect our state fiscal crisis, higher education furloughs, and unemployment above 12% make investment in such cross-system data integration unlikely in the near-term. Yet, I am hopeful that as progress is made in clearing the logisitical hurdles of cross-system data integration, and as decision-makers realize the value of such data, we will see such ambitious efforts spread across the nation. And I hope that as workforce development professionals, we are among the loudest champions.

Erica Bouris, Ph.D. is the Principal of B Square Impact.

Federal funding and workforce programs: Thinking outside the box to discover new opportunities

By guest blogger Erica Bouris

In many ways, this is an incredible time to be a workforce development professional. The system has more money flowing in than it has in a long time. You can't go to a workforce conference without hearing the chatter of "our ARRA green jobs program" or our "ARRA ex-offender work readiness program and countless other variations. This is great. For the wonderful folks who finally have resources to pilot their innovative programs and scale up proven programs, and for the millions of Americans who are out of work, these programs are an absolute lifeline.

So it may seem a strange time to encourage you to think about leveraging your workforce program expertise to reach other federal funding streams, but that is the goal of today's post. 

Historically, Department of Labor grants, allocations through the Workforce Investment Act , and occasional supplements from the Department of Education (particularly for vocational and technical programs) have formed the core of federal funding for workforce programs. Yet a confluence of factors has contributed to the emergence of workforce activities in a whole host of federal funding streams in recent years. Just in the past few months, the Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, Department of State, and the Department of Health and Human Services have issued RFPs that include substantial workforce program elements. These aren't workforce programs per se, but they have clearly identified, fundable activities that are workforce activities. This means that there is opportunity for you to partner with other agencies and bring together a compelling group of organizations poised to meet the multiple goals of the RFP.

For example, last week, the Department of Energy issued an RFP through its established Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP). This is the program that helps provide weatherization and energy efficiency services to low-income households. This particular RFP however, takes the customary WAP funding request and does it one better; it is now the Weatherization Innovation Pilot Program. DOE wants innovation, and what kind of innovation do they want? Well, among other things, they are hoping that non-traditional applicants (including CBOs and educational institutions) get in the game and they are further hoping that proposed programs are "consistent with the President's goal of creating a green workforce."

Another example comes by way of the National Science Foundation (NSF). As a nation, we have identified the need for a well-trained STEM workforce and the NSF – best known for funding major research initiatives – is also invested in preparing individuals to enter a broad spectrum of STEM jobs. One piece of the career ladder is the so-called Professional Science Masters program and NSF funded several initiatives to further develop and pilot employer-responsive programs designed to meet critical workforce shortages. And the grantees were also supposed to incorporate outreach and job support services for a diverse population... sound familiar?

Finally, have you ever thought about how great it would be to bring your strong workforce programs abroad? How about testing them in a place like Algeria, where youth unemployment stands over 40%? While you may not have the capacity (nor the mission) to reach quite that far, could your curriculum and youth job training materials have been included in a some of the multi-agency partnerships that have won grants for job training, entrepreneurship, and youth work readiness programs funded through the U.S. Department of State Middle East Partnership Initiative programs in recent years?

Current economic and social challenges - from global recession to the rise of the green economy – have encouraged a broad spectrum of federal agencies to be invested in the workforce component of their mission. This is an opportunity for workforce professionals to think innovatively about how to leverage your expertise in designing and building workforce programs to advance diverse social goals such as environmental sustainability, positive global engagement, and more.

Some practical advice if you this idea has got you thinking:

• Try to piecemeal your expertise and assets. Do you have a proven curriculum for training people in specific sectors? Deep reach into a particular community? Unique tools that help people map their career pathway or explore the "fit" of potential jobs? Thinking this way will help you identify the various workforce components you can bring to the table to support a broader initiative.
• On the flip side, think big picture and learn to articulate this to non-workforce professionals. As a workforce professional, what are the big social challenges you address? You help with economic development by enabling citizens to participate fully in the economy. You convene stakeholders to make sure that people, the private sector, and the community develop together in a supportive way. What else?
• Be prepared to spend some time figuring out who the players are for these alternate federal funding streams and work on building relationships. Remember that these federal funding opportunities generally have a 30 day turnaround so if you want to be included as a partner providing the workforce piece of a broader program, the lead agency responding to the RFP has to know who you are and importantly, what you can bring to the table.
• Performance metrics, standards for program evaluation; these are all very different across different federal funding streams. Pay close attention to the preferred performance metrics of the RFP and be prepared to adjust the way you structure and evaluate your program in order to be better aligned with these alternate metrics.

Erica Bouris, Ph.D. is the Principal of B Square Impact, an agency that helps non-profits and educational institutions develop, implement, evaluate, and fund the next generation of innovative programs tackling today's most critical workforce, education, economic, and community needs.

Recovery Act "the best thing that has ever happened to the nation’s workforce development system"

So says Lewis Soares, Director of the Economic Mobility Program at the Center for American Progress.

The current economic crisis has created an opportunity for those of us who work in the nation's "sprawling, decentralized workforce system," says Soares. The details of the ARRA (aka the Stimulus Act) and guidance from the Dept of Labor have set priorities that allow us the freedom to experiment and innovate.

Further, the president’s historic goal of moving every American toward at least one year of postsecondary education creates a leadership imperative for taking our workforce development systems to a new level of performance.

From here, it's up to us in the 650 workforce boards and 1,600 one-stop career centers around the country - to which I'd add all the nonprofit programs, community-based organizations and foundations in the wider workforce system - to do two things:

1. Innovate and make it work for American workers; and
   
2. Collect the data to demonstrate what works.

Soares sees an opportunity here not just to help Americans get back to work, but to transform the workforce system:

Data-driven management accompanied by broad national goals for postsecondary credentials and local autonomy for implementation will allow the federal government to break out of its traditional role as a rulemaker and program funder to be a catalyst for workforce systems change. This would mean allowing real-world practice to inform the debate on WIA reauthorization and might even suggest allowing ARRA implementation to have time to scale up and produce results in the workforce system and build new legislation from what we know works.

To read the full article, click here.

What are your thoughts on the ARRA? Do you see these opportunities? What kind of program innovations are you developing right now?

Photo credit: nj.com.

LA's workforce development scorecard

The City of Los Angeles has set a goal of putting more than 100,000 Angelenos to work by mid-2010. How will they do it? Representatives of the Los Angeles

• Workforce Board
• Mayor's office
• Chamber of Commerce and
• local one-stop operator El Proyecto del Barrio

presented the six strategies L.A. is following to meet those goals, in a CWA workshop on Wednesday. To summarize briefly, here are strategies (number of people they aim to put to work through that strategy)

1. Sector-based workforce initiatives (3,930) 
2. Strengthen the region's workforce development system (67,075)
3. Leverage public sector hiring and contracting (8,800)
4. Move youth into self sufficiency (7,600)
5. Transition incumbent workers into living wage jobs (16,900)
6. Job creation (4,810)

L.A.'s a complicated city with complex relationships between all its potential workforce partners. There's also a lot of volume there - lots of workers, job seekers and jobs.  To make these strategies work to achieve their lofty goals, the presenters told how a wide range of partners are beginning to work together in ways they never have before. City departments like the airport administration that have never had workforce goals before, now have them.

Can they all just get along and put 100,000 people to work? Stay tuned to find out.

Image credit: Boyle Heights Youth Technology Center

Workforce development outcomes in the real world

30 y/o research organization (non-smoker, HWP) seeks workforce development groups of any age for data sharing and possible long-term relationship. 

Public/Private Ventures (P/PV) is looking for workforce development organizations to participate in its ongoing Benchmarking Project. They're gathering data from real-world organizations, in order to develop meaningful benchmarks and outcomes for practitioners, policymakers, and funders in the field. All they want from you is data (click here for a list of specifics). 

What do you get in return?

1. A chance to compare your outcomes anonymously with similar practitioners in the field;
2. Access to free learning activities; and
3. Input into a process that will give funders and policymakers more realistic expectations of what we can achieve in workforce development.

Evaluator Marty Miles, author of Good Stories Aren't Enough (which I highly recommend), is heading up this benchmarking project. Seventy workforce development organizations participated in 2007. To learn how you can join in, get on one of their informational calls, or contact Marty at 212-822-2413 or by email.

Calculating the cost of your one-stop activities

Sure, you've got your line-item budget that tells you how much your staff, office supplies and all those other things cost. But how much do you spend providing intensive services to a single job seeker? How much to place a job seeker in a job?

Last year I reported about a study completed by professors at Cal State Northridge, that used Activity-Based Cost (ABC) accounting to calculate those per-service costs. Now those professors are going to share their methods with you. At the California Workforce Association's upcoming Spring Conference, there will be a one-day workshop where you can bring your budgets and a laptop, and they'll walk you through the process.

You don't have to register for the full conference in order to attend the workshop. Click this link to download a detailed description of the workshop, including instructions on how to sign up. Click here for more on the Spring Conference. Click here to read the ABC accounting study.

There will be other great workshops at the CWA conference too. Hope to see you there.

The purpose of workforce development: in law

Following up on Monday's post, I thought I'd look to the legislation to find out what Congress said was the purpose of workforce development. The text of the Workforce Investment Act (1998) and Job Training Partnership Act (1982) were easy enough to find online. The Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (1973) was a bit more of a challenge, but I found its purpose statement in two places (here and here). If anyone out there has a link to the full text online, let me know.

CETA and JTPA each include an overall purpose statement; I didn't find one for WIA, so I've listed the purpose statement for subtitle B, "Statewide and local workforce investment systems."

Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA):
It is the purpose of this Act to provide job training and employment opportunities for economically disadvantaged, unemployed, and underemployed persons, and to assure that training and other services lead to maximum employment opportunities and enhance self-sufficiency by establishing a flexible and decentralized system of Federal, State, and local programs.

Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA):
It is the purpose of this Act to establish programs to prepare youth and adults facing serious barriers to employment for participation in the labor force by providing job training and other services that will result in increased employment and earnings, increased educational and occupational skills, and decreased welfare dependency, thereby improving the quality of the work force and enhancing the productivity and competitiveness of the Nation.

Workforce Investment Act (WIA):
The purpose of this subtitle is to provide workforce investment activities, through statewide and local workforce investment systems, that increase the employment, retention, and earnings of participants, and increase occupational skill attainment by participants, and, as a result, improve the quality of the workforce, reduce welfare dependency, and enhance the productivity and competitiveness of the Nation.

Any thoughts?

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Image credit: http://www.jscca.org

What's the point of workforce development?

A couple of weeks away from the blog gave me time to ponder some big picture questions, like what's the purpose of workforce development? Why do we bother? What do we want to achieve?

If you work in a Workforce Investment Act-funded program, you'll probably answer in terms of the law's core performance measures, things like entered employment rates and employment retention rates, or certificate attainment rates if you work with youth programs. But it's easy to get bogged down in the details of who do you count and when and under what circumstances. When you step away from the details, can you tell what direction you and your program participants are moving in - and why?

A recent client contract has had me talking to workforce development professionals and leaders across the country, from state and local workforce boards to community colleges to nonprofit organizations to national think-tanks and research institutions. Many of those conversations have at some point turned to the question of are we in it for the job seekers or for businesses? In social services language: who are we trying to help? In WIA language: which is our primary customer?

One colleague said that while CETA (which predated JTPA, which predated WIA) had too few employer connections to ensure they were training workers for jobs that were in demand, at least it acknowledged that some people need a lot of training to get the skills they need to make enough money to support themselves and their families.

The solution presented by WIA was to turn away from job seeker needs to employer needs, but I'm not sure that it has paid off. You know how hard it is to get employers to serve on workforce boards or help design programs, much less to provide any financial support for the training and placement programs we create to help them.  And no employer will commit in advance to hiring the people we train. I'm not saying they should - I just question whether this model is working the way its inventors envisioned.

Do we go too far and give away too much in our desperate drive to get employers to dance with us? In the process, have we lost sight of our purpose?   

Image credit: http://www.wales.nhs.uk

How much does it cost to help someone get a good job?

Back in September I reported from the Cal Workforce Association's Monterey Mind Meld about a study that seeks to break out One-Stop costs on a per activity basis. That is, rather than a traditional line item budget reporting how much the One-Stop spent on office supplies, staff, rent and so on, they used what's known as Activity-Based Cost accounting (ABC) to answer questions like

Q: What share of the budget do partners contribute to the One-Stop?
A: Average is 34%, with a range from 5% to 80%

Q: How much does it cost to provide case management to clients?
A: Median cost for each client receiving case management is $1,208, with a range from $218 to $4,543

The full report - the California One-Stop System Cost Study Report - has finally been issued and is available online at the California Workforce Investment Board page.

Researchers Richard W. Moore, Philip C. Gorman and Andrew Wilson (all of Cal State Northridge's Dept. of Management) looked at a sample of One-Stops throughout California, taking care to include those located urban, suburban and rural locations. Alongside the findings, they clearly explain how the ABC accounting method works, how they implemented it, and the strengths and weaknesses of this approach. This study is the first of its kind nationally, and begins to provide benchmarks for comparing the cost of providing certain services from one One-Stop to the next.

The danger of a study like this, in our cut-spending-to-the-bone era, is the temptation to focus on the most expensive services. We know that job seekers with greater needs will cost more to serve. We also know cost of living can drive up expenses in urban areas, while the dearth of job opportunities, limited transportation and other services, can drive up expenses in rural areas. I'd hate to see someone use their findings as an excuse to cut services to those with the greatest needs. We have too many of those kinds of negative incentives in the system already.

The next step in a study like this is to link long-term outcomes to spending. Does spending more lead to better outcomes for those with the greatest needs? Does it lead to better-paying jobs with better benefits? Does it lead to longer retention on the job? That study would have to account for employment trends in the local region and industry.

What's great about this study is once we know what works and what that costs, then we can use that info to make the case for increasing government and philanthropic investment in workforce development. We can also use it to build political will that make those investments possible.

Transitional jobs for ex-offenders

If you're interested in re-entry programs for ex-offenders, you'll want to watch the YouTube video below, and check out resources available on the Joyce Foundation website. Joyce is putting some serious money into studying the problems of re-entry and recidivism (see this earlier post about MDRC's Joyce-funded work), and to developing effective solutions. In particular, Joyce is taking a close look at transitional jobs, a model that offers subsidized employment combined with supportive services, as one promising solution. The video below is about a transitional jobs program at Chicago's Safer Foundation, from local station WTTW (7 mins 32 sec).
 

How much does that job seeker cost?

How much does it cost every time a job seeker walks in your one-stop door to get universal services? How much does it cost you to hold each rapid response event? What share of your budget do your one-stop partners contribute?

Rick Moore and Phil Gorman at Cal State Northridge - with support from staff at the California WIB and the Employment Development Department - conducted a study of 22 comprehensive one-stops to answer these and other questions. Over eighteen months they translated standard line-item budget materials into activity-based cost (ABC) accounting data. At this morning's workshop they presented the results of what they say is an unprecedented study. There's far more info there than I'll be able to write up here. A few high points from their findings. 

• The typical comprehensive one-stop costs $2.4 million to operate.
• Partners contribute about 34% of the one-stop's costs.
• Enrolled services take up 48% of expenses.

Getting a little more into detail:

• Each time a job seeker walks in the door just to get universal services, the median cost to the one-stop is $41. But that number hides a wide range among one-stops, from a low of $8 per universal visit to $146 per visit.
• The median cost per client placed in a job is $6,957, with a range of from $739 each to $50,708.

Keep in mind, those costs include all the resources provided by all the partners at the one-stop. But it doesn't include any supports the client might have received outside the doors of the one-stop.

Moore says that while this study can't be generalized to all one-stops, it provides a good picture showing the range of what's happening at one-stops in California. When the report is published, all the instruments they used will be included. Any one-stop interested in finding out how much their services cost can use this methodology.

This study is important for two reasons. First is the obvious one the CalWIB was interested in. That is, finding out what it really costs to provide services on a per-job seeker, per-business or per-outcome basis. When we know what the norms are, we can set benchmarks to compare across many one-stops and begin to determine measures of efficiency, and find out what is the optimal cost to be effective.

Second is from an evaluation perspective. This study really points out how the goals we set will determine how we set up our programs and our accountability systems, both financial and programmatic. We have to meet DOL's performance standards and comply with their financial reporting rules. But do we have other, local goals and needs? Should we set local goals and collect data to track how well we're doing in working toward them?

The report is about to be released online. Be on the lookout for it at www.calwia.org.

Do employment programs for ex-offenders reduce recidivism?

According to MDRC, the answer is, we don't really know. Their most recent Issue Brief summarizes a report by staff researcher Dan Bloom that analyzed existing research on employment programs and prisoner re-entry. He found few rigorous studies of employment-based prisoner re-entry models, and that the results of those studies have been less than clear. There is some evidence that programs for older prisoners, services that integrate services before and after release, and models involving financial incentives may work. However, much more research is needed before we can definitively say that we know what works.

Here's a startling fact from the report: Most offenders are employed at the time of their arrest. This raises the question of whether ex-offenders' notably poor employment outcomes after leaving prison are a result of prejudice and regulatory or other barriers to employment, or does something happen in prison that makes them less employable? As Bloom states, "In sum, many people enter the criminal justice system hard to employ and leave it even harder to employ."

There's great interest among policymakers and the public about what can be done to reduce recidivism among ex-offenders. I certainly saw that in evidence at the Road to Re-entry conference earlier this year, where employment-based programs were highlighted as the key to success. Still, this was presented as a policy mandate, with little hard evidence about what types of programs work, which supports Bloom's research findings.

At the same time, Bloom points out there is significant underlying skepticism about the efficacy of rehabilitation efforts. Nonetheless, incarceration costs are so high and growing so dramatically that even small reductions in recidivism could have measurable positive budgetary savings that outweigh the cost of providing those services.

Bloom prepared his report for a conference last November at the National Poverty Center at the U of Michigan. (Tip: if you've never visited the NPC site, check it out. It has an amazing array of research papers and conference proceedings on poverty, welfare and employment.)

MDRC is currently involved in two studies of employment-based prisoner re-entry programs, an evaluation of the Center for Employment Opportunities and the Transitional Jobs Reentry Demonstration project (jointly with the Joyce Foundation). Perhaps through these studies we can learn more about what works, which will help us in the workforce development field develop better tools for the estimated 600,000 prisoners released from prison every year in the U.S. 

The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave

Who quits their job and why? This book by consultant Leigh Branham is loaded up with some surprising facts about quitting:

• 50% of American workers quit within the first six months on a job
• 4% of employees walk off the job on the very first day

Saratoga Institute (a subdivision of PricewaterhouseCoopers that provided data to Branham) estimates the cost of employee turnover to be 1 x the annual salary of that person. In a big company, that can be a lot of money. In a small company, the budget probably can't take that kind of hit.

Like so many business management books, 7 Hidden Reasons reads a bit like a heavily padded powerpoint presentation. But who would pay $25 for powerpoint handouts? Nonetheless, there's some good information in here.

Branham has read through exit interviews and data from and about people who quit their jobs, and sorted their reasons for leaving into seven basic categories:

1. The job or workplace not living up to expectations
2. The mismatch between the job and person
3. Too little coaching and feedback
4. Too few growth and advancement opportunities
5. Feeling devalued and unrecognized
6. Stress from overwork and work-life imbalance
7. Loss of trust and confidence in senior leaders.

Most employers, Branham says, believe their employees leave to make more money elsewhere. He found that's rarely the case. Instead, Branham says all these seven reasons generally can be traced back to one key incident on the job that shocked or deeply disappointed the employee. Like being refused time off, or being asked to do work that seems mundane or unimportant, or being chewed out in front of a co-worker. From that point on the employee starts to disengage from their job and employer. That employee may continue working for months or even years, but in a disengaged manner.

The important point I took away for workforce development programs is the importance of managing expectations on both sides of the employer-employee divide. When an employee has a shock that causes him or her to begin to disengage, it doesn't matter who was right. Perhaps the employer made the time off policy clear and the employee didn't understand it. Or perhaps the employer was violating the company's time off policy. What's important is that the employee has started down the road to leaving.

We work with people who may not have the best preparation for the workplace, so we may have to spend more time with them helping them to have realistic expectations. But the same is true on the employer services side - we need to help them develop realistic expectations of and policies for their employees.

The other major take-away from this book for our field is that surprisingly high number at the top of this post. If we compared our performance outcomes to the statistic that half of all American workers walk off the job within six months, would we really look so bad?

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

The workforce development system is pretty much invisible to most Americans. Exactly why, I'm not entirely sure. Maybe it's because the concerns of working people don't get a lot of media coverage in general. I posted about this recently, here and here. Guest blogger Allison Gerber in this post described that glazed look she sees in the eyes of friends and family when she tries to explain what she does for a living.  Have you ever seen it?

Then again, maybe it's just that people have never heard the term "workforce development," even though they've probably heard of "job training." Even Google can't find a definition for the phrase. (Strangely enough they don't have the same problem with "economic development.") I noticed last week that an LA Times story about a hot new workforce development program in town never even used the term, although, to their credit, the Wall Street Journal and AP did use it.

All that probably explains why this letter to the editor in the La Crosse Tribune (Wisconsin) caught my eye. Jerry Hanoski takes the paper to task for having written an editorial about the importance of workforce training that never mentioned their local one-stop provider, Workforce Connections, Inc. In addition to WC's work on the specific customized welding program the editorial praised, Executive Director Hanoski points out, "as we conclude our fiscal year ending this month, we will have run 76 diversified work force training projects with 45 area employers and about 450 workers. He goes on to say,

I realize Workforce Connections Inc. is not exactly a household name as our mode is to work behind the scenes to make things happen, generally utilizing existing resources.

Sound familiar? I wish our field could do to raise our profile just a little. Without us, a lot of people out there wouldn't have jobs, wouldn't have the skills to get jobs, and might not have the supports they need to succeed on the job. That's not to say we're perfect, but wouldn't you like to get a little respect for all your hard work?

Social enterprise - boon or bust? Social enterprise development has often been looked to as THE ANSWER for workforce development programs - a transitional jobs program and dedicated funding mechanism in one. What could be better? I've certainly fallen prey to this type of thinking. In my last job, we continually looked for funding to support the development of an modularized housing plant, at which we could employ our construction pre-apprenticeship trainees AND generate income to support our programming. It was a win-win situation...if only we could find investors. The problem was, to attract investors you need a solid business plan. And, it was never clear exactly how profitable such a venture would be. Other, similar, plants were having trouble turning a profit. Presumably, conducting a transitional jobs program could make the profit margin even slimmer - more supervisory time spent on training and a higher scrap rate were good possibilities. Plus, the housing market itself can be unstable. To make a long story short, I wasn't a corporate lawyer; I was in-house council for a non-profit and my colleagues and I simply didn't have the business acumen to make it happen. But, it turns out we weren't the only ones. In an article in today's Wall Street Journal, "Why 'Social Enterprise' Rarely Works," Ben Casselman explores some of the flaws inherent in the social enterprise model. The article sites the findings of a Seedco Policy Center report by Neil Kleiman and Nancy Rosenbaum, which chronicles the successes and pitfalls experienced by a number of social enterprises, including Seedco's own child care program. The bottom line is that social enterprises are rarely self-sustaining, like a for-profit entity must be. But, given their social mission, perhaps they shouldn't be expected to be - job training is the first order of business. The full report can be read here. Update June 3: Greetings to visitors from the Wall Street Journal and thanks to Sphere.com, whose Related Content widget created the link. WSJ readers might also be interested in reading earlier posts on low-income car ownership programs and economic development. All of Allison Gerber's posts can be found here. Posted by Allison Gerber on June 01, 2007 in Allison Gerber, Outcomes & Evaluations, Resources, Training and Education | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

Social enterprise development has often been looked to as THE ANSWER for workforce development programs - a transitional jobs program and dedicated funding mechanism in one. What could be better?

I've certainly fallen prey to this type of thinking. In my last job, we continually looked for funding to support the development of an modularized housing plant, at which we could employ our construction pre-apprenticeship trainees AND generate income to support our programming. It was a win-win situation...if only we could find investors. The problem was, to attract investors you need a solid business plan. And, it was never clear exactly how profitable such a venture would be. Other, similar, plants were having trouble turning a profit. Presumably, conducting a transitional jobs program could make the profit margin even slimmer - more supervisory time spent on training and a higher scrap rate were good possibilities. Plus, the housing market itself can be unstable. To make a long story short, I wasn't a corporate lawyer; I was in-house council for a non-profit and my colleagues and I simply didn't have the business acumen to make it happen. But, it turns out we weren't the only ones.

In an article in today's Wall Street Journal, "Why 'Social Enterprise' Rarely Works," Ben Casselman explores some of the flaws inherent in the social enterprise model. The article sites the findings of a Seedco Policy Center report by Neil Kleiman and Nancy Rosenbaum, which chronicles the successes and pitfalls experienced by a number of social enterprises, including Seedco's own child care program. The bottom line is that social enterprises are rarely self-sustaining, like a for-profit entity must be. But, given their social mission, perhaps they shouldn't be expected to be - job training is the first order of business. The full report can be read here.

Update June 3: Greetings to visitors from the Wall Street Journal and thanks to Sphere.com, whose Related Content widget created the link. WSJ readers might also be interested in reading earlier posts on low-income car ownership programs and economic development. All of Allison Gerber's posts can be found here.

Aspen launches new research on sectoral workforce development

The Workforce Strategies Initiative at the Aspen Institute just announced the launch of a new multi-year demonstration project that will explore how sectoral workforce development programs can collaborate with community colleges to expand educational opportunities for low-wage working adults. The Mott Foundation kicked off the project with a $350,000 planning grant.

Aspen has been doing comprehensive, in-depth research on sector-based workforce development for years, providing resources for practitioners and policymakers, descriptive case studies and participant profiles, as well as more general studies. 

Evaluating faith-based job programs

Despite all that's been written about the federal faith-based initiative - both positive and negative - research is only just now beginning to trickle out on the effectiveness of services provided by faith-based organizations (FBOs). Charitable Choice at Work (Georgetown U. Press, 2006) is a new book by Sheila Suess Kennedy and Wolfgang Bielefeld that not only gives us objective data and analysis, but places the initiative in its historical and legal contexts. For a thoughtful, reasoned discussion of the issues and the facts, this book is a good place to start. Its focus on job programs is a plus for those of us in the workforce development field, but its applicability is much broader.

For starters, Charitable Choice at Work reminds us government contracting with religious organizations for social services didn't begin with the Bush administration or with its Faith-Based and Community Initiative (FBCI). Federal and state agencies have a long history of contracting with Catholic, Lutheran, Jewish and other groups. Moreover, Charitable Choice originated under Clinton as part of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. So when President Bush says government discriminates against faith-based groups, he has to be talking about something else.

Most of the Bush FBCI has been enacted not by law but by executive order, and little of it has been tested for constitutionality. Supporters have argued that faith-based groups can provide more effective services at a lower cost - in part because of their purportedly large numbers of volunteers - and are more flexible and closer to the communities they serve. However, little research exists either to sustain or refute that view.

Kennedy and Bielefeld set out to begin that research. They analyzed data on contracting and performance of job training and placement programs in Indiana. Outcomes in these programs are relatively straightforward: Did the client get a job? Is the client working full time? How much is the client paid, and are there benefits? They also surveyed and interviewed managers at FBOs and in the government agencies overseeing contracts with FBOs. To just hit the highlights of their findings:

• Clients of FBOs fared somewhat more poorly than those of their secular counterparts. Job placement took place at about the same rate, but clients trained and placed by FBOs were less likely to work full-time and less likely to have health benefits in that job;
• The promised "armies of compassion" have not materialized. Relatively few new FBOs have come forward to contract with government since Charitable Choice and the FBCI were enacted; and
• Faith-based providers have only limited understanding of the constitutional issues involved in contracting with the state, and public managers overseeing their contracts do not have the resources to ensure more than the minimal accountability.
  

In comparing how Charitable Choice was initially implemented in Indiana, Massachusetts and North Carolina, Kennedy and Bielefeld found that our federal system has translated into wide variation on the ground. Indiana responded by developing a program to reach out to and train FBOs across the state. By contrast, Massachusetts officials reviewed the law, reviewed their record of contracting with FBOs, and concluded they were already in compliance and did not need to take action.

Kennedy and Bielefeld are professors at Indiana University's School of Public and Environmental Affairs. Kennedy, a professor of law and public policy, has a somewhat unique perspective that informs this book. She once ran for Congress as an Indiana Republican, but she has also served as Executive Director of the Indiana Civil Liberties Union. Bielefeld is co-editor of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly and has written widely on nonprofit management.

One of the strengths of this book is that it takes both sides seriously and explains each from its own point of view. If we are to stop "talking past each other," as the authors characterize much of the debate on the faith-based initiative, Charitable Choice at Work can serve as a good starting point. However, the book also makes clear there are points on which the principles underlying faith-based social services will never square with the principles of liberal democracy.

The larger problem, Kennedy and Bielefeld argue, is that faith-based contracting has been sold as a zero-sum game where FBOs must compete with secular organizations for scarce resources. Instead, they say, we should be more concerned about the fact that job training, job placement and all the other social and human services making up our nation's "tattered safety net" are underfunded.

No matter what your opinion of the faith-based initiative, I think all of us in workforce development can agree with that.

AEA final post: workforce safety on American railroads

The title might have been dry, but the session was fascinating (not just because I'm a big fan of Amtrak): The Federal Railroad Administration's (FRA) Research and Development Agenda to Improve Safety and Safety Culture in the Railroad Industry. Joyce Ranney of the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center and Jonathan Morrell of New Vectors reported at AEA on a series of ongoing projects in the industry.

Derailments are a daily occurance on American railroads. Between 1980-85 there was a 50% reduction in human factor accidents (HFAs) on the railroads. Since 1985 the number of HFAs has remained constant. Because most derailments and accidents happen in train yards - and 98% of our railroads carry freight instead of passengers - few injuries occur. (In Europe, by contrast, 98% of trains carry passengers.) But all HFAs cost money, and the Federal Railroad Administration is working diligently to find ways to reduce accident and improve safety.

Part of the problem is the density of traffic moving on railroads. The stats are stunning. Trains move throughout the country pulling as many as 150 cars each. One rail yard might shift 800 cars in a single shift. New tracks are being laid to meet demand on major routes, such as between Los Angeles and Denver. Production of coal in the Powder River Basin of Montana and Wyoming alone generates 200 trains with 150 cars each of coal every single day. Rail volume is only expected to increase. The trucking industry is maxed out and expecting railroads to pick up the slack as transportation of intermodal containers continues to grow.   

Volpe estimates the railroad industry will need to hire 80,000 new employees over the next five years at all levels, to cover new positions, retirements and other turnover. 100 percent of the railroad labor force is union-represented, although there are thirteen different unions, and they don't all get along. There are five class-one railroads in the U.S. (or check out this article), plus more than 300 small local lines.

Evaluators from Volpe, New Vectors and a few other orgs are conducting a series of quantitative and qualitative evaluations of several new initiatives the FRA has implemented in order to increase safety and create a "safety culture" on the job. They've developed logic models for each of three key initiatives. One initiative is designed to increase the confidential reporting of incidents that didn't lead to accidents but could have (precursers), because getting data on actual accidents is almost impossible. A behavioral-based safety initiative has been developed that trains peers to evaluate and give feedback to each other on safety and workplace behavior.

Each initiative is being implemented at a different level. Most are still at the pilot phase. All of them require the participation of the railroad carriers and unions. If you're interested in more info on railroad safety, the FRA makes a fair amount of data available here, on its website.

This concludes my posts on the American Evaluation Association conference. To read the full coverage from Workforce Developments, click here.

AEA: Cultural competency in economic self-sufficiency programs

Of the roughly 150,000 African immigrants living in Minnesota, 130,000 are Somali. The African Development Center (ADC) is a three-year old project spearheaded by Hussein Samatar to help Africans and others in the Minneapolis area overcome barriers to financial success. They recently hired Rainbow Research to evaluate their Business Development (BD) and Home Ownership (HO) programs.

Theartrice Williams and Mia Robillos presented the findings of their research at the AEA conference last week. They used an empowerment evaluation approach, designing a process that would both evaluate ADC programs and build capacity within the organization to evaluate themselves in the future. Key questions that they asked include

• How are ADC's clients benefitting from the BD and HO services?
• To what extent are clients satisfied?
• How can ADC improve its services?

Rainbow Research designed the survey and randomly selected clients to be interviewed, then trained ADC staff to carry out the interviews. One of the key issues was language, as many clients speak only their native language (primarily, but not exclusively, Somali). Having ADC staff conduct the interviews dealt with that issue, while also building staff skills.

Over the past two years, 40 clients of the BD program have started businesses, and 46 clients of the HO program have bought homes. Among homeowners, none have fallen victim to predatory lenders after the program. Only one has been delinquent with a mortgage payment, and only one has defaulted on a loan. The evaluation found that clients generally have a greater understanding of the financial system, have greater confidence in nagivating it, and have a greater ability to assess their own capacity for undertaking these major financial endeavors. They also found that through this program ADC clients widened their social networks. Finally, many ADC clients of both programs report they can now support family members in the U.S. and their home countries.

Williams also briefly presented some information on a new effort by ADC to develop sharia-compliant lending. Islamic sharia law bans interest payments. ADC has found that because of this, some Somalis and other Muslims opt out of common American financial opportunities. ADC has leveraged bank, CDC and other funds to implement their own sharia-compliant financing. Long term, however, their goal is to mainstream this model of lending so that it will be more widely available.

Faith-based workforce development

Another very interesting session, this one on Evaluating the California Community and Faith-Based Initiative. In 2002 Gov. Gray Davis set aside some of his 15% WIA discretionary funds (plus a bit of general fund money) for a Community and Faith-Based Initiative, funding workforce development projects at 40 faith-based organizations (FBOs) over a three year period. Interestingly, this project was not continued under his successor in the governor's office.

Evaluators Eric Glunt of Sonoma State and Dave Campbell of the UC Davis Cooperative Extension are finishing up work on a detailed evaluation of the project. Their work includes a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods, including standard analysis of unemployment records for the 13,730 people who were served in total, combined with interviews with stakeholders and community network analysis. They asked two key research questions: 

• Did these FBOs reach a population that isn't ordinary reached by traditional WIA-funded programs?
• How did the FBOs' outcomes compare to traditional WIA-funded programs?

Their findings aren't yet complete, so the details are still a little hush-hush. To hit a few general highlights, though. They found that FBOs can't really be treated as a monolith, and they created a typology of the organizations based on the types of services they provide and the networks they are part of. In general, they found that these organizations did reach a different, harder-to-serve population. How their outcomes compare to standard WIA programs depends on the type of FBO in question.

The final report, when it's complete, will be posted to the website for the California Communities Program, where you can find some preliminary data, plus other reports and analyses of the state workforce development system.