One definition of workforce development is the creation of talent pipelines so that local business can thrive—now and for the foreseeable future. If your company has not yet approached your regional workforce development organization about partnership, 2015 is a great time to make the effort. Workforce Investment Boards, located in every region of the country, manage federal training funds. A new federal law, called the Workforce Investment and Opportunity Act (WIOA), takes effect in July 2015.

WIOA places a strong emphasis on business partnerships and economic development. Your regional workforce organization can help you build a talent pipeline to address your company’s skills gap using an internal training model.

In this model, the company and regional board design a program using a local training organization to create “pull” within the company’s workforce. Training internal candidates for higher skilled positions enables your organization to selectively promote motivated workers, solve persistent skill gaps, and build company loyalty. You’ll also find it easier to backfill less skilled or entry level positions.

Partnerships with local colleges

The nursing home industry came to CareerSource Northeast Florida, the regional workforce organization based in Jacksonville, with a retention problem. Nursing homes traditionally have a challenge in retaining skilled nurses, and turnover is much higher in this industry than in hospital settings. 

According to the Florida Center for Nursing’s 2013 report on retention, the average turnover rate for RNs in hospitals is around 19.6 percent. In nursing facilities, the average turnover is 62.4 percent. For certified nursing assistants (CNAs), the hospital turnover rate is 27.8 percent; for nursing homes, the rate is 64.9 percent. Clearly, turnover is a big problem for quality of care in skilled nursing facilities.

CareerSource NEFL partnered with the local state college to bring classes on site at River Garden Hebrew Home, a senior care facility, during working hours. Employees who were CNAs spent part of their working day (extended by a couple of hours) in classes to work toward certification as LPNs. The program took a little longer to complete than if the workers were full-time students (18 months rather than 12.)

Completers moved up to LPN positions, and the participants’ salaries jumped from $10.48 per hour as a CNA to $20 per hour as an LPN. Part of the cohort eventually went on to acquire RN degrees. The training was funded by workforce training funds; the facility paid the workers’ salary and training-related infrastructure costs.

Customized cross-training

Atlantic Marine, a Jacksonville shipbuilder, was also experiencing challenges with its workforce. The company employed about 600 workers in two job categories. Welders assembled plates and decks in the first part of a ship’s construction. After the welding was completed, the company laid off the welders and hired shipfitters, whose job it was to assemble the components of the hull. 

This hiring and layoff cycle was creating both morale and quality problems. Workers were less productive at the end of the project, anticipating layoffs. The shipfitters’ productivity was impacted during their phase of the project by having to correct mistakes left behind by welders. Turnover was high due to the unstable nature of the work.

CareerSource NEFL developed a customized training program for Atlantic Marine’s workers. Approximately 230 employees were cross-trained, building shipfitting skills among welders and turning shipfitters into certified welders. The cross-training was developed by senior CareerSource NEFL staff with Atlantic Marine’s HR Director, and delivered through instructors from the Hobart Institute of Welding Technology. 

The welding curriculum included flux core, fabric backed, and aluminum welding. Classes averaged two to eight weeks, depending on the workers’ specialty and knowledge base. The workers received the American Society of Welding certification.

Atlantic Marine’s workforce morale improved dramatically. Stable employment helped workers focus and be more productive on the job. The workers’ salaries increased an average of 30 percent based on their increased value to the company. Quality on the job increased, as well. The welders were more attentive to quality issues, because they would be employed as shipfitters on the second phase of construction, and would have to correct any quality problems themselves.

Bottom line

Internal pipelines build stability, loyalty, and productivity, and partnership with your regional workforce organization can dramatically cut the cost of training programs. For example, in Northeast Florida, our local policy allows us to pay up to 50 percent of the training costs.

More important, programs work best when they are incorporated into daily work schedules and offer the chance to use new skills on the job as they are acquired. We believe that it’s much harder for workers to succeed when we design programs that require participants to double up their planning and logistics for work and family during the day and then for classes during the evening.

You can find your local workforce organization through America’s Service locator at www.servicelocator.org.