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Workforce Development Takes New Turn in Portland |
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Elected officials in the Portland, Oregon, area have instituted a new approach to workforce development that operates across jurisdictions, responds to employer needs in a continually changing economy, and promotes lifelong career development. The reforms, which began in the mid-1990s in reaction to employer needs for a higher quality workforce, are consistent with the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) of 1998 that replaced the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) of the 1980s. A new model for workforce development. The Portland metropolitan area has undergone an economic boom over the past 7 years. But the boom has brought special challenges. Many employers find it increasingly difficult to locate and attract qualified workers both for entry-level and high-skill jobs. At the same time, thousands of workers with little or no skills feel trapped in low-wage, dead-end jobs. In 1996 the mayor of Portland and the county executives of neighboring Multnomah and Washington counties established a task force to develop a new, regional approach to the area’s workforce development concerns. The task force called for a comprehensive reengineering of the region’s workforce development programs, recalls Rosie Williams, the Portland mayor’s liaison on workforce development issues. She describes the recommendations as “innovative, but controversial, recommendations that at their core involved changing the structure and role of the Private Industry Council (PIC)—the organization that received job training funds under the old JTPA.” Local leaders adopted the taskforce recommendations. “The mayor and the county execs explained to everyone that if we were going to be competitive we needed a world-class workforce development system that would meet the needs of all employers, jobseekers, career advancers, and youth,” says Williams. The new system realigned existing programs and services, integrated several local workforce boards, and replaced the PIC with an employer-driven regional policy board, now called the Workforce Investment Board (WIB). The board represents Portland-area businesses and performs strategic planning for workforce investment regionwide. The WIB researches which skills are in demand, which jobs are available, and which career fields are expanding—and then identifies programs best suited to meet real-world employer needs. “The way we do business today is much different,” says Williams. “Foremost, the WIB has gone to a network of one-stop career centers—each one bringing together under one roof all of the region’s available training, education, and employment programs, and transforming them into a seamless system of workforce investment services for their local customers.” Unlike the old PIC, WIB itself is not a service provider. Instead, its administrative arm—worksystems inc.—contracts with community-based service organizations to operate the one-stop centers. The one-stops have no clients, just two kinds of customers—jobseekers and employers. There are six centers throughout the Portland metropolitan region—four in Portland/Multnomah County, one in Washington County, and a sixth in Tillamook County. Together, the 6 one-stops serve more than 5,000 jobseekers and career advancers each calendar quarter. Another difference Williams sees is that today “we are concerned about everyone, not just the bottom 3 percent—the hardest to place—who churn over and over in the labor force.” Under the old system, most of the region’s public workforce development dollars served this 3 percent, according to Williams. The new focus is on upgrading the entire workforce beginning with high school preparation and continuing with on-the-job training in basic and technical skills. The system helps Portland-area businesses adapt to an environment that is always changing due to technological innovation and interaction with the global economy. Businesses drive the new system. The new system puts more emphasis on partnerships with business. “In the past, our economic development efforts were only moderately successful because we weren’t coordinating them with what we were doing in the workforce arena,” say Williams. “Now we are developing alliances with employers and integrating our economic and workforce development initiatives.” Two examples illustrate metropolitan Portland’s new focus on helping businesses fill job openings and retain workers. One involves Stream International, a hardware and software support center. The other is a consortium of area hospitals. In both cases, worksystems inc. works closely with its new business customers to thoroughly assess their industry job standards and the educational systems needed to train workers to those standards. After this initial assessment stage, the one-stop centers deliver the employment and training services required. Several of the one-stop centers have employment and training partnerships with Stream International. One of these, the Washington County one-stop, is located on the campus of Portland Community College in the high-tech hub west of Portland. The one-stop recruits and screens potential employees and then provides space, computer labs, and instructional supplies to train them, according to Washington County one-stop director Julie Wyckoff-Byers. Worksystems inc. then steps in to cover the cost of the trainer. Stream determines who the trainer will be and what the curriculum will cover. The project “has gone very well and Stream has hired the majority of the people coming out of the class,” says Wyckoff-Byers. “This has been great because the company has a huge demand and is growing all the time, and these are good entry-level jobs, paying over $10 an hour with full benefits.” Each recruit has a case manager who follows employees for the first year to make sure they stay employed and have prospects for advancement. Case managers periodically call the new employees to find out how they are doing, what problems they may be facing, and their opportunities for promotion. The caseworker also keeps in touch with Stream’s human resources department. “Sometimes,” says Wyckoff-Byers, “we find that an employee is having transportation or daycare problems and we can go back in and help them with that.” Stream provides worksystems inc. with an incentive for finding employees who stay: a $300 rebate for each new hire who remains with the company for more than 9 months. “Across the one-stops involved in this partnership, what we’re seeing is that the people we’ve recruited who’ve gone through the training are working out,” says Williams. Similar elements are also at work in a much larger project involving the region’s entire healthcare industry. Here, worksystems inc. is helping the area’s five major hospitals increase the quality and supply of their employee applicant pool. “This is one of several target industries where we’re looking at systemic change in how that industry develops and maintains its workforce,” says Williams. The five hospitals—facing severe skill shortages in almost all areas—have decided that they can do a better job of training their workforce if they work together. With worksystems inc.’s help, the consortium is about to launch a pilot program that will recruit and train different categories of healthcare employees, such as certified nurses’ assistants, to industry standards. It will also seek to retain entry-level healthcare workers by providing additional training and a career ladder. “In the end, what we want to be able to do is grow our own healthcare workforce right here in Oregon,” says Williams. For more information, contact: Rosie Williams, Project Manager and Liaison to the Mayor for the City of Portland/worksystems inc., 711 SW. Alder Street, Suite 200, Portland, OR 97205, (503) 478–7363, www.worksystems.org. Or see: “Washington and Multnomah Counties and the City of Portland: The Oregon Way to a World Class Workforce,” in First Annual Joint Center Sustainable Community Award Winners, December 1999. The Joint Center for Sustainable Communities, 1620 I Street, NW., Washington, DC 20006.
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