Employing Sector Strategies

• Boston Private Industry Council, MA
• Lancaster County Workforce Investment Board, PA
• Workforce Boards of Metropolitan Chicago, IL
• Worksystems, Inc. Portland, OR

Overview

Leading this trend, the Lancaster County Workforce Investment Board (WIB) focuses its planning and the service delivery of its one-stop system on seven industry sectors that hold the promise of "gold collar" jobs (high skills, high wages and high demand) for the Lancaster area. Based on a study of the local economy, the WIB identified five priority industry clusters for investment by the workforce system. A U. S. Dept. of Labor Community Audit Grant prompted the addition of two more priority sectors. The seven industries clusters are health care, biotechnology, communications, construction, agriculture and food processing, metals and metal fabricating, and automotive.

In identifying priority industries, the WIB used three criteria:

• Sustained growth for the last five years;
• Higher than average location quotient (concentration of employment, also a measure of competitiveness) and
• Average pay at or above family sustaining wage.

A hallmark of the success of this local board was involving a wide range of stakeholders including those who represented business, workforce development, economic development, education and local government. In 2002, the Lancaster Board convened a three-WIB Regional Working Group on Health Care Employment and Training to coordinate the regional effort. With a strong focus on creating accessible career ladders for low-income individuals, the working group continues to fund health care training programs including assessment, pre-vocational services such as literacy, and case management linkages to formal training institutions. Local workforce and economic development partners are now working on common measures of economic development progress.

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History

The Board chose to first focus on the health care sector because it offered clear opportunities for family-wage sustaining jobs. The Regional Working Group applied jointly for an Incumbent Worker Challenge Grant of $150,000 from the PA Workforce Investment Board, which enabled them to launch the health care initiative.

In partnership with key industry contributors, the Regional Working Group conducted an outreach and recruiting campaign to interest workers in health care careers. The campaign targeted individuals employed in low-skill, low-wages occupations, expecting that these workers would find the potential for full-time work and advancement in health care occupations attractive. With substantial employer support, the Working Group developed a series of television advertisements highlighting health care careers and providing contact information to the One-Stop Center. Web sites were also used to advertise programs. The campaign resulted in thousands of inquiries and hundreds of customers signed up for health care training programs. In addition, these efforts resulted in a dramatic increase in nursing school enrollments.

As the project developed the Boards found that many customers lacked sufficient reading and math skills to begin advanced study for health care occupations. To address this issue, the Lancaster-Lebanon Intermediate Unit 13 and the Lancaster County Career and Technology Center were engaged to provide remedial education for customers interested in health care training. The Intermediate Unit developed health care-oriented literacy program while the Career and Technology Center designed a course that taught candidates the basics of such subjects as biology and physiology, to prepare them to successfully pursue nursing or other allied health degrees.

Overall, the successes of the Working Group's sector approach to workforce development had important effects on the local economic development and education systems.

• Local economic development planners began to use the WIBs’ industry cluster priorities to attract business and investors in economic development initiatives.
• The County Planning Commission wrote the priority industry clusters into the county plan.
• Local workforce and economic development partners are now working on common measures of economic development progress.
• The Lancaster County Career and Technology Center (vocational-technical school) aligned its curriculum into clusters paralleling those of the WIB.
• The School District of Lancaster retooled its Small Learning Communities curriculum format into one that aligns with the WIB priorities.

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Partners and Funding

Thirty-four (34) local employers committed financial support to the health care sector initiative from the start. Together, they contributed over $800,000 over two years for air time for the outreach and recruitment television ads highlighting health care careers. The Lancaster WIB also received a $150,000 Sector Demonstration Grant and a Community Audit Grant of $50,000 from the US Department of Labor. The three-WIB regional consortium received two grants from the State; a $600,000 Customized Job Training Grant and a $150,000 Incumbent Worker Challenge Grant.

In this initiative, the WIB coordinated various funding streams to fund workforce development activities in the health care sector, including Pell grants, Individual Training Accounts, low- interest state education loans, and H-1B funds. The Board coordinated with community partners, including a career and technology center, a community college campus, a school of nursing, and the local vocational-technical training system to arrange for remediation, education and training.

Members of the Workforce Investment Board including the vice president for human resources of a major hospital in the area, assisted in the outreach to health care entities in the region including other hospitals and long-term care providers. The support and participation of this major regional institution also helped the staff convey the importance of the sectoral initiative to a broader community.

Challenges

One of the biggest initial challenges was to think across artificial boundaries such as geographic boundaries and to look at the economy and industry sectors in a regional context. Research on the various industry sectors clarified that the regional approach made the most sense for their efforts.

Another major challenge was to engage and sustain the involvement of a wide range of stakeholders. Involving all from the development states was an important contribution to understanding the needs of the various stakeholders and delivering them value.

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Keys to Successful Implementation

• The Board used the opportunity of collecting and analyzing industry cluster data to involve the five major systems – business and industry, workforce development, economic development, education, and local government – in the proposed initiative. Through this process, the different stakeholders developed allies in other systems, engaged strategic individuals within the five major systems, and contributed to developing a shared vision.
• The local Board was the broker or facilitator for the needs of the target industry for workforce development and beyond, such as helping industries connect with schools.
• Finally, the Board has applied variations of the model to important industries in its local economy such as food processing, metals and metal fabricating, and lumber and wood products as well as technology areas such as process control and mechatronics

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Model Materials

• Sector Interventions with High Growth Industries [PPT, 53KB]
• South Central Pennsylvania Regional Working Group on Health Care Employment and Training [PPT, 89KB]

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