Minnesota WorkForce Centers

issue 1 - february 2005	wib.news@state.mn.us

• Commissioner's Corner: Seizing the Moment - A Historic Opportunity
• Business Services Specialists: DEED's Solution for Business Success
• Testing the Demand Driven Business Services Pilot Programs
• Regional Roundup: WIB Redesigns Committee Structure to Focus on Industry Needs
• Regional Roundup: Moving Toward Regional Cooperation
• Kathy's Column: January 2005 Report From the DEED Office of Strategic Partnerships
• How Satisfied are WorkForce Center System Jobseekers?

Commissioner's Corner

Seizing the Moment:
A Historic Opportunity

By Matt Kramer

The merger that created the Department of Employment and Economic Development in July 2003 was a thoughtful and deliberate move to position Minnesota as a national leader in blending the components of workforce and economic development into one state agency. And while we’re proud of being first, we can’t fully exploit all the opportunities inherent in this merger without first consolidating our internal assets.

It has become clear that all of us need to focus our energies toward achieving success in this large and ambitious enterprise. And that, in part, is the reason for this newsletter. Effective communication among all our partners is essential. And I expect that this newsletter will, over time, provide a useful forum for the exchange of ideas and an effective venue for clarifying goals and policies.

I'd like to start by describing my vision for this agency and its relationship with all of our partners. First, and most fundamentally, our mission is to find good paying, good quality jobs for all Minnesotans - to connect workers with employers in ways that create wealth for businesses and, more broadly, prosperity for the entire state. Our statewide network of WorkForce Centers must play a central role in this grand mission.

It's no secret that our workforce system operates under extraordinary pressures. That's always been true. Minnesota's workforce system today receives less federal money in real dollars than it received in 1984. With inflation factored in, funding is down 42 percent from 20 years ago - a trend that is likely to continue. And if it does, we'd better find a new operating model to ensure success in achieving our goals.

In short, we need to accelerate the process and shorten the time it takes to connect jobseekers and job hirers. How? By doing a better job of bringing employers into the system. For example, even though manufacturers constitute the single biggest employer group using Minnesota's Job Bank, almost 90 percent of manufacturers don't use it. They either lack confidence in the service or they simply don't know about it. We need to ask: Who is our customer? How do we evaluate our progress? How do we measure our results?

We've already begun to do this by naming six regional administrators to serve as our focal point for delivering services locally, and by training a new team of Business Services Specialists (BSS) in WorkForce Centers. The approach is to build relationships with area business decision-makers, assess business needs, and identify business solutions. Additional BSS positions will be filled as slots become available through normal attrition. Ultimately, the department's goal is to allocate half its Wagner-Peyser (Job Service) dollars to business services and half to traditional job seeker services. We've begun the process of merging overlapping functions within our own agency. And we've made a firm commitment to putting the state's workforce system squarely under local control.

I'd like to emphasize that last point, because I want to dispel once and for all the notion that the state runs the workforce system. DEED is certainly a major partner, but control of the WorkForce Centers (WFCs) rests with the local Workforce Investment Boards. I can't stress this often or emphatically enough. The state, as personified by DEED headquarters and staff, is not interested in telling our local partners what they must or must not do. That doesn't mean we don't have a role, but our role is not to issue edicts and commands.

Rather, as one of many partners, the state has two fundamental and related responsibilities: accountability and quality control. In a nutshell, we are here to ensure that the entire system achieves a measure of consistency in the delivery of services, even though some WFCs may offer different services targeted to the particular needs of a community.

By contrast, the Workforce Investment Boards have responsibilities that are both broad and deep. The WIBs are responsible for making decisions about how the WFCs are run and how they are funded.

I've included in this newsletter two documents that spell out in more detail my perspective on the respective roles and responsibilities of DEED and the WIBs. You should consider these documents to be working drafts - suggestions for reform, not yet established policy - and I urge you to take a thoughtful look at them.

We occupy an exciting moment that represents an historic opportunity for Minnesota to restructure its nation-leading system and raise the bar even higher for others across the country. As always, I welcome your comments, questions and concerns; and I hope you'll use the feedback form elsewhere in this newsletter to continue this dialog among our extended partnership.

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Workforce Investment Board Roles and Responsibilities

Governance
Local elected officials may establish their own policies, interpretations, guidelines and definitions relating to program operations under WIA Title I within the parameters set by the state plan and state and federal regulations. Local administration of the one-stops must be consistent with federal law and state policies, interpretations, guidelines and definitions.

Site Selection of WorkForce Centers
Local elected officials and local workforce investment boards (WIBs) should select the appropriate site and the number of sites within their local workforce service area with consultation with partner programs. DEED partner programs commit to staff in one site per WSA. Local areas should hold leases.

Site Management
WIBs should provide for the premises management of each physical site.

Oversight and Monitoring
The chief elected official and WIB shall provide monitoring of the program providers designated by the WIB.

Guidance
The WIB shall provide guidance to Wagner-Peyser business services staff on the industries and businesses to be targeted in their area based on economic and workforce data. Likewise, the WIB shall provide guidance to all program partners on the careers and/or industries in demand in their region with consultation with the regional labor market analyst and other entities providing relevant information.

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DEED Roles in the WorkForce Centers

Direct Services in the field
DEED provides services where a state role is clearly prescribed in federal law:

• Wagner-Peyser staff provides services to their priority categories: employers, Unemployment Insurance claimants, veterans, and people with disabilities. Up to 50 percent of Wagner-Peyser staff will be devoted to Business Services.
• Vocational Rehabilitation staff provide services to people with disabilities, including those receiving only “core” services
• State Services for the Blind staff provide services to customers who are blind or visually impaired, including those receiving only “core” services
• DEED has never been able to guarantee that there will be state staff in all WorkForce Centers from any or all of these three programs.

Technology Systems
DEED provides centralized systems to support field operations and direct customer services. This includes:

• Minnesota’s Job Bank / WINS and any successor systems
• Workforce One
• Unemployment Insurance
• Client Tracking System
• 1-888-GET-JOBS

Information
DEED provides labor market information, including data on what skills employers need.

Franchise Support
DEED provides central support to the overall WorkForce Center System franchise. This includes:

• Central planning, i.e., coordinating the state’s Workforce Investment Act Unified Plan
• Assistance via the Regional Administrators in reaching agreement on local Memoranda of Understanding
• Maintenance of a common brand identity
• Centralized marketing materials and publications
• System relationships with other state agencies and the federal government
• Staff training, particularly on the use of labor market information and the centralized tools
• Quality assurance, including monitoring and performance measures.

WIA Title I Planning and Monitoring
DEED develops Minnesota ’s policies, interpretations, guideline and definitions relating to program operations under WIA Title I, consistent with federal law. DEED provides oversight, technical assistance and monitoring of the Title I programs operated by local elected officials and the Workforce Investment Boards.

Business Services Specialists:
DEED's Solution for Business Success

• Build relationships with area business decision-makers.
• Assess the needs of businesses.
• Facilitate a coordinated approach with DEED’s staff and partners to identify and present business solutions.

Thirty-four of the new BSS positions were filled by the beginning of 2005, with more hires anticipated as slots become available through the normal course of retirements and resignations. Ultimately, the department’s goal is to allocate half its Wagner-Peyser dollars to business services and half to traditional job seeker services.

DEED’s new emphasis on business services was the focus of a weeklong customized training seminar last November, attended by managers and the 34 newly named Business Services Specialists. The training covered how BSS staff will dedicate their outreach efforts to serve the business community and described how the various partners will relate to one another. In a nutshell, Workforce Investment Boards, the governing entities of local WorkForce Centers, will identify key industries in the region. BSS staff will research and then contact targeted businesses within these key industries – not for the purpose of selling programs, but for selling solutions to the unique problems of our business customers.

Bottom line? Successful businesses mean more jobs and a better way of life for individuals and communities across Minnesota – and we intend to be part of the solution. By working more closely with businesses, Job Service staff will help accelerate the influx of businesses into the state's workforce system.

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Testing the Demand Driven
Business Services Pilot Programs

Beginning in the middle of last year, DEED and its partners in Minneapolis and the Ramsey County WSA launched a pair of pilot projects to test the concept of demand-driven business services at the WorkForce Centers. The pilot projects – emphasizing financial services in Minneapolis and health care in Ramsey County – were designed to test the possibilities of shifting to a demand-driven workforce system with closer linkages to business. The expectation is that such a shift will result in improved outcomes for job seekers and incumbent workers.

It will improve access for job seekers to gainful employment; aid incumbent workers in retaining employment; and support workers' advancement on the career ladder to self-sufficiency. If successful, these pilot projects may ultimately influence the public agenda by providing DEED a template to truly “do business differently” in the future. The model could be applied in other industries and locations, providing increased outcomes for job seekers and incumbent workers across the state.

The pilot projects represent a collaboration among many partners to bring together economic development, workforce development and business development perspectives to shift the focus from supplying available workers to listening to the needs of business and designing solutions to meet those needs.

Here's a quick rundown of the pilot programs' first six months:

Minneapolis Business Services Pilot Branches Out: The Minneapolis Business Services Pilot team, consisting of Anna Christopherson, Randy Tesdahl, Ilyas Ali, and Beverly Dwyer, has expanded its focus. For the first six months, the team concentrated on financial services firms – particularly banks, credit unions and mortgage companies. Their strategy was to use the financial institutions as delivery channels to reach small business customers (fewer than 50 employees) to make them aware of the wide array of services available through DEED and its partners.

“The rapidly changing environment in financial services has made it an interesting time for this project. Recent changes in lending rules for credit unions have made them an excellent target for DEED's services - particularly small business assistance,” said Bev Dwyer, the Industry Specialist. “Also, the banking needs of new immigrant communities are being explored by this project.”

In addition to working with financial institutions, manufacturers and small businesses, various members of the team are taking on other exciting challenges. For example, Rehab Specialist Anna Christopherson is working with a company that designs and manufactures clothing for people with disabilities, while Vets' Rep Randy Tesdahl has put together a very active group to work on Licensure and Certification for returning Veterans. This group recently met with John Rajkowski, from DEED's legislative affairs office, and Rep. Dan Severson, R-Sauk Rapids, the likely author of any legislation that might be appropriate. The issue is a critical one in assuring that veterans receive credit toward licensing/skill certification for training already received through the military.

Bev Dwyer is currently researching “consumer-driven” health insurance products to help small businesses reduce the cost of health insurance – a need that was identified as the top concern for businesses in DEED’s 2004 survey of businesses.

Perhaps a recent letter from the City of Minneapolis' Director of Community Planning and Economic Development to Commissioner Matt Kramer sums it up best:“Certainly the experience of this pilot should help both of us improve our service delivery to business. Our experience has already taught us that business prefers one service provider and not numerous contacts from different local and state representatives.”

Ramsey County Healthcare Pilot Gets Additional Funding:The Ramsey County Pilot in December received word that the St. Paul Foundation has awarded $42,000 to offer more tools to the team to help them on their journey to the next level of business understanding and service.

The Ramsey County team – Dale Ketchum, Susan Speetzen, Chris Stoehr, Gary Quernemoen, Colleen Andresen, Jim Moritz and Karen Berg – has spent the last several months calling on long-term care facilities to identify needs regarding English language learner training, understanding other cultures, and technical/supervisory skills and “worker readiness.” Inadequate supervisory skills and inability to pay competitive wages have led to recruitment and retention problems in this industry. In response to some of these needs, the pilot has begun working on solutions that the organizations can buy into on a consortium basis such as a supervisory training course for incumbent workers and events featuring educational/informative speakers and opportunities to network and discuss issues. An initiative to help the homes communicate their training needs to educators is also underway.

While continuing these services to long-term care, the team has begun calling on clinics and hospitals. The expectation is that these businesses will have different problems and will also be more difficult to develop relationships with due to their size and/or for profit status. Services the pilot has provided to hospitals have included labor market presentations by our state labor market analyst and demographer regarding future workforce shortages. The pilot also is keeping them informed of new programs and developments such as the training of community health workers, and potential job skills/workforce partnership grants.

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Regional Roundup

Workforce Council #8
WIB Redesigns Committee Structure To Focus On Industry Needs

The Workforce Investment Board of Southeastern Minnesota has changed its board committee structure to address demand industries in the 10-county area. These committees focus on issues specific to the need of an industry cluster and include healthcare, manufacturing and processing, high technology and engineering, and trades and services.

“This approach really gives the private sector members an opportunity to fully participate and see how our policy making impacts our workforce and businesses,” said Board Chair Diane Simon.

Board members become more deeply engaged through this approach, which draws upon expertise within committees and provokes creative discussion on the use of WorkForce Center resources to address the service needs of industry. Last spring, for example, the board sponsored a 10-county open forum on information technology and engineering, and this past fall it offered support to a start-up health care academy.

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Moving Toward Regional Cooperation
Greater Minnesota Economic Development Initiative Touts Regional Cooperation: DEED And MnSCU Are Among Those Allocating Resources in New Ways

A public-private collaborative is promoting a new regional approach to economic development in Greater Minnesota. The effort was formally announced in December at the annual retreat of the Minnesota Initiative Foundations (MIFs) in Brainerd. The six initiative foundations are independent, philanthropic organizations that promote economic and social development in Greater Minnesota.

The effort is being coordinated under the umbrella of the Regional Economic Development (RED) Group. Members include business groups, foundations, education systems, public sector agencies, nonprofits and others. The McKnight Foundation and the Blandin Foundation provide funding for the group and its members all contribute financial and human resources.

The RED Group also serves as a catalyst for the kind of system changes that will more effectively support economic development in Greater Minnesota. Success in realigning systems already can be seen in cooperative efforts with the state’s education systems and public agencies. For example, DEED recently appointed six new regional administrators whose regions coincide with the six MIF regions. In addition, the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system (MnSCU) has realigned its regions to coincide with the MIF regions and is dedicating resources to coordinate its customized training network activity in the MIF regions and the Twin Cities metropolitan area.

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January 2005 Report from the DEED Office of Strategic Partnerships

By Kathy Sweeney

WIB Training and Development

Representatives from 11 of Minnesota's 16 WIBs, as well as members of local Job Service Employer Committees (JSECS) and local staff have participated in regional workshops designed to support Minnesota’s WIBS/JSECS in effective regional Workforce and Economic Development Partnerships. In the last few months, the workshop Say Yes to Economic Development Partnerships has been presented in Marshall, St Paul, Walker and Rochester. It will be presented two more times early in 2005. Say Yes… was designed by a team from DEED, MWCA and the Economic Development Association of Minnesota to identify the critical elements of success in partnerships between economic and workforce development. Each regional workshop includes case studies of regional activities that are examples of current best practices; tools and resources to get the partnership job done are also identified. Copies of the regional materials are available by contacting Kathy Sweeney: Kathy.Sweeney@state.mn.us

Mark your calendars for two training events designed for Minnesota's WIB members. Reminders will be e-mailed to all Minnesota WIB members:

1. From 1- 4 p.m. on the afternoon of March 16, Ed Barlow will be the featured speaker for a gathering of Local WIB Members and their partners from DEED, the Minnesota Workforce Council Association and the Governor’s Workforce Development Council. Ed is President of Creating the Future, Inc. (www.creatingthefuture.com),an organization dedicated to trend spotting and strategic planning facilitation. His Minnesota presentation two years ago to a crowd of more than 100 people was very well received. Look for this year’s seminar to be even more relevant as he focuses on formalizing effective systems for managing the changing times in workforce and economic development .The seminar will be held in the Twin Cities area.
   
   
2. On April 12, Greg Newton will present via satellite conference on the topic of Partnering with Economic Development: Creating the Workforce Advantage. Information on time and location will become available shortly and will be emailed directly to you. This workshop will be the third in a series presented around the State for WIB Members and their partners. Workbooks are available if you missed the first two sessions. Visit www.worknetwork.org to learn more about the satellite series and contact me for information on the April 12 th session in Minnesota.

The National Association of Workforce Boards will hold their annual Forum in Washington from March 3-5. Information on the schedule is available at www.nawb.org.  Also, you can find two excellent guides for WIB training material; both can be printed off the website. They are; The Road to Sector Success and Doing Business with Business: America's Workforce Investment System Serves America's Businesses.

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Federal Discretionary Grants Update

Leveraging additional resources (especially federal discretionary grants) is a top priority for DEED. In an era of very tight budgets we want to make sure that Minnesota is successful in accessing as many discretionary resources as possible. To achieve that goal DEED is working closely with the Minnesota Workforce Council Association (MWCA) and Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MnSCU) to increase our joint applications (and grants) for discretionary dollars.

We are especially interested in the President's High Growth Job Training Initiative, a $250 million fund that focuses on meeting business demands for high growth jobs by investing in national models and demonstrations of workforce solutions in twelve key sectors. More information is available at www.doleta.gov at the Business Relations Group.

In November 2004, staff from DEED, MWCA and MNSCU staff worked together to submit three grant applications to this new funding source. Two were for Healthcare Worker Training and one was for Bioscience Worker Training.

There is much more to be done to make our grant applications successful so if your WIB is interested in hearing more, please let me know.

Make sure to check out www.gwdc.org under “Partner Information, Special Projects” for information on applying for grants to support projects that deliver English language training to Minnesota workers with limited English skills.

A very useful web site, www.grants.gov, marked its first-year anniversary last October. This site is essential for staying posted on federal grant opportunities. More than 600,000 notices for grant opportunities from scores of federal agencies are now catalogued and organized at one easy-to-use site. By registering with the site you can receive automatic email notification of new grant opportunities and to submit federal grant applications on line. To apply online your organization must be registered with Central Contractor Registry and with www.grants.gov, so be sure to start the pre-application process as soon as possible.

The National Association of State Workforce Agencies (NASWA) offers another useful resource, www.workforceatm.org. Click on the Resource Room at this site to get an up-to-date listing of announcements related to funding for workforce and economic development activities. The US Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration has a current posting seeking proposals for “Transitioning Regions and Workers in a Post-Industrialized Economy.” See their site at www.eda.gov for information on a variety of grant proposal options for ensuring that American workers have the skills to remain the most productive workforce in the world.

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How Satisfied are WorkForce Center System Jobseekers?

On average, jobseeker satisfaction with WorkForce Center System services has increased gradually over a three-year period. Using our Minnesota Customer Satisfaction Index (possible scores range from a low of 0 to a high of 100), overall satisfaction inched upward from 70.6 in Year 1 (2001-2002) to 71.8 in Year 2, to 72.3 in Year 3 (October 2003 to September 2004). (See Figure 1.)  For further information on the Minnesota Customer Satisfaction Index, see http://www.deed.state.mn.us/customersurvey/csi.htm.


Since October 2001, the Department of Employment and Economic Development has conducted an ongoing telephone survey of registered jobseekers receiving services from Job Service, Workforce Investment Act (WIA) Adult, WIA Youth, WIA Dislocated Worker, State Dislocated Worker, Minnesota Youth Program, Minnesota Family Investment Program Employment Services, Food Support Employment and Training, Vocational Rehabilitation, and State Services for the Blind programs. About 5100 jobseekers are interviewed each year. The survey asks these customers about their overall satisfaction with WorkForce Center services and satisfaction with specific service elements.

Breaking these results down shows some interesting differences:

• Some programs and local workforce service areas demonstrated significant increases in jobseeker satisfaction. These include State Services for the Blind, WIA Adult, and Job Service.
• Four local areas demonstrated significant increases in jobseeker satisfaction: Northwest, Rural Minnesota CEP, Southwest, and Dakota County.
• Over the three-year period, there has been a persistent, statistically significant gap of about three points between the average satisfaction among Twin Cities metro area respondents (70.6 Year 3) and respondents from Greater Minnesota (73.7 Year 3). (See Figure 2.)
• The three-point differential in Year 1 between male and female satisfaction has diminished by 50 percent. Customer satisfaction among male jobseekers has increased more than twice as much as customer satisfaction among female job seekers. (See Figure 3.)
• Unfortunately, the satisfaction gap between white customers and customers of color may be increasing over time. White customers’ satisfaction has been increasing at a faster rate than that of customers of color. (See Figure 4.)
• Customers who reported receiving services at a WorkForce Center had a statistically higher average satisfaction than customers who said they received services at other locations.

These results suggest that jobseekers are most concerned about whether services will help them get a job. The elements of service that relate most strongly to overall satisfaction are those that people use to judge their satisfaction with the total experience. In all three years, the questions that correlate most highly with overall satisfaction are:

• [How helpful do] you believe that the services you are now receiving will be in getting a job?
• [How helpful do] you believe that the services you are now receiving will be in getting a better job?
• How satisfied are you that the staff understands your needs?

In upcoming issues: Jobseeker Satisfaction in your region and results from the Employer Satisfaction Survey.

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