Providence, RI - Detailed plans of eight key industry sector coalitions to continue confronting the skills mismatches and training gaps that challenge the state's workforce development efforts have gotten the go-ahead, the Governor's Workforce Board of Rhode Island (GWB) announced today.
"Nationally and here in Rhode Island, we've seen the continuing shift toward higher skill needs because of technology changes and the resizing of labor forces requiring workers to do more within their existing jobs," Governor Lincoln D. Chafee said. "Therefore, we must continue our strategic investment in workforce development to prepare more skilled, educated and agile workers to meet the real-time needs of Rhode Island's vital industry sectors. Our Industry Partnership Grants are another sign of my administration's commitment to doing just this, and fostering the conditions to continue to grow our economy."
GWB's Strategic Investments and Evaluation Committee this month approved Industry Partnership proposals put forth by:
1. Tech Collective: in both biosciences (earning an Industry Partnership grant of $150,000) and the information technology sector (earning a second grant of $150,000) 2. Building Futures: in construction (a grant of $117,000) 3. Southeastern New England Defense Industry Alliance (SENEDIA): in the defense sector ($104,000) 4. Stepping Up: in healthcare ($193,000), which employs one in seven Rhode Island workers 5. RI Hospitality Education Foundation in the hospitality and tourism sector ($150,000) 6. Polaris MEP in manufacturing ($150,000), and 7. Rhode Island Marine Trades Association in a sector that's emblematic of the Ocean State, the maritime industry ($157,000).
Aligning Assets that Complement, Not Compete with, Existing Actions
As with all of GWB's programs and collaborations, the Industry Partnership grants center on aligning Rhode Island's economic and workforce assets, expanding workforce training and education programs in ways that increase workers' skills and businesses' productivity and delivering targeted solutions that complement existing programs and prevent program overlap.
GWB's Industry Partnerships serve as "workforce intermediaries," or go-betweens, engaging and connecting employers, labor organizations and public and private workforce development partners to align the training and education resources with the specific workforce needs of their sectors.
"The training and education pipelines that these grants help create will give employers access to the skilled employees they need to be productive and competitive, and workers access to the career pathways that they need to land good jobs in meaningful careers," said GWB Executive Director Rick Brooks. "Understanding and addressing skills gaps through training and education is GWB's and every workforce development system's major mission."
The Winning Proposals' 4 "Must-Do's"
The winning applicants had to show how their ideas would track the four major public workforce system priorities that are spelled out in GWB's strategic blueprint, the Biennial Employment and Training Plan. These are:
1. Employer Partnerships: The public workforce system must engage employers as full partners to ensure that training and education are responsive to, and aligned with, employer needs (Page 11 of Biennial Plan). 2. Work Readiness: All youth and adults must have the opportunity to acquire core literacy, numeracy and work-readiness skills necessary to succeed in the workplace (Page 12 of plan). 3. Career Pathways: In partnership with employers, the public workforce system must provide youth and adults with a continuum of training, education, experiential (i.e., on-the-job) learning and supportive services that lead to good jobs and careers in high-growth, high-demand, strategically important sectors of the Rhode Island economy (Page 12). And: 4. Integration of the Public Workforce System: The public workforce system must be fully integrated to coordinate planning, funding and services; evaluate and report the effectiveness and efficiency of services; and align with state economic strategies (Page 13).
Workers' levels of education and training, either preparatory or on the job, largely determine their skill levels - and thus, their employability and compensation. Looking at employment through industry is tricky because each industry has a range of occupations within it with differing skill requirements and because some occupations are found in multiple industries.
GWB also is currently considering proposals to fund an Industry Partnership for a "wild card" sector that's not represented by the board's partnerships in the bioscience, construction, defense, healthcare, hospitality, IT, manufacturing and marine trades industries.
For "wild card" grant award submissions, an applicant's main challenge will be to describe the extent to which the proposed wild card sector is, in fact, "a sector," as well as the businesses within the sector and how its workforce intermediaries identify and function as a sector.