”We are proud to see  M1 Support Services developing a joint apprenticeship program to help meet the critical workforce needs for skilled aviation mechanics and technicians in the Fort Rucker area”, said Josh Laney, Director of the Alabama Office of Apprenticeship.  We are very thankful to the company and the union for helping us set a high standard throughout the program’s development and we look forward to the years of growth and success ahead for everyone involved.”

At the successful completion of the program, students will have a nationally recognized credential and a pathway to a high-wage and high-demand job.  The paid, on-the-job training that they receive through the apprenticeship program sets them up for success while providing a pipeline of qualified workers for M1 Support Services.

A signing ceremony was recently held for the apprentices and M1 Support Services at Enterprise Community College.

The post NEW APPRENTICESHIP PROGRAM TO PRODUCE AVIATION MECHANICS AND TECHNICIANS FOR FT. RUCKER AREA appeared first on AlabamaWorks.

“Here in Alabama, we are laser-focused on bringing good-paying jobs to the state, and very importantly, we want to ensure we are providing opportunities for Alabamians to be the most equipped for those jobs,” said Governor Ivey. “I am proud of our progress and predict we are well on our way to surpassing the goal of adding 500,000 additional credentialed individuals to our workforce by 2025.”

Governor Ivey, collaborating with AlabamaWorks! and the Alabama Workforce Council, partnered with Credential Engine and the CREC to measure the progress.

“I am extremely proud of the work the Alabama Workforce Council has done in advancing Governor Ivey’s Success Plus initiative and helping Alabamians earn post-secondary credentials that will set them up for success,” said Alabama Workforce Council Chair Tim McCartney. “It is evident we have more work to do to carry this goal to completion, but we are on the right path and have the right leadership with Governor Ivey at the helm.”

The progress report shows that since 2018, Alabama has made progress toward the Success Plus goal of adding 500,000 credentialed adults ages 16 to 64 to the workforce by 2025. Of the more than 200,000 added credentialed individuals, 137,848 newly credentialed individuals were in the 16 to 24 age group, and 38,240 were in the 25 to 64 age group. Governor Ivey is a national leader on workforce development efforts. As she speaks to company officials in this country and around the globe, she consistently touts the state of Alabama’s strong workforce.

“Alabama’s current and future economic growth depends on a highly skilled workforce. That’s why I am so proud of the progress we are making in increasing our postsecondary education attainment goal,” said Alabama Commerce Secretary Greg Canfield. “We are on track to meet our goal, which will result in more Alabamians in the workforce.”

The information included in the Success Plus plan progress report provides a clearer picture of the credential landscape and statewide progress toward the attainment goal. The report also advances transparency and connectivity across credentialing systems.

Beyond grouping by age, another focus was measuring credential attainment by region. Of the progress made since 2018, 44,469 credentials were attained in region 1; 12,045 in region 2; 24,956 in region 3; 38,441 in region 4; 33,155 in region 5; 17,791 in region 6; and 44,065 in region 7.

Broken down by credential, from 2018 to 2021, 145,194 first degrees were attained from public and private postsecondary schools; 33,059 first certificates were attained from public and private postsecondary schools; 1,430 people attained licenses as their first credential; 34,552 attained a certification; and 668 people completed an apprenticeship.

“Success Plus has required focused efforts across multiple state agencies, the private sector and community-based organizations,” said AIDT Executive Director and Deputy Commerce Secretary Ed Castile. “I am proud of the progress we have made thus far, and I am even more excited about the progress we will make between now and 2025.”

Through Governor Ivey’s leadership and focus on carving a path for Alabamians to be highly skilled and successful, the state is well on its way to achieving her Success Plus goal.

The post Governor Ivey Shares Progress Report on Attainment Goal, Alabama Workforce Skills Up appeared first on AlabamaWorks.

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Originally published in HR Professionals Magazine

Today, many businesses have closed or adjusted their production or hours of operation to acclimatize to the present labor shortage. No end seems to be in sight to this difficult quandary.  As HR professionals we all have been grappling for several years now with an increasingly too familiar problem that is front and center and which a viable solution is centric to each of our organization’s sustainability and success:  Finding, Attracting, and Retaining Talent.  The Right Talent—- and when and where we need it.  The pandemic did not solely create these present challenges, it is just accentuated it.  The stark reality necessitates that we must reimagine and create new staffing models that can nimbly and adequately adjust to the current and emergent workforce challenges to include:  1) access to available talent (for employers), the development of the right skilled talent (workforce development through providers), and effective modalities to connect job seekers with employers who so desperately needs them (applicant portals and career connections for applicants).

In this article, the state of the worker shortage and skilled talent gap will be unpacked, current challenges reviewed and a solution offered through an emergent solution-based approach in the State of Alabama which has created a Skills-based Talent Triad approach.  A solution to the present prodigious talent crisis calls for big and bold solutions, but what does that look like?  What is the ‘State of Worker Shortage’ and ‘Skilled Talent Gap Crisis’ and is a ‘Real Solution’ possible?  What are the applicable and pragmatic takeaways from the Talent Triad approach being spearheaded in Alabama? 

State of the Worker Shortage 

Let’s get straight to the point.  In summary, the U.S. has too many people without a job and too many vacant jobs without skilled labor to fill them which results in employers unable to optimally thrive in the present business environment.  This does not mean that there have not been noble efforts.  In 2021, businesses responded in a herculean manner to the existing labor shortage by adding an unprecedented 3.8 million jobs.  Sounds good, right?  Not exactly. The flip side is that while these staffing initiatives were underway, there was also a mass exodus of workers.  According to the Pew Research Center (2022), between February 2020 and 2021, a net of 2.4 million women (with Hispanic and Black women accounting for 46% of this total decrease) and 1.8 million men left the workforce with no intent to actively seek out reemployment.

There are four primary reasons for this worker mass exodus:

1. Family Household Increase in Savings-Stimulus checks added $4 trillion to U.S. worker savings since early 2020 and enhanced unemployment benefits (which ended in September 2021) resulted in 68% claimants earned more than they did while working leading to higher income and economic stability.

2. Early Retirement-Since the pandemic, over 3 million older workers 55 and over have opted for earlier retirements at an increasing rate over time.  Separations through retirement surged from 48.1% in Q3 of 2019 to 50.3% in Q3 2021.

3. Lack of Access to Childcare-During the pandemic, many childcare providers closed or scaled back services.  As of Q4 2021, childcare industry employment still remains 10% lower than pre-pandemic levels.  Consequently, women’s participation rate in the labor force declined from 70% to 55% during this time, the lowest since the 1970s.

4. New Business Starts-Many employees turned the challenges associated with the pandemic to an opportunity for entrepreneurship by leaving their employment to launch a business of their own.  During the last two years alone, more than 10 million new business applications were filed, and 4 million new businesses were started in 2020 alone.  (U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, The Education Trust, 2022)

Amid these challenges, the U.S. labor force began a “Great Reshuffle.”  With the popularized “Great Resignation” (and hashtag #quittok), workers went social in sharing their reasons for leaving their jobs to find more free time, quality of life, or better opportunities.  In as much, labor participation has taken on new meaning as the labor pool sorts out whether or not to actively seek work which adds another layer of complexity to the talent crisis.

Skills Gap:  Federal & State Relief through Legislative Amelioration

Is the current talent crisis an employer, employee, state or national problem?  The answer is a definitive “yes,” and to all the above.  The amelioration of the present worker shortage and skills-gap will be dependent upon the accountability of all stakeholders.  Our workforce system is arguably somewhat broken.  It is not responsive to the changing jobs and evolving skill requirements, workforce training programs are not aligned to industry needs, and the workforce data infrastructure is outdated.  The U.S. Chamber of Commerce launched an America Works initiative which proposes closing the jobs gap will necessitate:

1. Helping Americans acquire the skills they need to fill today’s open jobs
2. Improving educational and job training opportunities for the jobs of the future
3. Removing barriers to entering the workforce
4. Expanding the workforce through immigration reform

The onus is on legislative advocacy to produce the aforementioned outcomes that works in the best interest of employers and job seekers alike.

Creating a Talent-Based Ecosystem in Alabama:  Creating Relevant and Pragmatic Talent Solutions for Today’s Talent Crisis

While the national talent crisis continues to loom, the State of Alabama has developed an innovative solution.  Alabama’s Governor Kay Ivey has placed a renewed call for a more modernized, adaptive, and resilient workforce development system that will substantively bridge the state’s talent shortage and skills gap.  This new workforce development system, or Talent Triad, composed of the Alabama Credential Registry which will be used to make each credential awarded to Alabamians transparent and will tag credentials to the competencies for which they denote mastery; the Alabama Skills-Based Job Description Generator and Employer Portal will allow employers to create customized job descriptions based on the “DNA” of the jobs in their firms; and the Alabama College and Career Exploration Tool, or ACCET, learning and employment record will allow job seekers to develop verified resumes and to link directly to skills-based job descriptions generated by employers.

The statewide goals of Alabama’s New Talent Triad Ecosystem are big and bold.  They include:  1) adding 500,000 credentialed workers to Alabama’s workforce by 2025, 2) extending opportunities to populations with barriers to entering education and the workforce, and 3) accelerating COVID-19 pandemic recovery by supporting Alabamians who have been displaced by the pandemic with reentering the workforce.

In a state that has been surgically focused in the areas of competency-based career pathways, work-based learning, apprenticeships, credentials of value, and career lattices, Alabamians have been provided a foundation for economic upward mobility through skill enhancement that allow for career progression from entry-level to middle-skills position, to an advanced-level career through the mastery of an increasingly rigorous levels of competency.   Furthermore, these gallant targeted outcomes center on 5 key policies that will create and deploy:  1) a statewide database to register all individual learning, 2) a statewide non-degree credit articulation index and credit transfer articulation crosswalk and articulation system, 3) recognition of all learning towards credits to credentials and careers, and 5) policies that provide support and remove barriers that exist between the creation of skilled labor and an employer job-ready workforce.

The Talent Triad’s continued momentum and success is dependent upon the avid synergies of advocates at all stages of the employment lifecycle; state, civic, and academic leaders, employers, job seekers, and the workforce development providers working collaboratively and in tandem to develop and deploy competency models and career pathways (by industry) supported through competency-based education, and skills-based hiring.  These vertical and horizontal partnerships reflect a comprehensive and systemic approach to creating a job-ready workforce and create a win-win for employers and job seekers alike.  The embedded technology solutions serve to operationalize Alabama’s competency-based education and skills-based hiring ecosystem, while the work of key stakeholders operationalize the important linkages for talent solutions.

Closing Remarks

The U.S. is at a crucial point where relevant and timely workforce solutions are needed.  Current workforce needs con, NDCtinue to fall short and the future remain unpredictable.  Therefore, it becomes especially critical that employing the right worker with the right skills be simple, fast and employer focused.  At the same time, solutions have to adequately and sufficiently address not only current employment needs, but also concurrently create a more modernized workforce development system that can be a long-term stalwart driver of economic growth and competitiveness.

The post Reimagining Talent Amid a Worker Shortage: Alabama’s Talent Triad Solution-Driven Ecosystem appeared first on AlabamaWorks.

We are excited to announce that Josh Laney, Director of the Alabama Office of Apprenticeship, has been elected to serve on the Executive Board of the National Association of State and Territorial Directors (NASTAD).

NASTAD is an organization comprised of State Apprenticeship Agency Directors from 31 states that facilitates the development of high-quality Registered Apprenticeship (RA) programs in our states and territories as a solution to the overwhelming demand for highly skilled workers.  Collectively, they administer programs for more than half of the Registered Apprentices throughout the United States and are committed to continuing alignment and partnership with the U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Apprenticeship (USDOL/OA).

“Registered Apprenticeship programs have proven successful in meeting the needs of both employer and apprentice, from supplying a talent pipeline to the employer while assisting in the recruitment, education, and retention of apprentices.  I look forward to serving on the Executive Board of NASTAD to continue to advance apprenticeship opportunities to help fill middle and high-skilled jobs in Alabama and increase apprenticeship awareness nationwide,” said Josh Laney.

The post Josh Laney Appointed to National Executive Board appeared first on AlabamaWorks.

The Alabama Office of Apprenticeship has partnered with the Alabama Board of Nursing and the Alabama Community College System to develop the state’s first nursing registered apprenticeship program.

What does a nursing apprenticeship program in Alabama mean? It means that students accepted into their local community college’s practical or registered nursing apprenticeship program get classroom instruction and on-the-job learning but at the same time, they are earning progressive wages.  Students will actually work as a hospital employee, earning pay for program clinical and practicum hours.  After successful completion of the program and the passage of the NCLEX (National Council Licensure Examination), the student transitions to full-time employment at the hospital where they were an apprentice.

Josh Laney, Director of the Alabama Office of Apprenticeship, said “the opportunity for nurse apprentices to earn while they learn, to continue applying skills learned in class in a real work environment, and to extend the time spent working with their preceptors, will positively impact the nursing industry’s critical needs for recruitment and retention of highly prepared nurses.”

The rules from the administrative code go into effect on March 17, 2022.  The initial cohort of nursing apprentices will launch this summer, and it will be open to other interested employers and training providers in the fall.

The new nursing apprenticeship program is just one way that the Alabama Office of Apprenticeship is working to remove barriers to entry for students wanting to enter high-demand occupations while also helping to meet Governor Ivey’s Success Plus Goal of adding 500,000 credentialed workers to the workforce by 2025.

The post Alabama Office of Apprenticeship Launches Program to Help Meet Nursing Shortage appeared first on AlabamaWorks.

In partnership with the Alabama Legislature, the AWC successfully worked to increase funding for dual enrollment for career and technical education for high school students, reduce teacher chronic absenteeism and grow the educator workforce pipeline.  The Fiscal Year 2022 Education Trust Fund Budget included a $3 million increase for the dual enrollment program, which brought total funding for the program to $21.2 million. An $11 million increase for the K-12 Career Tech Initiative nearly doubled the total investment in the program to $19.3 million. Plus, there was a new $10 million investment in the Alabama Community College System’s Innovation Center for rapid worker training.

“Considering these successes, we are not resting on our laurels. In 2022, we will be focusing on completing our system for connecting talent and opportunity, known as the Alabama Talent Triad, increasing the labor force participation rate, and making tremendous progress against the Success Plus postsecondary education attainment goals,” said McCartney and Koblas.

Other highlights in the report about the AWC’s efforts are:

• ATLAS on Career Pathways, the state’s interagency data-sharing system, was implemented and will provide the data that’s needed to identify in-demand careers and credentials.
• The Alabama Credential Registry launched as the first of three technology solutions that comprise the Alabama Talent Triad, which will be used to scale skills-based hiring and competency-based learning practices in Alabama.
• The AWC partnered with Governor Ivey and the State Board of Education to pass a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) completion policy that will open the doors to postsecondary education and the workforce for all of Alabama’s high school graduates.
• The Alabama Computer Science Summit resumed after a one-year hiatus caused by COVID-19.
• These successes and others are helping to achieve Gov. Ivey’s Success Plus goal of adding 500,000 highly skilled Alabamians to the workforce by 2025.

The full report can be viewed here.

The post Alabama Workforce Council Delivers Results to Improve the Lives of Thousands of Alabamians appeared first on AlabamaWorks.

Alabama Department Commerce
Workforce Development Division/Governor’s Local Workforce Areas 401 Adams Avenue, Suite 390
Montgomery, Alabama 36130
(334) 242-5300 (Office Phone)

Release Date:
February 7, 2022 Deadline for Submission:
April 15, 2022
4:30 p.m. CST
Late submissions will not be accepted.

See additional documentation here.

The post RFP Announcement: One-Stop Operator Services appeared first on AlabamaWorks.

FOR THE EAST ALABAMAWORKS! LOCAL WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT AREA

FOR PROGRAM YEAR 2022

Alabama Department Commerce

Workforce Development Division/Governor’s Local Workforce Areas

401 Adams Avenue, Suite 390

Montgomery, Alabama 36130

(334) 242-5300 (Office Phone)

www.eastalabamaworks.com

Release Date:

February 7, 2022

Deadline for submission:

April 15, 2022 by 4:30 p.m. CST

Late submissions will not be accepted.

See additional documentation here. 

 Area 2 East One-Stop Operator RFP Questions 

1. Who are the current service providers for the Area 2 East Alabama RFP? 

The Alabama Department of Labor is the current Service provider for Area 2 East Alabama. 

2. What are the funding levels for the Area 2 East Alabama RFP? 

The current funding for the Alabama Department of Labor in Program Year 21 for Adult, Dislocated Worker, and Youth is $1,411,442. 

Answers to RFP Questions Here.

The post RFP Announcement – Youth Workforce Development Services – East AlabamaWorks! appeared first on AlabamaWorks.

For the Selection of Program Operators to Provide

Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act Funded

YOUTH WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT

SERVICES

FOR THE CENTRAL ALABAMAWORKS! LOCAL WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT

AREA

FOR PROGRAM YEAR 2022

Download the entire request for proposal here.

 Area 5 Central Youth RFP Questions 

1. Can Youth Programs utilize the MAP program offered by Adult Ed.? 

Yes, all Youth Programs are encouraged to have enrolled participants complete the MAP program as a recognized credential. For further information concerning the MAP program and participant enrollment please contact Courtney Monnette at courtney.monnette@accs.edu. 

Answers to RFP Questions Here.

The post RFP for Youth Workforce Development Services Announced! Region 5 appeared first on AlabamaWorks.