Support services are critical to the success of education, training, and employment services. The value of CAAs as major providers of support services is not sufficiently recognized within the workforce development arena.

CAAs have six areas of concern around workforce development. These concerns provide a framework for program development:

1. What is workforce development?

2. Why should CAAs offer workforce development programs and services?

3. Who is the customer? Who needs workforce development programs and services?

4. What do jobseekers need?

5. What are the types of programs and services?

6. What components do all workforce development programs have?

CAAs need to carefully and continually evaluate how to balance service delivery and advocacy effectively.

Building and maintaining strong relationsships with employers is in the best interest of workforce development clients.

V. Recommendations

There are two important sets of recommendations resulting from MASSCAP’s Workforce Development Initiative. The first is based on observations made during the project, as well as analysis conducted in the preparation of this report; the second set is a listing of key conclusions made by CAA representatives in the three half-day meetings held during this initiative.

Project Recommendations

Articulation of a full strategic agenda for CAAs does not result from a handful of meetings and a first initiative of this limited scale. Yet participants did reach consensus in several critical areas about important next steps for CAAs in workforce development. These thoughts have been organized into five general areas below, with specific action steps and strategies provided for each area.

Recommendation One: The state of the labor market matters—perhaps more than any other single factor.

While CAAs have no control over the state of the labor market—and the U.S. economy has always run in cycles—there will seldom be a better labor market than today’s in which to develop education, training, and employment services. Employers are desperate. They are busing people across the state to fill jobs, they are flying people in from other countries to meet their workforce needs, and they are locating overseas seeking better cost/production ratios. At the same time, many low-income residents are desperate, since even in this strong labor market they continue to lose ground economically in both absolute terms and relative terms as compared with high-income residents. CAAs should:

• identify the sector or area of opportunity within the local labor market, and then identify the largest and/or leading employers—and then seek them out.

• think creatively about how to meet employer needs and residents needs. What are the win-win solutions in your CAA’s local labor market?

• focus on post-employment services. Employers—and employees—need assistance in retention, skill upgrading, support services, and a wide range of challenges they face in the new economy. Public funding is shifting in this direction as well.

• embed your CAA in employer partnerships. Invest in this work now, since employers will have less incentive to form new relationships when the labor market turns down.

Recommendation Two: Building important, continuous, and productive relationships with customers—with a focus on only two customers, employers and jobseekers—is the most important factor over which workforce development providers have control.

CAAs that think and act strategically in this area are far more likely to succeed in producing positive outcomes for program participants and for CAAs as organizations), than those CAAs that do not pay enough attention to these customers. CAAs (and other community-based organizations) face significant challenges to working successfully with employers as customers; but—to paraphrase Leonard Berry from his book On Great Service: A Framework for Action—the action steps required are also quite straightforward:

• determine the most important service attributes for meeting and exceeding employer expectations;

• determine the service attributes on which competitors (e.g., community colleges, Career Centers, and private placement agencies) are most vulnerable;

• determine existing and potential service capabilities of your organization. Assess your (in)competencies, resource strengths and weaknesses, service reputation, belief system, and "reason for being," and then

• develop a customer service strategy that addresses important, enduring employer needs, exploits competitor vulnerabilities, and fits the CAA’s capabilities and potential.

Recommendation Three: It is essential to be strategic and to align organizational objectives and components with the workforce development vision and goals.

This is always a part of successful delivery of workforce development services, whether a CAA is or is not a traditional provider of workforce development services. This alignment is necessary whether a CAA’s strategy is to seek a large grant or rapid increase in service delivery level or to build incrementally over time. CAAs can be strategic if they:

• consider what type of resources are pivotal to success (e.g., computers, outreach) and consider (and find) the level of resources required to succeed;

• take advantage of CAAs’ competitive advantages as organizations. CAAs can gain great advantage by integrating and coordinating the workforce development and wrap-around services they currently provide in multiple programs and departments;

• ensure that there is sufficient, lasting commitment from all stakeholders (i.e., Board and Board committees; executive, management, and line staff; key collaborators and partner organizations).

Recommendation Four: Both public and private workforce development is a growing business and the focus of much recent attention in legislation and public policy.

The public workforce development system is still structured through categorical funding (insular programs with their own target populations and limited services), related regulatory requirements, and changing bureaucratic/political imperatives. While CAAs should move carefully, this is an area of great need (and benefit) to low-income communities. CAAs should:

• learn about how the WIA voucher system will work statewide and locally (full implementation is scheduled for July 1, 2000), and then stay in touch with local REB/SDAs and MASSCAP to ensure that each organization stays current on public funding sources that offer group contracts to support education, training, and employment programs;

• develop knowledge and a strategic overview of the key policy issues among staff, and the implementation timelines that will affect all education, training, and employment service providers funded through the public system;

• focus your local REB on educating your organization (and others) about the new systems, policies, and procedures governing public funding;

• start now to identify how to fund CAA programs through fees paid by employers for CAA-provided services that improve employers’ bottom line.

Recommendation Five: Each CAA must focus on its own communities, local system and stakeholders, and particular organizational context; but there must also be a statewide platform and strategic agenda for CAAs to realize their potential role in workforce development.

CAAs should consider the inclusion of other organizations in this strategic agenda, as other sectors (e.g., community colleges and community development corporations) have recently prioritized workforce development. CAAs need to:

• think strategically about how to invest CAA time and resources in REBs, REB Boards, REB committee work, the local Service Delivery Area, and local Career Centers;

• review the obvious and traditional conclusions about which organizations are CAAs’ competitors and potential allies. Strongly consider allying with other associations and networks which are currently addressing the very same issues. In order to improve local policies and to take on state-level policy and funding initiatives, alliances can be formed with community development corporations, community colleges, and Boston-based coalitions providing skills training and youth and adult education services;

• work towards CAA representation on the Statewide Workforce Investment Board being established by the governor under the federal Workforce Investment Act. While this is a challenging objective, there are important policies and standards developed in this forum;

• collaborate as a group with MASSCAP to formulate a timely response to the clearly stated needs of CAAs responding to the recent MASSCAP survey. Again, CAAs want and need assistance in five areas: skills training, education, transportation, case management, and child care. Assistance is needed in many forms including technical assistance and training in strategic planning, funding, program design, and program implementation. A statewide forum will be an effective and cost-efficient approach, and will also help to increase sharing of knowledge and solutions among CAAs.

Conclusions & Requests from Participating CAAs

In the meeting held on November 5, 1999 CAA representatives identified key strategies and resources that can increase the presence and power of CAAs in workforce development. This report recommends that MASSCAP and CAA Executive Directors carefully review and respond to the following points and recommendations:

1. Develop forums to share experiences among CAAs in workforce development, and in particular to highlight emerging practices of CAAs.
2. Consider the advantages/disadvantages of different possible roles for CAAs in workforce development as a broker, service provider, and community advocate.
3. CAAs will benefit from developing a workforce development policy strategy at the state level, as well as the local level.
4. Increasing attendance at the MASSCAP Workforce Development Committee meetings will strengthen CAA capacity in the workforce development system.
5. Many CAAs would benefit from having more information on the different workforce development program types and resources.
6. CAAs need to learn more about (a) their entitlement under WIA to be on REB Boards and to be involved with Career Centers and (b) the requirements of the state’s forthcoming WIA service provider certification process.
7. Develop a centralized capacity to notify CAAs of new funding opportunities at the local, state, and federal levels.
8. All CAAs can benefit from a coordinated and unified strategy on key public policy issues, advocacy initiatives, and sharing information. One key area is for each CAA to stay current on substantive issues vis-à-vis their REB.
9. CAAs need to actively investigate the possibilities and benefits of (a) collaborating with other education, training, and employment service providers, and (b) building active partnerships with employers.
10. MASSCAP and CAAs should investigate establishing a List Serve on the Internet in order to keep communications going in between meetings. A key step is to identify a moderator.
11. WIA information meetings are still very valuable to CAAs, particularly as decisions are still being made at state and local levels.

This work (as reflected in both sets of recommendations and requests above) will take some years to bring to scale. The important initial question is whether workforce development is an area to which CAAs and MASSCAP will make a significant and long-term commitment.