Fall_Winter '07

National Able Network is delighted to report that two very significant agency programs, the national Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP) and the local Service Connector program, have delivered outstanding annual performance results in spite of some challenging circumstances.  The U.S. Department of Labor has recognized Able as the second highest performing national service provider in the United States, and the Service Connector staff exceeded the program’s job placement goal for public housing clients by nearly twenty percent.  I am very proud of these teams and of all the outstanding professionals that have helped build Able’s reputation for quality service.  These achievements are especially noteworthy in this, Able’s thirtieth year of service, as an agency dedicated to helping people “get back to work and life.”  We look forward to celebrating these and other successes with you during this special anniversary year.

We have talked about workforce development trends and needs in previous issues, and I wanted to highlight a couple that we see as particularly pressing in this new year.  Most workforce professionals recognize that greater investment is needed in education and training and that certain industry sectors are poised to expand over the next several years.  We are less clear, however, about the best approaches to readying our workforce or about the appropriate roles for our workforce development system.  And however we cut it, there are unquestionably more places where we can all “do good” than we have resources to serve.  So what’s a workforce system to do??

Thirty years in this business has taught us a few things.  First, we steadfastly believe that our duty as an agency and, we would hope, the obligation of any taxpayer-funded workforce system is to help those who are most in need and who might otherwise not achieve self-sufficiency.  It is not our principal mission to “help” certain growing industry sectors develop economically at rates faster than market forces are currently driving them.

In his book, The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman broadly describes the type of workforce America must nurture in order to remain a serious global competitor.  He is not describing an army of welders or nurse’s aides or truck drivers per se.  Rather, a competitive workforce will consist of people with strong basic skills knowledge (math and English [and maybe Chinese?]) and excellent soft skills, such as interpersonal communications, leadership, flexibility, and willingness to learn.

His conclusions have been validated by numerous working sessions with our own employer advisory board representing all major industry sectors.  Without exception, employers are telling us to provide them career seekers with excellent basic and soft skills and they will hire them.  Premature individual focus on highly specialized job skills training is not only presumptuous, but arguably a disservice to our career-seeking clients who may find that specific job needs have shifted by the time they are ready.  An especially painful example of this can be found among the hundreds of clients Able serves each year under the Trade Adjustment Act.  These are generally not immediately re-employable, however, for lack of proficiency in English, math, basic computer knowledge, and certain soft skills.  Intensive, flexible programs in these areas by Able Career InstituteTM and other training providers are working to address these needs.

These are all workforce issues of a critical and time-sensitive nature in our business.  We welcome further dialogue with our funders and workforce system colleagues over the coming weeks and months on these important questions.  In the meantime, Able staff and board members send you best wishes for a happy and prosperous new year.