Missouri at work…investing in tomorrow is the theme for the 2009 Governors Conference on Economic Development.  Two local WIB staff are hard at work as presenters for the conference, slated September 9-11 in St. Louis.

Sherri Rhuems, the WIB’s Quality Assurance Coordinator, is featured on a joint panel presentation titled Best Practices with Workeys and Missouri CRC.    Participants can learn how to be more successful with Workkeys and the Missouri Career Readiness Certificate (CRC) with a round table discussion lead by representatives from the following Workforce Development Regions: Southwest, Southeast, Kansas City and the University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL) answering questions posed by the attendees regarding best practices.  This session is slated from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday, September 9th.

WIB Executive Director, Jasen Jones, leads Just in Time Digital Workforce Solutions from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, the 10th.    The workforce system integrated with economic development helps Missouri Career Centers provide demand-driven solutions for businesses and net real results in workforce productivity.   Workshop attendees will get a preview of solutions under development across Southwest Missouri as well as leading-edge trends emerging in top-producing regions nationwide. Lower cost, higher volume, and higher impact are the benchmarks for these products that leverage consumer broadband penetration across the workforce pipeline of recruitment, screening, gap training, and retention.

The Governor’s Conference on Economic Development is sponsored and coordinated by the Division of Business & Community Services, the Division of Workforce Development, the Missouri Development Finance Board, the Missouri Housing Development Commission, and the Missouri Women’s Council.

The Workforce Investment Board (WIB) of Southwest Missouri, in partnership with the Missouri Career Center, launched a powerful awareness program Tuesday to promote solutions for job seekers and employers to speed up economic recovery efforts across the region. Read more

In the 2007 book Breakthrough Creativity and the Science of New Ideas, author Richard Ogle proclaims that creativity originates from networking in an extended “idea space.”  The WIB provides a one-of-a-kind conduit here in the Four States Region to connect the organizations seeking to transform the regional economy.

As the leader in convening and planning workforce strategy for Southwest Missouri, the WIB depends on several powerful, effective partnerships and networking affiliations throughout the realm of Economic/Business Development, Education, and Community-Based organizations. The WIB is also affiliated with prominent state and national entities to represent Southwest Missouri as a leader in economic and workforce development.

Economic Development

• Quad-States Regional Transformation
• Local Economic Development Organizations
• Local Chambers of Commerce
• Southwest Missouri Economic Development Alliance
• Four State Health Professions Consortium
• Missouri-Arkansas Partnership
• Regional Chamber of SW MO and NW AR
• Ozarks Regional Economic Development Partnership
• Missouri Economic Development Council
• Missouri Partnership

Education, and Training

• Alliance for Business (MSSU & Crowder College)
• Franklin Technology Center (Joplin)
• Carthage Technical Center
• Crowder College Technical Education Center  (Neosho)
• Lamar Vo-Tech
• Southwest Area Career Center (Monett Vo-Tech)
• Human Resources Networking Affiliations

State and National Affiliations for Excellence

• Training & Employment Administrators of Missouri (TEAM)
• Missouri Association for Customized Training (MACT)
• Missouri Association for Workforce Development (MAWD)
• National Association of Workforce Boards (NAWB)
• Society for Human Resource Management
• Tri-State Human Resources Association
• The New Innovators Learning Network/Corporation for a Skilled Workforce
• National Association for Workforce Development Professionals

Workforce System Suppliers

• Business Solutions Website from WorkforceZone.Com
• Career Solutions Website from WorkforceZone.Org
• Quad-States Regional Transformation
• Alternative Opportunities (Career Center Operator)
• Missouri Division of Workforce Development
• Education Opportunity Center (Crowder College)
• Franklin Technology Center/Missouri Southern State University
• Joplin R-8 Adult Basic Education
• Crowder College Adult Basic Education
• Experience Works
• Vocational Rehabilitation
• U.S. Department of Labor/Employment & Training Administration

The WIB is a preferred source of trend analysis on the labor market and a gateway of valuable services to help business leaders reduce risk and maximize investments in human capital.  These products and services cover a full cycle of market research, recruitment and screening of candidates, training initiatives to reduce skill gaps and boost productivity, sector affiliations to build supply chain value, and much more.

The WIB delivers its products and services in a variety of ways to meet customer needs.  In addition to the richness of the WorkforceZone website and other online tools, the WIB guides and funds services through the Missouri Career Centers in Joplin and Monett.  These storefronts at the Career Centers offer one-on-one, in-person customer service and host dozens of workshops and recruitments each year.

• Workforce Services for Business Customers
• Workforce Services for Job Seeker Customers
• The WIB’s leadership role for the Workforce System
• The Theory and Practice of Workforce Development

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The WIB is a preferred source of trend analysis on the labor market and a gateway of valuable services to help business leaders reduce risk and maximize investments in human capital.  These products and services cover a full cycle of market research, recruitment and screening of candidates, training initiatives to reduce skill gaps and boost productivity, sector affiliations to build supply chain value, and much more.

Local Economic Development Organizations (EDOs) and Chambers of Commerce truly embrace the global market push that rates workforce skill and availability among the top site selection issues considered by decision-makers for business attraction and expansion. The WIB’s economic development operational focus positions the WIB as a viable partner and extension of economic development services for EDOs and Chambers across the region. The WIB steps in to assist the smaller communities without a full-time economic development operation and provides a valuable workforce enhancement to the EDO operations in larger communities.

The Southwest Missouri Development Alliance, a regional marketing entity for economic development, routinely uses the services of the WIB to help promote the workforce assets of the region. Large-scale business prospects considering startups, relocations, or expansions to the region through the Alliance and its member communities depend on the WIB to provide valuable market analysis and an independent third-party evaluation of the success potential for companies by interpreting regional workforce data.

The Quad-States Regional Transformation (QSRT) initiative further strengthens the partnerships with EDOs and Chambers of Commerce. More than a dozen Chambers of Commerce united toward regionalism through a series of quarterly summits and taskforce groups launched in April 2008. This momentum drives the components of regional economic transformation deep into the hearts of business and community leaders region-wide. While indirectly maximizing the WIB’s resources and outcomes, the regional movement meets the shared mission of the WIB and the Chambers for economic prosperity.

• Local/Regional Economic Development Organizations
• Local Chambers of Commerce
• Quad-States Regional Transformation

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Culture of Innovation

In a constantly-changing economy, the WIB must be on the cutting edge in its field. The WIB deploys creative approaches, advances in technology, and customized best practices (those designed and adapted from other areas) to gain better results. Southwest Missouri’s WIB is well-known for piloting new initiatives for the state, such as the Alchemy Training SISTEM, Virtual Video Interviews, advanced market data systems, network weaving, etc.

Local, state, and national recognition of our innovation is a positive measure of the WIB’s success. The Board seizes opportunities to showcase its accomplishments and best practices at workforce/economic development conferences. The SW MO WIB leverages it research and development resources to the fullest to discover new ways to blend best practices and emerging innovations to create new economic development solutions for the region.

Connected Networks

In the 2007 book Breakthrough Creativity and the Science of New Ideas, author Richard Ogle proclaims that creativity originates from networking in an extended “idea space.” One such venue is the WIB’s participation in the New Innovators Learning Network through the Corporation for a Skilled Workforce. Southwest Missouri is represented with some of the best and brightest WIBs across the U.S. in this invitation-only collaborative.

The WIB enjoys deep relationships with Chambers of Commerce and economic development organizations across the region, sharing many common stakeholder members and projects of mutual benefit. Emerging partnerships of businesses within targeted industry sector position the WIB with an accurate understanding as well as a razor-sharp focus on business needs and economic trends.

Members of the Board and its task force affiliations are targeted for their strategic, big-picture nature, unique talents, leadership experience, and targeted sector representation. This well-designed mix of leadership assets further enhances the WIB’s reach and impact.

Authoritative Market Intelligence

As described in the products and services of the business plan, many business and community leaders along with the news media consider the WIB a premiere source of market data intelligence for the region. These data assets make the WIB attractive to business decision-makers as well as other development organizations that share common goals and strategies with the WIB.

As sited earlier in the business plan and in the WIB Quality Benchmarking research, The key indicator for the Critical Success Factor #3 shows that quality WIBs assesses factors of community success that are greater than the board’s span of control.

“The measures are used to raises awareness of others. The board uses its influence to move the community toward solutions, and evaluates its success in doing so. Community report cards or other types of reports are repeated regularly to assess whether the community is becoming more competitive or falling behind,” according to the benchmarking study.

Conduit for Regional Transformation

The SW MO WIB fills the convener and coordinator role to launch the Quad-States Regional Transformation initiative. The $250,000 Regional Innovation Grant awarded to the WIB that runs through 2008-2009 steps up the pace for projects and strategies that have been prominent in the WIB’s vision for the past three years. The grants make possible the implementation of the WIRED framework. Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development, or WIRED for short, can be easily described as an “extreme makeover” for a region’s economy. WIRED is the recipe that blends the critical role of human capital and talent development with effective economic development strategies to drive the future of the Four-States toward global competiveness and economic prosperity.

QSRT’s Core Leadership Team manages six-step WIRED framework spanning the Spring of 2008 through Fall of 2009. Deliverables include an all-inclusive inventory of the region’s competitive assets, new coalitions to cultivate growth within industry sectors, recovery for depressed local economies, and upgrades for key workforce pipelines. The ultimate convergence of leadership, assets, and strategies is the Regional Transformation Plan. This powerful accord commits the resources needed to invest in the future of the Four States.

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A business leader’s decision process to start a new business, relocate to a new area, or expand an existing firm wisely considers the levels of risk and return for new ventures.  One of the key factors in business investment decision-making is the availability to find quality workers that are trainable and productive while lowering the costs of turnover as much as possible.

The WIB is a preferred source of trend analysis on the labor market and a gateway of valuable services to help business leaders reduce risk and maximize investments in human capital.  These products and services cover a full cycle of market research, recruitment and screening of candidates, training initiatives to reduce skill gaps and boost productivity, sector affiliations to build supply chain value, and much more.

• More on Research services
• More on Economic Development services
• More on Workforce Development Services
• Other strategies and initiatives

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The youth pipeline is one of the most important strategies of the WIB to ensure that today’s youth meet the workforce needs for tomorrow.  More than a third of the WIB’s program budget for the workforce system is geared toward serving youth ages 14-21 for training and employment impact.  The WIB also partners with affiliations of other youth-related agencies to coordinate impactful youth outreach.

The WIB employs a full-time Emerging Workforce Initiatives Coordinator to manage a Youth Council that oversees youth services for the Career Center and networking among youth service providers.  This resource also interfaces with drop-out prevention programs as well as education system initiatives to respond to regional business needs.

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The WIB identified seven targeted industry segments to focus its resources for the highest rate of return on investment possible. Sectors include advanced manufacturing, healthcare, transportation/distribution/logistics, customer service, construction, energy/utilities, information technology. Sector targets are validated by existing needs, ability to create impact, and projected growth trends. The prioritization of the sectors is represented in performance benchmarks for the Career Center, development of sector partnerships, and the representation through the WIB’s task force and board membership affiliations.

The WIB has a two-fold goal to expand and enhance on its initial success of economic development collaboration. Since the true labor market comprises the crossroads of four state corners with both challenges and opportunities, the WIB desires to replicate its impact beyond political borders to become a more effective workforce intermediary. As the WIB builds on its successful economic development foundation, the integration of economic development and workforce partners in Northwest Arkansas, Southeast Kansas, and Northeast Oklahoma together with Southwest Missouri will provide strategic synergies and positioning to leverage local resources and collaborate on future projects utilizing powerful models such as the WIRED (Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development) approach.

Once an effective cross-state regional integration approach is in place, the second phase of the WIB’s goal related to the NBLP is to continue the organization’s evolution to a powerful workforce intermediary. There is a significant difference between a functional WIB and a true workforce intermediary. The WIB has made a great deal of progress has been made in moving to the workforce intermediary model within Southwest Missouri. Efforts such as a regional skills gap analysis project and subsequent State of the Workforce report have united several diverse organizations and partners to remedy employee retention issues resulting from soft skill shortages in the region’s current human capital package. The next natural phase of this evolution is to build an influential array of resources that extend beyond those of WIA alone. Such a portfolio would include resources developed through fee-for-service models, sponsorship opportunities from leading businesses and training partners, and an overall competitive advantage for federal resources and charitable foundation grants.

The National Business Learning Partnership is a key initiative to launch sector-based impact efforts. The development of industry sector consortium partnerships will provide an ideal vehicle to deliver demand-driven workforce and economic development solutions for Southwest Missouri. 2007 marks the launch of a dynamic manufacturing consortium in the Monett area. The Four States Health Professions Consortium also represents a successful effort for related companies to collaborate for regional solutions.

Check back often to WorkforceZone.net for the latest of the WIB’s initiative to development industry sector partnerships in Southwest Missouri.

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