Partnering for a
Competitive Workforce:
Strategic Plan 2013-2018
Partnering for a Competitive Workforce:
Strategic Plan 2013-2018
Approved March 20, 2013
Table of Contents
Introduction and Overview
... 1Vision for Workforce System
... 5Strategic Priorities
... 9Coordinated Resources for System-Wide Innovation
.... 23Implementation
... 26Appendix A:
Strategic Pathways toward System
Improvement: Work Plans
... 271. Introduction and Overview
A Transformative Vision of the Public Workforce System
Who we are:
Philadelphia Works helps employers find skilled workers and helps job seekers develop the skills they need to succeed in the workplace. We do this by:
• Funding and providing technical assistance on career guidance, job training, and job placement services offered by our implementation partners
• Offering employers wage subsidies, employee training, and re-training assistance, working with them to help employees who have been laid off; offering job listings, candidate recruitment and screening services through our implementation partners
• Conducting research on employment and workforce trends and making our findings available to businesses, policy makers, service providers, and the media
• Promoting public policy that meets the needs of jobseekers and employers.
• Convening and coordinating the city’s workforce system and its connections to economic development, education, youth and social service systems
Philadelphia Works is supported by federal, state, city, and privately-raised employment and training funds.
Our funded implementation partners are:
• PA CareerLink® Philadelphia, which helps employers find workers and adult job seekers find jobs
• The Philadelphia Youth Network and its network of youth service providers, which trains and
helps young people find jobs, finish high school and prepare for post-secondary training
• Employment, Advancement, and Retention Network (EARN) Centers, which offer employment services to those receiving public assistance
• Industry partnerships, which bring together employers, workers, and job training providers from a single industry cluster to collaborate on improving competitiveness and address common workforce problems
• Occupational skills training providers, which provide job training to eligible Philadelphians. The board of Philadelphia Works serves as the city’s Workforce Investment Board, is employer-led and represents business, government, education, economic development, workers and community partners. Its members are appointed by the Mayor as mandated through the federal Workforce Investment Act. The Mayor charged Philadelphia Works to create a “No Wrong Door” approach to services for both employers and job seekers recognizing the need in Philadelphia for employment services, training and job readiness aligned with educational and literacy gains in support of economic development.
More than 490,000 Philadelphia residents of working age (16 and older) are not employed or looking for jobs. Each year since the recession ended almost 70,000 Philadelphians were unemployed, some for
years. Many others work limited hours or only occasionally. Even more residents work in low-wage jobs with insufficient hours to meet their families’ needs. At the same time, employers express concerns about the availability of qualified workers. It is the role of the workforce system — which Philadelphia Works coordinates and oversees — to make the match between employers and jobseekers. Our city and economy benefit when Philadelphians raise their incomes and employers can meet their hiring needs.
The history of system change
Since 2009, a number of changes have taken place in the Philadelphia workforce system in response to a directive from Mayor Nutter to make significant changes in how workforce services are delivered in Philadelphia. In April 2011 the Corporation for a Skilled Workforce (CSW), which helps states and communities manage changes in their workforce development systems, completed a system-wide assessment of the Philadelphia workforce system. The report contained a number of recommendations to help us serve more people, work more effectively for employers and job-seekers, and coordinate services better with public and private education and training institutions, Philadelphia’s public economic development agencies, and nonprofit organizations delivering human services to individuals and families.
Based on recommendations in the CSW report, our predecessor organizations began an 18-month process that in 2012 resulted in the merger of the Philadelphia Workforce Investment Board and the Philadelphia Workforce Development Corporation into a single new organization, Philadelphia Works, Inc. The new organization is leaner and includes a more integrated governance and staff structure guiding the provision of workforce services, strong fiscal oversight and controls, and essential workforce-related research functions. Workforce services that had been operated directly by the Philadelphia Workforce Development Corporation have been contracted out to an experienced service provider.
This merger produced early positive results, including achieving, for the first time in five years, all nine Workforce Investment Act Common Measure performance goals set by the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry.
A blueprint to complete a strategic plan
Philadelphia Works turned its attention toward developing a strategic plan for the next five years, addressing other, non-structural recommendations outlined in the Corporation for a Skilled Workforce assessment report. The year-long planning process involved representatives from nearly 60
organizations. In addition to guiding Philadelphia Works in streamlining and improving its own operations, the plan focuses on enhancing the effectiveness of the entire Philadelphia workforce
development system addressing, large and small employers; educational, literacy, and technical training institutions; economic development agencies;, and providers of essential services for adult and youth job seekers. Philadelphia Works is committed to playing a leadership and convening role in helping the entire system serve businesses and jobseekers more effectively while successfully coordinating with our many partners in the city.
Although some changes can be implemented relatively quickly, others will be more difficult, and progress will be measured in years rather than months.
Assumptions Underlying the New Plan
The Philadelphia Works board identified several of the recommendations in the Corporation for a Skilled Workforce report as crucial for improving the effectiveness of the Philadelphia workforce system as well as enhancing our own capabilities. These include increasing marketing and service quality to attract more customers to the system, implementing a true one-stop system that integrates WIA- and TANF-funded clients and services, creating more direct connections with training and education providers, working more closely with Philadelphia’s economic development agencies, and strengthening outreach and services to smaller employers who are responsible for a significant proportion of Philadelphia’s new jobs.
Techniques identified by the board for achieving these goals include 1) better and more extensive marketing of the system to reach more employers; (2) making better use of new technologies including new social media tools and virtual strategies for service delivery; (3) maintaining strong research capabilities and adopting more evidence-based practices; and (4) recognizing that system innovations will require a broader funding base, including new foundation funding and private-sector contributions, as well as policy changes to allow the use of public dollars in more flexible ways to support programs that work.
The overarching assumption driving the proposed process is that over the 3-5 year period covered by the plan, Philadelphia Works has a twofold system change responsibility to: (1) further refocus our own programs and investments along the lines indicated by recent system assessments; and (2) facilitate a common vision and action plan owned by all parties in the broader Philadelphia workforce system that addresses the needs of both employers and job seekers and deploys available public resources to support this collective mandate.
This plan frames an ambitious change agenda – one that not only includes strategies that will inform how the agency deploys the public resources under our direct control but also additional results-focused strategies that are expected to encourage a much broader, more comprehensive reform effort that will require increased coordination and alignment of key stakeholders within the broader workforce system. To accomplish this, the plan:
• Provides broad vision, direction, and strategies for the whole workforce system, including but not limited to the programs and investments over which Philadelphia Works and our partners have direct control;
• Specifies a set of strategic priorities that the Philadelphia Works board can own and use not only to guide the core operations of the organization but also to shape how we lead the
• Lays the foundation for a collective-change strategy – including well-defined roles for appointed and elected officials, funders and resource providers, and other implementing partners with relevant programmatic expertise
• Introduces a new culture of accountability that Philadelphia Works and other participants in the workforce system agree to use as a basis for tracking progress throughout the system.
The Planning Process
The planning process accomplished several purposes: (1) fully engaged the reformulated Philadelphia Works board as the appointed governance body with broad representation of system stakeholders and responsible for setting the direction and priorities for the new merged organization; (2)reflected the expectations of both the City administration and the Commonwealth regarding the transformation of the workforce system; (2) built on recommendations from the Corporation for a Skilled Workforce assessment; (3) provided opportunities for a wide range of workforce system members in setting the directions, strategies, and measurement framework that will lead the transformation of the system; and (4) established priorities and strategies for enhancing the system that Philadelphia Works and other workforce system participants will adopt.
During the planning process, work groups made up of Philadelphia Works board and staff members and representatives of workforce system participants were formed to examine a number of topic areas. The groups identified system improvement strategies and defined near and long term objectives related to those strategies. This work was presented and discussed at a meeting of all work group members, which included representatives from 35 organizations including economic development, literacy, youth, education, workforce and social service agencies (see Appendix X for list of participants). Philadelphia Works staff members then worked with a planning consultant to synthesize the themes identified by the groups into a draft strategic plan. The draft plan was shared with additional members of the business community, other service providers, and academic experts, who made additional suggestions. The current document is the result of these efforts.
The process was completed in two phases of engagement beyond the board. The first phase of planning began in October and concluded in December 2012.During Phase I, work groups made up of board representatives, staff members, and members of outside organizations came to consensus on specific system improvement strategies and defined specific near term and sometimes longer term objectives related to those strategies. The second planning phase began in January 2013 and will extend through June 2013. During this phase, Philadelphia Works staff and key stakeholders created two-year work plans for implementation and shared these with a broader array of stakeholders – including members of the business community, additional service providers, academic experts and others – on March 15, 2013. These stakeholders helped identify potential implementation challenges and made suggestions to strengthen each approach. By this summer, metrics that track progress of key objectives will be
Outline of this Strategic Plan Document
This plan has five sections:
• Section one
is an introduction and overview
.
• Section two
lays out our vision for how we will build a more effective and integrated workforce system. It introduces a conceptual framework highlighting changes which need to occur in order to produce the scale of transformation we are seeking.• Section three
introduces five priorities for changing the system over the next five years, including nine two-year objectives to focus our initial efforts. It also outlines the roles of Philadelphia Works and our partners.• Section four
considers the kinds of investment and new resources that will be needed to pursue the objectives identified in Section three.• Section five
addresses the process of moving from the planning stage to implementation of the strategic plan.•
The appendix
includes a summary chart of all goals, objectives, and desired outcomes, two-year work plans and timelines for each of the nine objectives, plus a listing of all participants in the planning process.2.
A New Statement of Philadelphia Works’ Vision
This section sets the stage for the remainder of the document by introducing three key elements of the vision that will guide the implementation of the strategic plan: (1) a new understanding of the
Philadelphia Works organizational mission and the overall vision that is now guiding a variety of
organizational and programmatic improvement efforts; (2) a commitment by the organization to assume a broader system leadership role that includes the responsibility to establish and guide an inclusive, system-wide collective impact strategy; and (3) a new conceptual map that highlights the broad directions in which Philadelphia’s workforce system must now move in order to better meet the needs of employers and job seekers. Interspersed with this vision is the commitment to accountability.
A New Statement of Philadelphia Works’ Vision
Guiding this plan is a new and broader vision for Philadelphia Works’ that we will use in conjunction with our mission statement. It places emphasis on our responsibility to be responsive and innovative while working in support of the City of Philadelphia’s broader economic goals.
Over the past two years, the Philadelphia public workforce system has made significant progress in changing its structure and programs. There is now a single organization in place with a single president and CEO. Three governing boards have been combined into one. There is strong oversight of
investments across the system. Board committees have been combined and restructured. On the programmatic side, the organization:
• has competitively bid out the WIA Title I Adult & Dislocated Worker services delivered at
the PA CareerLink® system
• is working with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to better integrate services no
matter how they are funded, consistent with the no-wrong-door approach advocated by
Mayor Michael Nutter and has realigned programs to reflect state policy shifts related
to both WIA and TANF funding.
• successfully rebid and approved a provider for the role of the youth administrator,
which serves young jobseekers.
We are also prioritizing employer needs in all of our training investments and reorganizing and expanding our business services approach. We completed research on marketing improvements with the Temple Fox School of Business, and are working with local chambers of commerce and other economic development groups to expand employer relationships and more effectively identify job trends. We are better able to respond to the needs of smaller employers through our closer
relationships with the City of Philadelphia’s Commerce Department and PIDC. Stronger relationships are being built with education and literacy providers and new collaborations are beginning to translate priorities into policy and implementation.
Across the board, there is a new commitment to continuous improvement and effective measurement. There are new quality assurance positions within the contracted WIA PA CareerLink® Philadelphia staff and Philadelphia Works staff that draw on performance data to promote continuous improvement.
Our Mission: Philadelphia Works connects employers to a skilled workforce and
helps individuals develop the skills needed to thrive in the workplace.
Our Vision: Philadelphia’s workforce system will be among the most integrated,
innovative, productive and transparent systems of its kind in the country:
• Consistently delivering value for employers and job-seekers,
• Contributing measurably to the economic growth of the region, and
• Serving as a model for others to learn from and replicate.
Work is underway on a system-wide performance measurement dashboard. Customer service satisfaction assessments for both employers and job seekers will be provided by an independent assessor.
These actions are critical for enhancing our own capacity to serve businesses and jobseekers. Equally important, this plan introduces a broader approach for combining these efforts with those of other service providers and partners including a much broader array of actors playing key roles in adjacent systems such as economic development, education and human services.
Achieving Transformation through a Collective Impact Approach
In our vision of the Philadelphia workforce system, our role involves more than managing the public dollars for which we are responsible and guiding the operations of our own organization. We also have the responsibility to provide broader leadership that results in the transformation of the entire system so that it works better and more efficiently for everyone involved. This is often referred to as a
commitment to achieving collective impact. Within such an approach, there are clearly defined roles for everyone, from elected and appointed officials, funders and resource providers, and other implementing partners with relevant programmatic expertise. There are mutually agreed goals that all participants work together to achieve. There is also shared accountability for results that can be measured and a mutual commitment to gathering the information needed to track progress throughout the system. While Philadelphia Works commits to this broader vision of system improvement, we cannot accomplish changes of this scale on our own. We are prepared to play a key leadership and convening role similar to that now being played by the highest functioning workforce investment boards in the country. Only by working together can all the stakeholders in the system accomplish the type and scale of
transformation we envisage.
Building Blocks of a More Integrated System
Through our planning process we and our partners identified five priorities for developing a more integrated and better-functioning system. These are pictured in Figure 1 below and are elaborated on in the remainder of this plan. These five priorities are connected. To be successful in addressing them systematically, new investments will be required, as shown in the center of the diagram. Some efforts will be achieved through our own individual actions; others will require cooperation among multiple participants in the workforce system.
Share resources to promote system-wide innovation
More flexible funding New information technologies Common performance measures
Strategic marketing
Research and evidence-based practices Supportive policy changes
Strengthen collaboration between the workforce system and Philadelphia’s
economic development efforts
Identify shared industy clusters with job growth
potential Create stronger industry
partnerships Serve smaller employers Engage more smaller
businesses Coordinate services that
lead to more employer customer satisfaction
Implement "no wrong door"
Integrate WIA and EARN systems and meet all baseline performance
measures Implement an enhanced
service delivery model with resource mapping and referral tracking
Adopt common employer-driven education and training standards across all ages
Identify and deliver foundational work skills
Meet work readiness standards Build career pathways
used by employers
Prioritize hardest-to-serve
populations
Expand on-line and community-based basic
skills learning Pilot specialized earn
and learn services for population groups
Figure 1
3. Strategic Priorities
During the first phase of the planning process, strategies were developed in five broad priority areas that closely match the main arenas in which larger-scale system changes must occur to produce a more integrated and better-functioning system. The priority areas are:
• Bring Philadelphia’s workforce and economic development systems and investments
into closer alignment
• Serving smaller employers
• Implement “No Wrong Door”
• Adopt common employer-driven standards for education and training
• Prioritize hardest-to-serve populations
These priority areas and the objectives that have been defined within them are all closely integrated. Within each of these priority areas, those participating in the first-phase planning not only proposed specific system improvement strategies, but also one or more near-term objectives that Philadelphia Works and other key stakeholders. Each priority is discussed below.
Priority One:
Strengthen collaboration between the workforce system and
Philadelphia’s economic development efforts
As a result of the planning process, Philadelphia Works will place a high emphasis on systems thinking and strengthening collaboration between the workforce system and Philadelphia’s economic
development efforts. This will take several forms, including tying workforce and economic development efforts to fast-growing industry clusters and developing a plan for training skilled workers in these areas. It also includes cross-training workforce and economic development staff in the products and services each offers, developing supporting materials to share, and holding regular meetings between the two sectors to assess progress and make policy adjustments as needed.
The Economic Development work group that considered potential ways of bringing workforce and economic development systems into closer alignment included representatives from Philadelphia Works, key officials from the City of Philadelphia’s economic development agencies (the Deputy Mayor, the Deputy Director of Commerce and the Director of PIDC) as well as representatives from labor, education, small business and the retail, hospitality and manufacturing sectors. This group framed its work by identifying several broad objectives to be addressed collaboratively: (1) better leverage Philadelphia’s employer expansion, retention and attraction strategies with workforce development investments; (2) align the work of existing and new Industry Partnerships with industry priorities of the city; (3) strengthen the role of workforce supports within investments to meet start-up, expansion and retention needs of small businesses; and (4) more closely connect and build job-seeker skills to match
existing and future employer demand. These four objectives were congruent with and overlapped with objectives of other work groups. For ease of presentation, this strategic plan combines the first two in a single objective presented here, creates a separate priority for the third, and includes the fourth under the “Employer-Driven Standards” priority.
Objective: Tie Philadelphia Works’ industry priorities with the industry priorities of
Philadelphia’s economic development agencies
This objective will guide efforts to increase coordination between Philadelphia Works and the City of Philadelphia Commerce Department and PIDC, the City’s economic development agencies. Philadelphia Works already participates in PIDC’s weekly business-recruitment meetings and works with City
personnel to provide trained employees for relocating or expanding businesses that need additional workers.
We will also be collaborating with these economic development agencies more closely on marketing and promotion and using on-line methods of communicating with employers as well as implementing the City’s new ‘‘first source” legislation which requires employers receiving economic development assistance from City agencies to make use of the public workforce system in meeting their personnel needs.
A key area of partnership will involve working more closely to address the workforce needs of targeted industry clusters. Specifically, we will develop at least one new industry partnership for a cluster with strong growth potential. Currently, Philadelphia Works oversees a number of industry partnerships which bring together employers, workers, and job training providers from a single industry cluster to collaborate on improving the industry's competitiveness and address common workforce needs. These partnerships offer access to regional and industry-specific knowledge and training and create
professional networks that promote innovation, collaboration, and efficiency.
Criteria for selecting clusters include evidence of steady growth, turnover in hiring sufficient to provide predictable placement opportunities for job-seekers, and the potential for employees to move along career pathways and achieve family-sustaining wages. Emphasis will also be placed on clusters that are most likely to offer near-term job opportunities over the next 18-24 months.
Another opportunity for collaboration is dedicating Philadelphia Works’ funding to support employers already working with the Commerce Department and PIDC in such areas as hiring employees from the workforce system and providing on-the-job training for newly hired staff members.
As work with the city’s Department of Commerce progressed, feedback from the March 15, 2013 stakeholder meeting provided further refinement of the work plan for bringing economic development and workforce systems closer together. First, after discussing several of the proposed clusters for more coordinated investment, there was general agreement that the energy sector in general should receive greater attention since it includes an array of existing utility-related jobs as well as new jobs involving green technologies. Second, coordination efforts across agencies should concentrate on identifying
specific employment positions within industry clusters that offer opportunities for job placements for Philadelphians. Third, there should be a focus on clusters and employment positions that are most likely to offer near-term job opportunities that will enable placements to grow over the next 18-24 months.
Philadelphia Works Role:
• Help collect industry data and information on industry priorities.
• Work as part of the cross-agency group to map commonly-supported industry clusters. • Develop workforce development priorities that support and sustain commonly-supported
industry clusters
• Invest workforce funds and staff resources in support of cluster priorities.
Partnership Roles:
Philadelphia Commerce Department and PIDC:• Identify City economic development priorities to aid in development of appropriate clusters • Identify City resources that will help sustain identified clusters
• Assist with data collection on industry workforce needs
• Commit to ongoing staff collaboration and information sharing with Philadelphia Works
Two-year goals:
The City of Philadelphia Commerce Department, PIDC, and Philadelphia Works will collect qualitative and quantitative data on key industrial sectors and industry priorities for joint investment by all three agencies. In two years:
• At least one new industry partnership will be in operation with an identified sustainability plan
• Industry cluster priorities will serve as the basis for training investments and developing pipelines of training and career pathways for job-seekers
Statement of Outcome(s)
Coordinating of efforts between Philadelphia Works and the City of Philadelphia’s economic
development agencies will result in an increase in the number of jobs from previous years, an increase in the number of employers utilizing public workforce resources, and demonstrated customer satisfaction with the system through third-party surveys.
Five-year Goals:
New industry partnership(s) will have substantial employer membership (more than 30 members) and a strategic focus; industry partnerships have sufficient resources and activePriority Two:
Serving Smaller Employers
Smaller employers account for the majority of jobs in the city, but most are unaware of Philadelphia Works or our services and those offered through our largest workforce system implementation partner, PA CareerLink® Philadelphia. To address this problem we will introduce a marketing effort to increase our visibility among small businesses. This will also provide us with information about the needs of small businesses and enable us to refine our efforts accordingly. We’ll also be taking several steps to serve small businesses better, including: (1) establishing a cross-agency team of experts who specialize in small businesses and entrepreneurs; (2) ensuring that workforce development staff who support small firms are specifically trained to do so; (3) ensuring that all workforce development staff members are aware of (and can refer potential candidates to) the system’s small business services; and (4) making available a wide variety of services, e.g., training funds for small businesses on such topics as business and financial management.
Objective: supporting small business start-up, expansion, and retention by coordinating with
Philadelphia’s economic development agencies
Within this priority area, a single objective will guide how the system engages smaller employers and improves our services to this large segment of Philadelphia’s employer population. The economic development work group proposed that in addition to other efforts underway to improve staff training in engaging with smaller employers, there is a need for a focused marketing plan that begins in a few specific clusters dominated by smaller employers.
To ensure coordination of efforts across the City of Philadelphia we will establish a small business advisory group comprising workforce and City representatives, as well as a representative group of small business owners who can provide suggestions and communicate a private-sector perspective,
continuous advice and input on economic and workforce development policies and practices intended to benefit this sector. Second, the city agencies involved in implementing improved outreach to and support of smaller employers should draw upon the expertise of established networks and associations who already serve as intermediaries and advocates for small businesses in Philadelphia.
Philadelphia Works Role:
• Develop informational material describing workforce services aimed at small businesses • Participate in public information campaign
• Use comments and suggestions from the small business advisory group to tailor services to meet small business needs
Partnership Role: Philadelphia Commerce Department
• Develop a public information campaign and a web-based clearinghouse targeting small businesses
• Assist with developing the contact database for cross-agency use.
• Include information on workforce services in public information materials including the on-line clearinghouse
Two-year goals:
• Public information campaign and website clearinghouse have been launched and the results of the campaign are tracked through the contact management system
• Increase in the number of employers using public workforce resources • Increased employer satisfaction with services
• Improved job retention rates for small business customers
Statement of Outcome(s)
At the end of two years, Philadelphia Works and the City of Philadelphia’s economic development agencies will offer more and better coordinated services in support of the startup, expansion, and retention needs of small businesses enabled through a newly expanded web-based information clearing house. The agencies will use a new contact management system to share employer contacts and track results A multi-agency small business advisory group will be formed, which will undertake a public information campaign that will result in more small businesses using public workforce services; increased numbers of workers for those businesses will be recruited through the workforce system as well.
Five-year Goal:
The new employee database and public information campaign will produce an increase in job listings from and placements insmaller businesses, as well as increased business satisfaction with workforce system services.Priority Three:
Implement “No Wrong Door”
The Corporation for a Skilled Workforce assessment highlighted the uneven quality of services, redundancies, lack of coordination, and competition for resources that exist between EARN and PA CareerLink® centers. Employers’ experiences with the centers differ substantially and small firms often fall through the cracks entirely. To ensure better service for all customers, a new culture emphasizing customer satisfaction, continuous improvement, better communications, and more effective gathering and use of data is needed. In part the current state of affairs is due to the different funding streams that support EARN and PA CareerLink® centers. With those resources come different sets of rules,
regulations, and performance standards. Fortunately, Pennsylvania is in the midst of a system
reorganization that will integrate the EARN and PA CareerLink® systems, resulting in a “no wrong door” approach. This will ensure that customers have access to a full array of services wherever they happen to be seeking assistance. Partners not directly funded with workforce development dollars will also
come to understand what services will be offered through this coordinated effort and where to route customers.
The commonwealth has established a timeline and process where counties begin the integration of these systems. Inherent in this will be defining what integration will mean in Philadelphia.
Objective: Implementing the “no wrong door” strategy – integration of services
Open three centers that are co-located and provide partially integrated services (including full service PA CareerLink ® activity) to job seekers and employers through various funding streams which meet market needs and achieve performance measures.
The first stages of reorganizing the system have been completed with the merger of two predecessor organizations into Philadelphia Works, which will have oversight responsibilities for the integrated EARN and PA CareerLink® systems. Next came the contracting out of the operation of the PA CareerLink® Philadelphia centers to a private operator. The remaining phases of the strategy will be the co-location and integration of WIA and EARN services.
Achieving integration of the two systems will require a review of policies and rulings that affect both to ensure smooth and effective service delivery to customers. enable WIA customers to access TANF offerings and TANF clients to tap into WIA-funded services. A second key goal is enhancing and enlarging the services that are provided, using virtual tools wherever feasible to reach and serve both employers and job seekers. Our goal is to make the newly integrated system more convenient for employers and also for job-seekers who are working every day, in school, or have other schedule constraints. By integrating the two systems we will also eliminate the competition in job development that now sometimes exists between the EARN and CareerLink® systems.
In addition, the integration of services under one roof lends to the vision of allowing any customer – job seeker or employer – to receive assistance at any point in our workforce system. In achieving this goal, it is imperative that all parties providing service or advice to our customer base understands the entire workforce landscape, what it can provide and where other services can be accessed. Even partners that are not directly funded with workforce development dollars will understand where to route our mutual customers and what services will be offered through this coordinated effort and then sustained
reinforcement over time.
Following are objectives for integrating the local EARN and PA CareerLink® systems: Philadelphia Works role:
• Identify the scope and scale of place-based facilities required and locate these appropriately • Release request for proposals, evaluate proposals, and approve providers for delivering services
in the system
Partners’ role:
• Providers: Develop and implement a service delivery model that allows for integration of services for all jobseekers and businesses
• Commonwealth agencies: Provide guidance, flexibility, and best practices data to support integration of the two systems
Two-year objective:
• Doors open to three centers providing co-located and partially integrated services to job seekers through both TANF and WIA funding on Tuesday, July 1, 2014
Statement of Outcome(s)
After opening three integrated career centers we will then integrate the remaining sites as well in the future. Achieving this objective will lower the number of diversified centers in the city, saving operating costs.
While the completion of this objective may leave additional existing model centers in existence (1-2 EARN Centers, 1 PA CareerLink® for example), the best practices from what could be considered as these piloted centers will produce a clear path for total city integration. Working together, and in close
proximity, will allow for additional creativity and innovation to leverage dwindling resources to deliver more workforce services to not only discover talented candidates, but also to train and up-skill the population.
Five-year Goal
: Meet all benchmarks and Common Measure performance goals in the integrated centers and determine the portions of the service delivery model that would be optimal for standardized, centralized operation for the best customer service experiencesObjective: Implementing the “no wrong door” strategy – enhanced service delivery
Many of the job seekers that come to the system for employment assistance have service needs outside our capacity to assist them. Our goal is to make appropriate referrals to our partners who can meet these needs. By using a gap analysis of services currently available within the workforce system and those of an ideal service delivery model, Philadelphia Works and our partners will develop routing and referral processes to meet the needs of job seekers and businesses.
Philadelphia Works role:
• Collect information and best practices about workforce service delivery models • Carry out the gap analysis
• Engage subject matter experts on workforce service delivery
Partners’ role:
• Provide recommendations on enhanced service model plans
Two-year goal:
• Implement enhanced service model in integrated centers in July 2014
Statement of Outcome(s)
When our enhanced service delivery model takes effect, Philadelphia will have taken the second large step to accomplish the no-wrong-door strategy.
Five-year Goal:
Full implementation of the no-wrong-door, enhanced service delivery model in all workforce system centersPriority Four:
Adopt Common Employer-Driven Standards for Education and
Training
This priority area seeks to achieve a more uniform approach to assessment and work readiness standards as well as agreement on which industry sectors and clusters should be the focus of collaboration among agencies within the workforce system. Currently there is a lack of consensus on these important issues which needs to be rectified to ensure that all customers of the workforce system have equal access to the same full set of services. The tools used to determine work readiness and job skills should be more standardized and the pathways toward sustainable employment should provide different opportunities for learning, including more options for learning while earning.
A goal of this priority is to promote more collaboration between educational and training providers and the industry partnerships that are in operation and which may be instated in the future.
Objective: Respond to labor market needs with contextualized literacy and job specific
training and education curricula
Develop tools for educators and training and literacy providers to use labor market data to support and pilot contextualized curricula that prepare job seekers — young people and adults — to work in fast-growing industry clusters.
We are committed to working with our partners to introduce contextualized literacy training into the Philadelphia workforce system. Contextualized literacy training incorporates real-life contexts into every stage of the teaching and learning process. It replaces an approach that first teaches skills and
knowledge separated from their context and hopes that learners know how to transfer what they have learned to situations outside the classroom, including the workplace.
A key step involves integrating youth and adult education, training, and literacy providers into our industry clusters to collaboratively identify skills and credentials, as well as develop model career
pathways, needed for future employment success and taking advantage of alternative credentialing systems (ex: Digital On Ramps, digital badges). There should be directed efforts to include the voice of In particular, to integrate the youth workforce system with industry clusters will require routine information sharing with and among our youth council, the Philadelphia Council for College and Career Success, and representatives of the School District of Philadelphia’s career and technical education system.
Philadelphia Works role:
• Develop labor market data for current and emerging fast-growing occupations
• Link youth and adult education, literacy, and training professionals with current and future industry partnerships
• Invest WIA funds into job-specific skills training and employment via individual training accounts, customized job training, and on-the-job training to support career pathways • Identify employment and career advancement opportunities in prioritized career pathways • Support efforts to raise additional funding for curriculum development, job training, and
post-secondary education for job seekers
Partners’ role:
• Education, literacy, and training professionals: Work with industry partnerships and provide technical assistance in mapping career pathways based on skills and credentials
• Employers: Participate in industry partnerships and provide recommendations on skills that should be targeted in training and related curricula
• Collaborate with workforce and education partners to create entry and mid-level employment for appropriately trained job seekers
• Human service organizations: Provide job seekers with services to transition into education and employment opportunities
• Identify employment opportunities in priority career pathways
PA CareerLink® role:
• Help identify employment and training opportunities, support literacy providers in creating curricula that prepares clients for these opportunities, and refer clients to literacy providers as needed
• Prioritize serving job seekers participating in career pathway programs for employment and post-secondary opportunities
• Link new employers to the PA CareerLink® system with industry partnerships
• Invest WIA funds into job-specific skills training and employment via individual training accounts,, customized job training, and on-the-job training that support career pathways • Identify employment opportunities within prioritized career pathways
• Implement a retention strategy to ensure that customers transition successfully into employment
Two-year goal/ Statement of Outcome(s)
Develop labor market data for educators and training and literacy providers to support and pilot-test contextualized curricula focused on knowledge and job skills to meet employers’ present and future needs
At the end of two years, educators and literacy and training providers will have closer relationships with employers and industry leaders and gain labor market intelligence and create new curricula in response to industry needs. Philadelphia Works will have obligated training dollars to the job-specific skills training associated with in-demand jobs.
Five-year Goal:
Philadelphia Works and our partners’ skills-development efforts match labor market needs. More workers will have gained job-specific skills training for in-demand positions and increased their literacy levels; employers will have a larger selection of qualified workers to choose from.Objective: Mapping Career Pathways
Map career pathways containing education requirements, skills, and industry recognized credentials for high priority occupations
The aim of this objective is to develop trained workers to meet employer needs in targeted industry areas. We will do this by developing career pathways in conjunction with industry partnerships. Such career pathways require building shared understanding of the education, skills, and credentials required to advance along sector-specific career pathways (for example, District 1199C’s health career pathways). Pathways need to be defined in partnership with employers and education providers. They include credentials that are both industry-recognized and that recognize prior learning and experiential learning. This approach to career mapping should increase the accessibility of information regarding available employment and training opportunities supported by the workforce system and that may exist outside of public workforce agencies.
Philadelphia Works role:
• Work with partners to develop three career pathways over two years in existing industry partnerships that have large numbers of entry-level positions and the opportunity for career advancement
• Engage employer partners, the PA Department of Labor and Industry, US Department of Labor, higher education and think tank organizations in committing to and supporting the career pathways initiatives.
Partners’ roles:
Employers and literacy, training, and education organizations: Participate in industry partnerships and provide technical assistance in developing career pathwaysEducation and literacy and training providers: Establish and sustain a work group to coordinate the development of career pathway maps aligned with educational steps, competencies, skills, and industry recognized credentials
Two-year goals/
Statement of Outcome(s)
Philadelphia Works will coordinate industry partnerships in developing an initial set of career pathways along the educational steps, competencies, skills, and credentials that are needed in each pathway and shared them with other system partners.
Five-year goal:
Additional career pathways are identified and mapped along with the credentials that are needed in each pathway; system partners are using career pathways to provide career coaching to youth and adult job seekers to make more informed career choices; literacy partners are using career pathways to contextualize instruction and develop bridge courses that link to post-secondary education; post-secondary partners are using career pathways to chunk learning and create stackable,high-demand credentialing programs; and, career pathway maps inform decisions about how to invest education and training funds (e.g., attainment of industry recognized credentials).
Objective: Increasing work readiness
Increase work readiness across the city
Philadelphia residents have relatively low educational attainment. Only 23 percent of Philadelphia adults hold a college degree and 35.2 percent have only a high school diploma or equivalency. These low levels of formal education result in tens of thousands of residents who are unable to meet the training and skill requirements of employers. Addressing this problem is exceptionally complicated and will require an enormous investment of resources. Philadelphia Works and the workforce system have an important role to play but it will not be sufficient to rectify the problem. Nonetheless, gains can be achieved. Our goal is to carry out a core work readiness competencies program among service providers,
secondary and post-secondary education institutions, and businesses. Developing career pathways is an important part of this effort. A second component includes standardizing assessments, training, and other services for all job seekers. This will mean obtaining citywide consensus (programs, agencies, and employers) on a common set of assessments, such as Work Keys and TABE/CASAS, and sharing data on learner progress.
Philadelphia Works role:
Work with partners to review best practices to define work readiness standards, deliver the foundational and work readiness skills in demand by local employers, work with partners to develop an instructional work readiness toolkit and test its effectivenessPartners roles:
Employers: Provide information to identify work readiness and foundational skills necessary for job seekers to obtain entry-level job opportunities
Youth system, adult workforce system, education and literacy and training providers: Assist
Philadelphia Works in completing and testing a work readiness toolkit to assess skills and capacities of job seekers
Two-year goals:
• Philadelphia Works, service providers, and businesses will develop a commonly accepted definition of work readiness and a compendium of instructional tools for teaching job seekers the identified skills, and provide a credentialing system to enable employers to recognize work-ready candidates. The definition and tools will be updated periodically as needed to reflect changes in employer needs and best practices.
• As the region’s workforce system, Philadelphia Works will develop work readiness assessments, instructional tools and resources to teach jobseekers the identified work readiness skills and provide a credentialing system (i.e. badges) which will allow employers to recognize a ‘work-ready’ candidate.
• The work readiness definition and assessment tools willbe updated periodically to ensure that they remain in alignment with employer needs.
Statement of Outcome(s)
There is system-wide agreement on a definition of job-readiness and work readiness assessments, instructional tools, and resources to teach job seekers the skills needed for success in the workforce system and on providing a credentialing system which will allow employers to recognize a ‘work-ready’ candidate.
Five-year goal:
Work readiness tool kit is in use throughout 80% of agencies receiving government funds for workforce development, and employers are hiring our work-ready job seekers.Priority Five:
Prioritize Hardest-To-Serve Populations
Hundreds of thousands of unemployed Philadelphians are very low-skilled, have limited work histories, or face personal obstacles to employment that make it hard to serve them through existing WIA- and TANF-funded workforce programs. To support these young people and adults, an approach that encompasses both learning and working is necessary.
Unfortunately, major funding sources for workforce development do not support the approaches that have been shown to meet the needs of these job seekers. These include: (1) lengthy skills training; (2) coordinated, individualized support services, including literacy training; and (3) part-time or low-wage work (below the $13-per-hour level required by WIA) to support extended learning and training. Six populations (some overlap) comprise this “hardest to serve” category of Philadelphians:
• Dislocated workers with outmoded skills. Approximately 34,000 Philadelphians remain
unemployed following the nation’s economic contraction. Most previously worked in production, food service, and low-level sales occupations.
• People with no or limited/sporadic work history. In Philadelphia, 41.8% of residents 16 or over are not in the labor force, the third-highest rate of the nation’s 50 largest cities.
• Individuals with low literacy. Of those tested in Philadelphia PA CareerLink® centers in 2011, 82% tested at 4th-8th-grade reading levels.
• Ex-offenders. Nearly 300,000 Philadelphians have criminal records; as many as 95% lack post-secondary education.
• Immigrants/refugees/limited English speakers. Over nine percent of Philadelphia’s working-age population have limited English languworking-age fluency or are foreign-born. Limited fluency and/or unfamiliarity with American workplace culture can make it difficult to find and retain jobs.
• People with disabilities. These residents makeup more than 14 percent of the working-age population and may face physical or emotional challenges that require extra support for workplace success.
Objective: Increase educational levels of lower-literate residents by using technology and engaging neighborhood, faith and service groups to participate in a city-wide challenge
During our planning process, a consensus was reached on the importance of introducing more technology-based learning into our workforce development efforts. Computer-assisted learning and other technology-supported resources have been shown to make education more accessible and appealing to both young people and adult learners. There is also strong evidence that a technology-based approach to learning, in concert with print-technology-based instruction, achieves better results than either approach alone. In addition, exposing learners to technology-oriented learning recognizes that literacy should be expansively viewed as encompassing a broader set of technological skills above and beyond the skills needed to read and compute effectively.
Philadelphia Works Role:
• Make existing and newly developed web-based and other digital resources available to the campaign
• Help identify funders and write proposals in concert with literacy organizations and other partners
• Create a database and collect data to track activity in the campaign
• Connect to community organizations and other neighborhood-based partners.
Partners Role:
• Mayor’s Commission on Literacy: Continue to identify web-based learning tools and provide staff development
• Neighborhood-based organizations: Help establish job clubs and other evidence-based practices shown to improve literacy and bring work readiness skills to residents
Two-year goals:
• More organizations are providing access to technology-based learning to help residents increase their educational levels and qualify for post-secondary training and employment
Statement of Outcome(s)
We obtain sufficient resources to introduce more technology-based learning into the workforce system.
Five-Year Goal:
Increase by 10 percent (19,400) the number of Philadelphians who have increased their education levels and employment status. Involve employers, faith communities, service clubs, and literacy and workforce providers in a challenge to provide access to on-line learning to achieve pre-college learning goals.Objective: Adapt a proven program model for local use throughout the workforce system
There are a number of locally-based programs that have been effective in addressing the needs of some categories of the hard-to serve population. But participation in these programs has thus far been limited because of insufficient resources, lack of city-wide focus and coordination, or because they are successful at a small scale, but are not scalable at a city-wide level. For almost all the hard-to serve, literacy improvements will be a critical component.
If the pilot is successful, we will expand it to serve additional sub-populations. Identifying resources to test a pilot and then increase scale will be the hard work early on.
Philadelphia Works Role:
• Locate and evaluate proven earn and learn models
• Work with appropriate partners to select the specific population(s) to take part in the pilot • Identify employment opportunities to support those participating in the pilot while they learn • Find external funding to support the pilot phase and identify additional funders for further
implementation at scale, city-wide.
Partnership Role:
• Mayor’s Commission on Literacy: Lead the efforts to coordinate literacy and educational services with employment strategies; help identify priority populations for the pilot • Education and training professionals: Help customize the learning model for Philadelphia • Human service organizations: Provide support services to program participants
Two year goals:
• Begin the launch of the program on a larger scale by June 2015
Statement of Outcome(s)
• Identify best practices to move a low-literate population to readiness for employment, post-secondary education/training
• Participants pass community college entrance exams without requiring remedial courses • Higher wages and full time employment for most participants completing the program • Higher job-retention rates of participants after placement
• Over time, demonstrated continued learning after completion of the program • 1,200 complete the program in the first two years
Five-year Goal:
A minimum of 5,000 Philadelphians from hardest-to-serve sub-populations complete the program and obtain jobs by the end of five years.4. Coordinated Resources for System-Wide
Innovation and Effectiveness
To carry out this strategic plan and improve the quality of services we deliver to job seekers and businesses, the City of Philadelphia’s workforce system must make a variety of new, coordinated resources investments. Too often decisions about investments are being made by individual agencies and programs with little understanding of similar or complementary needs in other parts of the system. Philadelphia Works will identify the need for coordinating such decisions among system participants and work to ensure that coordination takes place. As the center circle in the diagram in Figure 1 suggests, approaching these collective resource investments in a more coordinated way will increase effectiveness throughout the system. The arguments for thinking more strategically about investments throughout the workforce system are presented in the sub-sections below.
Broader and More Flexible Funding
Improving Philadelphia’s workforce system requires fresh thinking about how available dollars can be used more flexibly to accomplish the various programmatic goals described in this plan. But legal and regulatory constraints associated with public funding often have the unintended effect of limiting creativity and innovation. Therefore we will work to expand our funding base from primarily
government sources to include more flexible private sector funding and foundation gifts. We will also seek approval from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to redeploy public resources whenever this can lead to better results for job seekers and businesses.
We will also examine our own policies and procedures to identify self-imposed resource restrictions that we can change without the involvement of government agencies.
Finally, other workforce systems have found ways of working with federal and state funding entities to relax or change rules that limit innovation. We will examine their efforts as well as develop our own approaches.
Incorporating New Information Technologies
Many of the strategies described in this plan depend on the introduction of new technologies that will enable information to flow more efficiently throughout the system as well as deliver services to employers and job-seekers in more integrated, cost-effective, and convenient ways. The array of new technologies includes more centralized systems for gathering and sharing data, new uses of social media, more sophisticated methods of accessing information, and more mobile and virtual models of service delivery. But if approached piecemeal by individual workforce system participants, the introduction of these tools will be more costly and likely less effective. Again, a collective approach offers clear advantages, e.g., economies of scale through bulk purchases, non-duplication of programs and resources and common data definitions and data sharing across platforms and agencies.
Philadelphia Works will convene workforce system participants and develop strategies for making maximum use of resources through better coordination and non-duplication of technology-based programs. In addition, we will base our own funding decisions to system participants on requirements that they coordinate their technology initiatives with colleague agencies whenever possible. Steps could include building consensus on common goals and standards, developing shared information systems, and submitting joint applications for funding for multi-agency projects that invite economies of scale. As an example, we intend to build on the Digital On-Ramps pilot.
Adopting Common System-Wide Performance Metrics
A critical component of the new workforce system must be an improved method for measuring the performance of those playing key roles in the system. The Research Committee of the Philadelphia Works board (assisted by Philadelphia Works staff members and outside agency representatives) is working to develop a new dashboard that includes a number of measurement standards for assessing system and agency progress toward goals and objectives.
Marketing of the System
Of an estimated 30,000 employers in Philadelphia, fewer than ten percent are making use of the public workforce system. To improve this rate of usage, we will be undertaking a public information campaign to increase our visibility among businesses.
Based on recommendations of consultant teams from Temple University’s Fox School of Business and Enterprise Management Consulting, we are developing a marketing plan that will result in improved understanding of the Philadelphia workforce system and increased use of our services. The plan emphasizes making our business services more responsive to customers’ needs and the introduction of an intensive marketing campaign using both traditional and new media.
To carry out the marketing plan, we will identify additional resources to 1) attract new staff members to Philadelphia Works with more specialized marketing expertise, and 2) contract with outside experts to help develop messaging and marketing products that describe our services and their potential benefits to employers.
Philadelphia Works also recognizes the need to make investments in other types of communications expertise. Enhanced communications capacities are needed to better enable us to lead the
collaborative efforts described in this plan, keep workforce system partners informed of system developments and policy changes, and report on progress in addressing strategic priorities and system-wide goals.
Research and Promotion of Evidence-Based Practices
Philadelphia Works is continuing to build a workforce research department that develops and delivers 1) accurate and timely labor market information and economic analyses for use by businesses, academics, and others; 2) workforce system data to track agency and system progress in achieving goals and meeting contractual reporting requirements to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; 3) findings on best practices; and 4) customized project evaluations and other products that build staff and board
knowledge which can be adapted for use in the Philadelphia workforce system.
Maintaining all these data and analysis functions is critical to Philadelphia Work’s current role in
overseeing funded programs and meeting our obligations as a Workforce Investment Board. In addition, the expertise and credibility of the research staff is an essential asset to draw upon in developing new system-wide data analysis and performance measurement projects, such as the system performance dashboard that will ultimately be required to ensure collective accountability for agreed-on system improvements.
Supportive Policy Changes
Philadelphia Works views a key part of our system-wide leadership role as carrying out policy analysis of city, state, and federal proposals that would affect the workforce system. We will also develop policy initiatives for improving the workforce system and work with workforce partners and elected and appointed officials for their adoption and implementation.
5. Implementation
In order to carry out this strategic plan, several steps are necessary:
• A dashboard of key metrics. The Research Committee of the Philadelphia Works board will prepare a new dashboard that includes key metrics useful in assessing progress toward two-year and five-year objectives in each of the nine work plans.
• Ensure workforce system participants’ commitment to implementing key plan elements. Philadelphia Works board and staff members will work with current and prospective new partners to adopt policies and practices in support of this strategic plan. This will include a signing ceremony with Mayor Nutter at which participants will pledge their support for the plan and agree to take part in implementing it.
• Signing of a multi-sector compact. Philadelphia Works is currently requesting and accepting compact agreements for resources that will be committed to the system by employers and other stakeholders for advancing progress on strategic initiatives.
• Implementation working groups. Philadelphia Works will lead and convene
multi-organizational working groups to begin implementation of the two-year work plans. One early step for each working group will be to determine how existing organizational resources could be better used to support the plan as well as what additional resources will be needed.
• A multi-sector governance group. Philadelphia Works staff and board members will establish a broader advisory group comprising key workforce system participants. This governance group will convene several times annually to oversee progress and resolve issues that may arise during implementation of the plan.
• Tracking Progress. Philadelphia Works staff members will be responsible for tracking progress of working groups against measurement standards in the new dashboard currently being developed. Progress reports will be shared with the Philadelphia Works board and the governance group.
Appendix A:
Strategic Pathways toward System Improvement
Following the summary table below are the implementation work plans for each of the nine objectives discussed in the body of the report. These work plans, along with their timelines, identify major benchmarks for successful advancement. Table 1 provides an overview of the five key system improvement priorities and the related nine objectives.
Table 1
KEY STRATEGIES AND TWO-YEAR AND FIVE-YEAR OBJECTIVESPlan Priorities Key Objectives Two-year Outcomes Five-year Outcomes
Bring Philadelphia’s workforce and economic development systems and investments into closer alignment
Align with City
Economic Development Priorities
By June 2014 at least one new industry partnership is funded & operational. Industry cluster priorities serve as the basis for training investments and developing career pathways.
New industry cluster(s) has substantial
employer membership (more than 30
members) and a
strategic focus; industry clusters have robust sustainability funds. Serving smaller
employers Serve smaller businesses By July 2014 outreach campaign launched & results tracked. By July 2014 job
retention rates / number of employers using workforce resources improved over previous years.
Increase in job listings from and placements in smaller businesses, as well as increased business satisfaction.
Implement “No
Wrong Door” Integrated services
Enhanced service delivery model
Open three co-located centers with partially integrated services (EARN and PA CareerLink®).
Implement enhanced service model with key partners, agreed-upon roles, and funding to support enhanced service model July 2014
Integrated centers meet all state benchmarks and federal Common Measures.
Full implementation of the no-wrong-door, enhanced service delivery model in all workforce system centers, with continuous
