2. Engaging Employers to Support SWFI Career Pathways
April 30, 2019
Engaging Employers to Support SWFI Career Pathways

3. Danielle Kittrell Shayne Spaulding Lily Roberts
Workforce Analyst, H1-B Grants
ETA, Division of Strategic Investments
Shayne Spaulding
SWFI TA Senior Subject Matter Expert
The Urban Institute
Lily Roberts
SWFI TA Coach
Mathematica Policy Research

4. Describe meaningful employer engagement and why it is important for SWFI grantees
Discuss challenges to engaging employers and strategies for success
Answer grantee questions about engaging employers to support SWFI participants’ career pathways

5. Today’s Agenda: Meaningful employer engagement
Challenges to engaging employers
Strategies for success

6. How often does your SWFI program staff interact with employers?
Daily
Weekly
Monthly
Quarterly

7. What is meaningful employer engagement and how can it help SWFI grantees support career pathways?

8. Spaulding and Martin-Caughey 2015

9. Better understanding of the local labor market
Learning the short and long term needs of local employers
Confirm skills and training requirements for middle- and high-skilled jobs
Identify attainable wages for SWFI graduates
Shape training to meet employer needs
Inform participant decisions about career pathways in the local area

10. More targeted program design and delivery
Reviewing training curricula with employers
Ensure that training adequately covers the technical skills specific to an industry or occupation
Incorporate soft skills that participants need to succeed in the workforce
Identify best practices for training to employers’ needs
Involving employers in classroom training or development of work-based learning activities
Build stronger employer connections to the program
Help participants gain knowledge of industries and employers
Open doors for program participants

11. Pipeline for participant recruitment and hiring
Discussing employers’ staffing needs
Receive direct and early notification of job openings
Develop agreements that SWFI participants will be interviewed and, if possible, hired directly
Although used infrequently, agreements to hire can be linked to strong partnerships with employers (Spaulding and Martin-Caughey 2015)

12. Enhancing credibility and advancing sustainability
Meaningful engagement with employers
Signal a higher level of program quality for both employers and job seekers
Gain access to employer networks to identify other potential employers
Gain access to job-seeker networks to recruit participants

13. How have employers been most helpful to your SWFI program?
Helping your SWFI team:
Understand the local labor market
Refine your program design
Provide information and skill-building opportunities to participants
Create pipelines for participant hiring
Enhance credibility and sustainability

14. What are some challenges to creating meaningful employer engagement?

15. Engagement can be resource intensive for grantees and employers
Grantee staff time required to build, monitor, and sustain meaningful employer relationships
Employer staff time required to educate grantees about their needs, review and participate in training, and develop hiring plans
Grantees and employers may not be able to dedicate the right staff to these efforts

16. Grantees and employers may communicate differently
Information gap due to use of different terminology
SWFI programs may not know what questions to ask employers
Employers may not know how to communicate their needs to workforce programs

17. Employers must be sold on how engaging with SWFI benefits them
Employers may hire limited numbers at a time and may not need a hiring pipeline
Employers may be wary of working with SWFI target populations
Employers may not see the long-term benefit to investing in a SWFI program

18. What has been your biggest challenge in engaging employers?
Meaningful employer engagement takes more time than our SWFI team has available
Our SWFI team and local employers do not communicate effectively
It is hard to find the right staff to be responsible for employer engagement
Employers do not understand how the SWFI program and participants can help them

19. What are some strategies for engaging employers in meaningful ways?

20. Carefully select employer partners
Find employers that are a good match for the participants you are serving and the programs you offer
Are you training for jobs the employer has?
Is there a match in the scale and pace of hiring?
Are employers community minded? Do they seek volunteer leadership opportunities for staff?
Do they have the desire to invest in workers?
Can they provide growth opportunities and career pathways?

21. Actively engage employers
Develop a plan for engaging employers
Goals, benchmarks, timeline, elevator speech, meeting agendas, action items, responsible staff
Minimize employer burden through careful planning and ongoing communication
Tailor your approach to each employer
Consider a mix of , telephone, and in-person contacts
Build rapport, sell your program, gain buy-in, describe reciprocity, identify next steps
Nurture employer relationships
Capitalize on momentum, send “thank you” s, reiterate timeline/next steps, keep in touch, reciprocate
Track progress, create feedback loops, acknowledge and address problems when they arise

22. Provide employers with dedicated access to qualified, well-trained candidates
Build trust with employers so they know SWFI participants will have the technical and soft skills they need
Intentionally match participants to employers to maximize success
Expose employers to participants in non-hiring settings such as classes or social events

23. Leverage employer partners to broaden network
Ask existing employer partners to help your SWFI program connect with other local employers
Continue to nurture employer relationships— the trust your SWFI program builds with employers, and your ongoing ability to provide well-trained participants, helps build your credibility with new partners

24. Develop deeper partnerships with a select number of employers
Deeper involvement in certain program activities
Involvement in a broader range of program activities
Participation in workforce sector partnerships

26. Relevant TA resources
Peer-sharing call in October—Look for an invitation from the SWFI mailbox
Regular coaching calls
Blog post on employer engagement with links to resources
Discussion board on employer engagement

27. SWFI Grantee Mailbox SWFI@dol
SWFI Grantee Mailbox To reach your Federal Project Officer, DOL National Office, and TA providers