WCEA Kicks Off Washington County Work Ready initiative

Mar 31, 2016

 

County is ready to be more competitive with workforce hires

Robert Magobet rmagobet@ddtonline.com | Posted: Wednesday, February 10, 2016 11:32 am

GREENVILLE — The Washington County Economic Alliance has officially kicked off its effort to increase workforce readiness in the area.

Christopher A. Masingill, a Delta Regional Authority Federal co-chairman and guest speaker at Tuesday’s rollout event, said being an ACT Work Ready Community is a game changer.

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The ACT Work Ready Community initiative is a national effort to develop the framework for communities to engineer an economic-development, community-based approach to certify counties as Work Ready. Communities with the specific status have the ability to link workforce development to education, to align with economic development needs of communities, regions and states and to match individuals to jobs based on their skills. 

Masingill, who has researched ACT in an effort to support workforce training on a state and local level, said “this is about lifelong learning.” 

“This is about career pathways and this about from the cradle to the grave,” Masingill said. “Now, if it means getting a B.S. Engineering degree, this is wonderful. Here’s what studies are showing now: If they start out with a skills trade, they are more likely to continue their ongoing education because now they have a career pathway that they start here with the CRC (Career Readiness Certificate). And next thing you know, they could become chemical engineers.”

In Mississippi, there are seven counties that have started the process of becoming an ACT Work Ready Community, including Sunflower, Tunica, Lamar, Bolivar, Washington and Yazoo counties. Leflore County is the latest county to start the process to earn that status.

For employers, this initiative has several benefits, one of which is making the hiring process a whole lot easier, said Ryan Ashley, USG Interiors Inc. plant manager.

Ashley, addressing a room full of public and school officials and community members at the Greenville Higher Education Center, recalled a time he interviewed about 200 candidates and only one was qualified for the job.

“We were spending a lot of time searching for qualified candidates, and I began thinking there had to be a better process,” he said. “I was wasting too much time. My staff was wasting too much time interviewing candidates. So I began traveling and saw what was going on in other states, and I read about the CRC test. I socialized with a number of folks in this room and believed that we could put a better process to seek employees like myself. To a lot of folks in this room, between Washington County Economic Alliance, the MDCC, CAPPS and the Delta Council, we all pulled together and began structuring the early workings of the manufacturing basics skills course training program that we offer today in the Delta.”

In order to become an ACT Work Ready Community, 173 of those entering the workforce, 390 of those transitioning in the workforce and 28 currently in the work force will need to be tested and certified, Cary Karlson, executive director of the WCEA, previously said.

Today, more than 700 people have tested, and more than 60 businesses are in support for ACT testing, he said. 

Karlson said now that Washington County is recognized as an ACT Work Ready Community, it will allow for the county to be more competitive, help with work force training and dramatically help with recruitment. 

Other benefits of the status include:

  • ACT job profiling involves helping employers define their workforce and pinpoint the skills they need;
  • ACT WorkKeys assessments give workforce professionals with trusted measures of work readiness skills;
  • The ACT National Career Readiness Certificate provides economic developers evidence of a talented workforce to help attract business and industry; 
  • ACT Career Curriculum assist educators to ensure students are prepared for the essential work skills employers need; and 
  • ACT researching into college and career readiness helps community leadership further understand their workforce.