Northern Willamette WIRED Initiative Offers Manufacturers Free Occupational Profiles
As part of the Workforce Innovation for Regional Economic Development (WIRED) initiative in the northern Willamette Valley, several community colleges are offering manufacturers FREE occupational profiles to better understand the workforce needs of regional employers. One of the benefits of participating: reducing the high hidden costs associated with poor hiring decisions, including those for lost production, turnover, rehiring and additional training.
Regional manufacturers have identified three main workforce concerns that impact their profitability and long-term competitiveness:
- Increasing the availability of a qualified workforce
- Improving the productivity of their current employees
- Reducing the costs of poor selection/hiring practices and turnover
These concerns are addressed by ACT’s (Work Keys®)system which benefits employers by:
- Reducing the high hidden costs associated with poor hiring decisions, including those for lost production, turnover, rehiring and additional training
- Increasing productivity by placing applicants and employees in jobs commensurate with their skills and providing training targeted to achieve optimum productivity
- Documenting applicant and employee skills for comparison with a specific job’s required skill levels
- Developing a common basis for communication between employers and educators
Occupational profiles are part of the Work Keys® system which is being used by employers nationwide to identify the skills employees need to be successful on the job and to communicate to human resource and training personnel, as well as education partners, what additional education or training is necessary to workers to reach maximum productivity.
In addition to profiling opportunities six training opportunities, based on Work Keys results, have been developed using WIRED funds:
- Manufacturing Foundations – pipeline training
- Solid Modeling – incumbent worker
- Integrated Metals – pipeline training
- Manufacturing Industry Master Trainer – incumbent worker
- Leadership Academy – incumbent worker
- Problem Solving – incumbent worker
This unique training opportunity involves the collaboration of six community colleges and input and guidance from business and industry. There are six trainings to be offered with four aimed at incumbent workers and all are offered at no cost to the participants.
For more information about training or WorkKeys® profiling opportunities please contact Genevieve Howard at 503.533.2786 or genevieve.howard@pcc.edu.
For more information about WIRED, contact Cary Harkaway at 503.478.7368 charkaway@worksystems.org, or visit the WIRED Northwest website, www.wirednw.org.