Building Tomorrow's Workforce:
Iowa's Strategic Plan
VISION: A prosperous, healthy and productive Iowa.
Our vision is of a prosperous, healthy and productive Iowa, well equipped to thrive in an increasingly competitive global economy. More than ever before, the primary prerequisite for prosperity is a well educated, skilled and productive workforce employed in safe and healthy high performany workplaces.
The strategies that follow will help us to realize this vision. They indicate both what we need to do and how we can proceed. They provide guidance for using limited resources in order to achieve the results we desire well into the 21st century.
I. Promote high performance, high wage workplaces
Most workforce development programs and organizations have focused on helping individuals to obtain jobs and have not been oriented toward promoting economic growth per se. Some programs even have requirements that they be universally available to all industries and employers.
While certain core products and services should be universally available, the workforce development system should target a portion of its resources to provide special outreach, training, and other supports for employers that do the most to help Iowa's economy grow and provide better wages and benefits to Iowa workers. This includes current and potential high value added, high performance employers, entrepreneurs, and other small businesses with high growth potential.
The global economy and changing technology requires both individuals and businesses to embrace the concepts of life- long learning and on-going training. The changing workplace and growing use of contingent workers demand that individuals take responsibility to ensure their portfolios of skills remain current with changing demands. Businesses also have a responsibility to continually upgrade the skills of their employees to maintain a competitive advantage in their industries.
By engaging workers whose knowledge and skills are up-to- date in production decisions, efficiencies can be achieved which benefit both employers and employees.
The benefits to businesses of becoming high performance work organizations, including investing in their human resources, are generally acknowledged, but difficult to quantify in dollars and cents terms. Employers and employees are requesting that best practices and investment options be identified and widely disseminated so they can be implemented in the workplace. To the extent possible, the benefits of each option and best practice should be quantified in terms of return on investment.
High Value Added and High Performance Workplaces
Businesses, especially small to medium-sized businesses, are requesting technical assistance in areas related to the workforce and workplace, such as personnel policies and practices and information on unemployment compensation, workers compensation, and health and safety in the workplace. Suggested forms of assistance include Work Keys, needs assessments, information on best practices used by other businesses in the region or state, and the development of a regional database of human resources managers to promote inter-firm networking. Employers within and outside of Iowa should also be made more aware of Iowa's many workforce assets. An example is our workers compensation system. Due to efficient administration, concerned employers and capable workers, nationwide comparisons show that Iowa's workers compensation system is able to provide higher than average benefits at a lower than average cost to employers.
The workforce development system cannot achieve its goals in isolation. Workforce development staff must build relationships with the employers and be actively involved in economic development efforts of the region in order to promote available products and services of assistance to business and industry and to assist in developing solutions to workforce and workplace problems. By being involved in such efforts as local and regional economic development groups, chambers of commerce, the Iowa Manufacturing Technology Center and the community college economic development network, workforce development staff can also gain knowledge of employers' skill requirements and training needs to better focus training efforts to meet those needs.
With Iowa's current low unemployment rates, many communities and businesses find that continued growth is inhibited by shortages of skilled and articulate workers. The need is especially acute when the lack of specialized skills creates a bottleneck for a firm to expand and create more jobs.
To help meet this need, communities and firms are engaging in campaigns to recruit workers from other states and other nations, including "job fairs" held at military bases for those who will soon re-enter civilian life. These efforts are especially appropriate when they are recruiting for jobs with good wages and benefits that cannot be filled in a timely manner by workers already in Iowa.
The workforce development system should coordinate with other State departments to assist these recruitment campaigns. It can provide information about wages and benefits, occupations with especially acute skill shortages, and other states or countries where people with these skills exist. The workforce development system can also help to match skills acquired in the military with civilian careers, provide assistance in complying with immigration and alien labor certification requirements, and provide other assistance.
III. Strengthen the Connection between Education and Workforce Development
School to Work
Iowa's School-to-Work initiative, in conjunction with other school improvement efforts, has captured the enthusiasm of local educators, business people, organized labor officials, students and parents in school districts throughout Iowa. Many of these people are convinced that School-to-Work offers the best long-term opportunity to meet Iowa's workforce development needs.
School-to-Work offers opportunities to improve academic performance, better prepare students for work, and provide more information for students in making better career decisions and parents in assisting their children in this process. At the State level, a partnership between the Department of Education, the Department of Economic Development, and Iowa Workforce Development exists to increase these opportunities.
America's schools generally do a good job of preparing students for entry into colleges and universities and the percentage of jobs that require a four-year degree continues to increase. Technical jobs that require post-secondary education, but less than a four year degree, are increasing at an even greater pace. We must assure that students are well prepared regardless of the career options they select. All students can benefit from the School-to-Work initiative regardless of whether they pursue a four-year degree, other post-secondary education or training, or enter the workforce directly from high school.
A key principle of School-to-Work is applied learning, with special emphasis on work-based learning. The workforce development system, through its relationships with employers, schools and labor organizations, is well positioned to help develop work-based learning opportunities. Businesses can contribute to the academic and career preparation of students by providing work-based learning opportunities and, thereby, help to assure themselves a well prepared future labor pool in the process. Workers and organized labor organizations also make a unique contribution through mentoring, job shadowing and other activities, as no one can understand work better than the people who perform it.
Another major aspect of School-to-Work involves building awareness of the full range of career opportunities. The workforce development system needs to make its wide array of career, occupational, and other labor market information available to educators, students and parents in forms that are most useful to them.
Higher Education
As competition and changing technologies require workers and businesses to continually invest in improving skills, higher education assumes even greater importance for workforce development. Our colleges and universities are a major resource in making life-long learning a reality.
Iowans must continue to explore ways to make our higher education resources more available throughout the state. Fully utilizing the Iowa Communications Network, the Internet and other distance learning tools will help us to match resources with needs and will assure that rural communities have access to advanced education and training.
Higher education also has a responsibility to ensure that its professional education programs remain current in a rapidly changing world. As work-based learning gains greater acceptance, for example, teacher education programs must expand this approach in their curricula. Expanding the use of internships would allow students to apply their learning in the workplace and also serve to alert them to career opportunities in Iowa.
Iowa's colleges and universities provide us with a pool of talented and knowledgeable people who can make major contributions to our economy. The Iowa Workforce Development Board will seek to expand partnerships within higher education to take advantage of this opportunity.
Retaining Youth in Iowa
It is normal that some youth will wish to explore other locales after they graduate, and it must be remembered that 25.9% of the students in Iowans Regents institutions originally came from outside of the state. Still, Iowa communities and the workforce development system can do more to retain recent graduates and encourage others to return to Iowa.
Choice of residence is typically affected by two kinds of factors. People are attracted by the quality of life and related amenities offered by the area. Communities can do more to market the quality of life in Iowa and assure that there are adequate cultural, recreational and other amenities that will appeal to young people. Iowans strengths include low crime rates, good schools and other characteristics that may have special appeal to young people who are starting families.
People also tend to locate where there are good career opportunities. Iowa must make young people aware of the full range of jobs that are available and must constantly seek to increase the number of good jobs by promoting high value added, high performance work organizations.
The workforce development system should provide greater access to information about the advantages of both living and working in Iowa.
IV. Fully Utilize the Talents of All Iowans
Even during the current period of low unemployment and severe skill and labor shortages, tens of thousands of Iowans are without jobs, and many more are working for minimal benefits and wages that don't allow them to be self-sufficient. If we are to achieve our vision of a prosperous, healthy and productive Iowa, we need to intensify our efforts to make full use of the talents and abilities of these people. By doing so, we can better meet the needs of Iowa employers, contribute to greater economic growth for all Iowans, and help to realize the fundamental American value of equal opportunity. Bringing underutilized groups into the fully productive workforce will also have the effect of increasing diversity in the workplace, which helps employers to understand and gain better access to expanded markets.
Underutilized populations fall into two groups. The first involves people whose rate of unemployment is markedly higher than that of the general population. They include welfare recipients, older Iowans, minorities, people with disabilities, and recent immigrants. The other group is currently employed, but needs to upgrade their skills in order to advance their careers or is working in jobs that don't take full advantage of their skills.
Underutilized population groups face a dilemma in today's labor market. On the one hand, the shortage of labor affords them an opportunity to enter the workforce and advance their careers. On the other hand, the skill and knowledge requirements of the workplace have increased, creating an even greater gap between the skills that many have and the skills they need to succeed.
Women
Women in Iowa already participate in the workforce at rates higher than the national average. If we examine the occupations in which women are traditionally employed, however, two facts are apparent. First, traditionally female jobs tend to pay lower wages and have fewer benefits than those held by men. Second, occupations with low proportions of women are often in manufacturing and other sectors of the economy that engage in interstate or international commerce. Assuring women access to non-traditional career opportunities in these sectors will not only tend to increase their earned income, but will also benefit all Iowans by helping to alleviate labor shortages in the industries that do the most to generate wealth in the state.
Under-employed Iowans
Many Iowans, including regional advisory board members, have expressed concern about under-employment. Under-employed is an imprecise term ñ there is no formal definition ñ and the term can have two distinctly different meanings.
Some people label under-employed those who are working at jobs that are below the education and skill levels they possess. This group can be best served by assuring that they have access to a complete and accurate system of matching their skills to the jobs that are available, and by promoting high value added, high performance workplaces that will be more likely to make use of their abilities.
The other group sometimes identified as under-employed involves people who are working at lower paying jobs and who have limited prospects for advancing their skills or careers. Many of the factors that have contributed to growing income inequality have also had the effect of eliminating traditional career ladders,î making it more difficult for people to advance and creating a new opportunity gap.î Employers who are faced with serious labor shortages and who can offer training and higher wages would do well to cultivate this group as a resource. Public workforce development programs have often assumed that the career ladders that used to exist are still in place, and have traditionally ignored this group. Such programs need to be redesigned in light of current economic realities.
Welfare Recipients
Recent federal welfare reform legislation has limited the length of time that people can receive welfare benefits and placed much stronger emphasis on becoming employed. As large numbers of welfare recipients enter the labor force, workforce development and other human services organizations must expand partnerships with employers and ensure that welfare recipients are adequately prepared for jobs that allow them to become self-sufficient.
Older Iowans
Perhaps the most striking fact about Iowa's population is its age. Our population is, on average, older than almost any other state's, and we're getting older. This has several implications for workforce development. It is critical that we bring replacement workers into the labor force as more Iowans reach retirement age. Older Iowans constitute a major resource to help meet our workforce needs. They have a wealth of skills, knowledge and work habits acquired over their lifetimes. Those who wish to continue working can make a major contribution to their employers, and others can be mentors to people seeking to enter and advance in the workforce.
Minorities
While some members of minority population groups have advanced remarkably in recent decades, others continue to be unemployed at rates far exceeding the general population. Some lack basic or occupational skills in addition to being confronted by discrimination in the workplace. The economic need to bring more people into the labor force, as well as the moral imperative to afford equality of opportunity, requires that the public and private sector do more to fully utilize minorities abilities.
Iowans with Disabilities
Iowans with different abilities not only need to overcome the challenges created by their specific disabilities, they are also faced with mistaken perceptions about how or whether their disabilities can be accommodated in the workplace. The workforce development system must provide accurate information about disabilities and ways to accommodate them.
Immigrants
Immigrants to this country comprise one of the fastest growing portions of the nation's labor force, but they face a variety of difficulties in the workforce. In addition to making cultural adjustments, they may face language and other barriers. The workforce development system can help by providing English-as-a-second-language instruction, skill development, and by contributing to efforts to address diversity in the community and workplace.
V. Improve Workforce Development Products and Services
The preceding portions of this plan addressed what all Iowans need to do in order to meet our workforce development needs. This section and the ones that follow deal with how we do it. It is more oriented toward the public workforce development system, although the strategies frequently involve partnerships with business, labor and education.
Continue to implement the statewide network of workforce development centers
The keys to effective service delivery will be the regional advisory boards and the establishment of regional partnerships of service providers in a statewide network of workforce development centers. These centers offer a comprehensive menu of products and services driven by customer need.
The creation of a regional system of workforce development centers began in 1994 with funding assistance from the US Department of Labor. While tremendous progress has been made in the establishment of a Workforce Development Center in each region, work still remains to implement centers in all regions of Iowa and to integrate individual programs into a system of products and services that meet customer needs.
A critical component of this strategy is continued development of a new automated information system that cuts across programs, allows services to be delivered seamlessly,î and permits the elimination of often duplicative paperwork.
Regional partnerships also need to be expanded to include School-to-Work and economic development organizations to truly effect comprehensive system change.
The New Workforce Development System
Expand demand side approaches to ongoing services
Job training and other services can be improved by expanding the use of a set of principles that have come to be known as demand side approaches. Iowa has had extremely positive experience with these principles in the School-to-Work initiative and the customized training conducted by our community colleges for business and industry. Applying them more broadly will result in improved training as well as cost efficiencies in the long run. While they require more effort initially to design and implement, they afford opportunities for greater returns due to more effective training. The following principles are included:
Continually improve customer-oriented products and services
The needs assessments recently conducted by the regional advisory boards identified a number of products and services for which particular needs exist:
Move toward an ìaccount executive approach
In order to become more customer-focused, staff need to spend more time with employers and workers. This will enable them to more fully understand their customer's needs and to tailor assistance as necessary. This, in turn, will require that staff are well trained and freed from many of the tasks that currently demand much of their time but do little to add value to the services they provide. In short, the many organizations that comprise Iowa's workforce development system should endeavor to model the behavior of high performance work organizations.
We must be aggressive in pursuing ways to free staff time to allow them to function as account executives. We will undertake the following actions:
Increase awareness of the products and services available
In almost every community forum that was held, participants declared their surprise at the range of products and services that are available to employers, workers, students, and others. Everyone was aware of one or two services, but had no idea of the full array that exists. Customers can't avail themselves of the services they need if they don't know the services exist, so it isn't surprising that both the community forums and the regional advisory board's needs assessments called for a marketing campaign to make Iowans more aware of the workforce development resources available. The workforce development system must also establish strong relationships with local chambers of commerce and economic development organizations to increase awareness of its resources among businesses.
Make services more accessible
A customer focused workforce development system must make its products and services available where, when and how it is most convenient for its customers to access them. In the course of developing this plan, numerous suggestions were received for making services more accessible. Some involve things like extending office hours, while others suggested that workforce development centers become a one-stop source of information on wage rates, occupational projections, training courses and institutions, and other types of labor market information.
Many suggested that we use technology to provide services directly. They specifically mentioned placing employer job openings and worker resumes on the Internet (which is being done through America's Job Bank and America's Talent bank), as well as occupational and labor market information that would be useful to businesses, job seekers, and students. Electronic access to the workforce development system in rural areas was also mentioned frequently.
Use customer satisfaction data to improve services
A customer-focused workforce development system needs to gather information from its customers about its needs and how well they are being met, and use that information to continually improve its products and services. While some individual programs and organizations already do this to some degree, a more comprehensive and integrated approach would be to survey customers across program and organizational boundaries.
The economy and the labor market are in a constant state of flux, and workers and employers needs continually change as they adapt to market conditions. A comprehensive system of customer feedback will keep the workforce development system attuned to its customers current needs and provide valuable information for keeping staff development functions up to date.
VII. Build stronger ties to related community services
Iowa's workforce development system will be most successful operating with the cooperation of other State departments, public and private associations and organizations, business, labor, communities and individuals. How workforce development efforts are inter-related with economic development and education have been central to this plan and the strategies outlined. Other related services are also critical to increase the number of jobs created in Iowa and the size of the workforce:
If people have reliable transportation, they can more fully participate in the workforce. The Department of Human Services, through public forums conducted during the winter of 1996, identified transportation as the major barrier for welfare recipients entering the workforce.
Dependent care issues are also critical for workforce participation. With reliable and affordable childcare near the home or office, persons can maintain the regular attendance demanded of employees. With the aging of Iowa's population, dependent care for elderly parents is also a growing need.
Recruiting new workers into the Iowa workforce is dependent on those persons finding affordable housing once they relocate. Every regional advisory board identified lack of affordable housing as a barrier to increasing the workforce.
With the increasingly global nature of business, a strong communications network is essential to further economic growth. The Iowa Communications Network (ICN) provides the potential for greatly expanded distance-learning opportunities to meet the skill needs of individuals and businesses.
Iowa Workforce Development needs to be involved at both the state and local levels to communicate the importance of these services to the Iowa workforce. At the state level, work must be done to coordinate efforts and remove barriers to potential solutions. At the local level, workforce development staff must be actively engaged in formulating solutions.
By following the strategies identified in this plan, the workforce development system will make a major contribution toward achieving our vision of a prosperous, healthy and productive Iowa. Broad, system-wide goals must be set in order to help us judge how effective our plan and its implementation are. Two such goals have emerged from our planning process: Increase the size of the skilled workforce and increase Iowan's earned income. More detailed goals and measures exist for tracking specific programmatic accomplishments, but these two broad goals will permit us to gauge our overall progress.
1. Increase the size of the skilled workforce
The bust of the post-World War II baby boom has combined with robust economic growth in recent years to create a major labor shortage. The current effects of this shortage are particularly acute in Iowa because its population was already older on average than most states and because its economy has grown so much in recent years. Nevertheless, this is not a phenomenon that is limited to Iowa or one that will be solved in the near future. The national rate of labor force growth, as we approach the end of the 1990s, is only a third of the rate of 1970. Clearly, this is a nationwide issue with enduring impact.
In addition, the skill demands of the workplace are increasing. This is especially true of occupations that pay higher wages and which are the most important to our overall economic growth.
To assess Iowa's progress in increasing the size of the skilled workforce, the Board will measure the overall growth of the workforce as well as indicators of the size of various segments of the workforce by characteristics, skills, and occupations.
2. Increase Iowans' earned income
While one measure of prosperity would be per capita income, the contribution of the workforce development system relates more directly to salaries and wages. We have, therefore, focused on increasing Iowans' earned income as the second overall goal.
US Census Bureau data indicate that income inequality has grown alarmingly in recent years. A variety of factors have contributed to this trend and their relative importance continues to be vigorously debated. Causes cited by various groups include: the growth of service sectors of the economy; the decline of manufacturing jobs in the United States; intense global competition and immigration; the decline of the proportion of workers belonging to unions; declines in the inflation-adjusted value of the minimum wage; rapid changes in technology and the increasing need for technical skills; and the increasing use of contingent and part-time workers. Clearly, however, the highly skilled knowledge workers in the top income brackets have experienced real wage gains, while lower skilled, lower wage workers have experienced real wage losses.
While these are nation-wide trends, our plan focuses on strategies for Iowa. We will measure increases in earned income for Iowa workers as a whole and also examine indicators of earned income levels for workers with various characteristics and in a variety of occupations.
IX. A challenge and an invitation
The Iowa Workforce Development Board members are convinced that implementing the strategies in this plan will help reduce the negative effects of labor and skill shortages and raise Iowans' standard of living and quality of life. To be most successful, this will take the efforts of all citizens and organizations in Iowa.
We are issuing a challenge and an invitation to students, workers, organized labor, businesses, business associations, schools, educators, community organizations, public agencies and employees, and all other interested parties.
We challenge you to consider seriously what you can do to help develop Iowa's current and future workforce.
We also invite you to work with us for a prosperous, healthy and productive Iowa.
MAP: Iowa Workforce Development Regions, Offices, and Satellite Locations
Region |
Chair |
Region |
Chair |
01 |
Sally A. Falb |
09 |
Karen J. Diercks |
02 |
Fred G. Dohrman |
10 |
Robert A. Marsh |
03 |
June P. Goldman |
11 |
Katie Roth |
04 |
Robert D. Top |
12 |
Mike R. Ellis |
05 |
Danny P. Gallo |
13 |
Ken L. Dunham |
06 |
Cornell W. Gethmann |
14 |
Michael J. Reasoner |
07 |
Noreen J. Fischer |
15 |
Larry D. Gray |
08 |
No region is designated Reg. 8 |
16 |
Dean E. Hicks |
Workforce Development Board Members
Employer Representatives
Richard Vander Lann, Pella
Employee Representatives
Non-Profit Workforce Development Organization Representative
Bill Yeager, Newton
Ex-Officio Non-Voting
David Roederer, Ames
Return to Workforce ATM Home Page
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