Assemblyman Fong and Mayor Gordo Discuss the Future of Work

Pam Sornson, JD on November 6, 2023

Pam Sornson, JD

November 7, 2023

Attendees at the recent Future of Work Conference, hosted by the Economic and Workforce Development Division of Pasadena City College (PCC EWD), were very fortunate to hear from speakers representing all levels of government: state, regional, and local.

California’s 49th District Assemblyman Mike Fong joined PCC EWD Vice President Salvatrice Cummo in welcoming the crowd of ~200 guests.

Stewart Knox, Secretary of California’s Labor & Workforce Development Agency, provided the opening Keynote remarks, then ably moderated the event’s first panel of EWD professionals.

Pasadena City Mayor Victor Gordo joined Panel #1 to discuss how his career as a labor lawyer informs his advocacy for enhanced educational and career entry and ladder opportunities across all of his city’s ethnic populations.

Together, they provided significant insights and information about how California, Los Angeles County, and the City of Pasadena are individually addressing workforce development initiatives within their respective boundaries. The first article in this edition of the Pulse featured Secretary Knox’s presentation. In this article, we are sharing the inputs provided by Assemblyman Fong and Mayor Gordo.

 

Assemblyman Mike Fong

Assemblyman Fong’s 49th District (one of 80 in the state) encompasses the western side of the San Gabriel Valley, including nine cities (Alhambra, El Monte, Arcadia, Monterey Park, Rosemead, San Gabriel, San Marino, South Pasadena, and Temple City) as well as three unincorporated areas (East Pasadena, North El Monte, and South San Gabriel). The district is home to almost half a million people (~462,000), 85% of whom identify as Asian or Latino.

In his role as Assemblyman, Mr. Fong is a passionate advocate for advancing employment and workforce initiatives that impact all of his constituents. He sits on multiple committees, including those addressing economic concerns (banking and finance, budget, higher education, and trade and investment, to name just four), as well as diversity and equity issues that are focused on the well-being of disabled and unhoused people, ethnic communities (Asian, Pacific Islander, Mexican), and the LGBTQ+ community.

To conferencegoers, Mr. Fong was highly complementary about the work being done across the region supporting workforce development goals. He noted that the businesses that populate the region’s 11 primary industry clusters (Aerospace, Biosciences, Entertainment, Trade, Advanced Transportation, Design, the ‘Ocean’ Economy, Fashion & Apparel, Tourism, Information Technology, and Food Manufacturing) all benefit from the increasingly sophisticated collaborations between their participants and the colleges and training programs that provide their labor force.

He also touched on the importance of ensuring that all possible workforce members receive the support they require to achieve their personal and occupational goals. Those with challenges, such as physical, health, or economic impediments, need additional resources to move up in the world, and Fong is working to ensure that there are appropriate community resources available to help them do that. He sees the trades (those in the construction industry, in particular) as drivers of economic growth, and training programs that feed these occupations will contribute much to the future economy. “The speed of change is rapid,” Fong asserts. “California’s governments are in tune with these demands and are actively collaborating with in-the-field, local partners to address their challenges.”

 

Pasadena Mayor Victor Gordo

A long-time advocate for workers, Mayor Gordo works diligently with ‘both sides’ to make meaningful and fruitful connections between labor and industry. Ironically, both of those ‘sides’ – workers and the businesses that hire them – cite the same concerns about economic growth opportunities: there are not enough resources available for people or organizations to find the means to move forward. He says he’s also very aware of the lack of communication between the two groups – workers don’t know of available jobs or training programs, while employers with staffing problems need help finding qualified employees. In many cases, a lack of information about trade and skill development programs stymies potential workers from finding the support they need to find well-paying work. From Gordo’s perspective, improving the communications channels for both potential labor force members and the companies that employ them will help to alleviate the stress the city now experiences due to unfilled job positions.

His insights on the complexity of building a workforce in Pasadena, in particular, flow from his own life experience. A Mexican native, Mayor Gordo has lived in Pasadena since emigrating to the country as a young boy. His parents (a dishwasher and seamstress) worked hard to provide a good life for their six children; Gordo himself contributed to the family fortunes by delivering the Pasadena Star-News newspaper for eight years (from age nine to 17). As the first of his family to graduate college (he’s an alum of PCC), he went on to earn a law degree and entered politics in 2001, representing District 5. He was elected Mayor in November 2020.

In this role, Gordo is tasked with managing city growth in these unprecedented times. “The bio- and biotech industries are growing, and Pasadena offers resources that support this aspect of the expanding healthcare sector. They need more workers, however, and we’re looking at how to attract young people to these career options.” His challenge is that the City does not yet have a fully vested system to make these labor-demand connections. “We need to forecast where we’re going and share that information with the [young people who need to hear it].”

Throughout his career, Gordo’s focus has remained steadfast on the welfare of the city’s underserved populations. In addition to his role as Mayor, Gordo acts as General Counsel and Secretary-Treasurer of Local 777 of the Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA). He sees the unions as significant assets for current and future growth, and works with those representatives to build both entry-level and career-climbing opportunities for learners not interested in pursuing a traditional ‘college’ education. Secretary Knox commented with a smile on how often Mayor Gordo reaches out to his office for support and resources on behalf of his Pasadena constituents.

 

These three elected officials, Pasadena City Mayor Victor Gordo, California 49th District Assemblyman Mike Fong, and Labor and Workforce Development Secretary Stewart Knox, ably represent the interests and ambitions of thousands of California’s workers and businesses. Their contributions to the 5th Annual Future of Work Conference are highly valued and greatly appreciated.

Future of Work Keynote Speaker Stewart Knox Talks About Connections

Pam Sornson, JD on November 6, 2023

Pam Sornson, JD

November 21, 2023

The October 26th 5th Annual Future of Work Conference hosted by the Economic and Workforce Division of Pasadena City College (PCC EWD) was an unabashed success. The event gathered individuals from all walks of the EWD sector to discuss how government, industry, and the higher education system will rework their collaborations to meet tomorrow’s labor force demands. The crowd of close to 200 professionals was treated to two lively panel conversations, two informative and inspiring keynote addresses, and several insightful and well-informed questions.

This edition of the Pulse presents comments made by the invited elected officials, one each from city, regional, and state governments. Pasadena Mayor Victor Gordo, 49th District Representative Mike Fong, and Stewart Knox, Secretary of California’s Labor and Workforce Development Agency (LWDA), all brought compelling tales about what their agency is doing to support EWD initiatives. While each represents a unique population, they all face similar challenges: who needs work? Who needs workers? How do we connect the two?

 

Secretary, CA LWDA, Stewart Knox

Keynote Speaker Stewart Knox, Secretary of California’s Labor & Workforce Development Agency

Almost 30 years of EWD experience informs Mr. Knox’s leadership of this critically important state agency. In addition to his work here, he’s also spent much of his career working in and with the California Community College system, the California Employment Training Panel, and the Northern Rural Training and Employment Consortium. Several Counties have also benefitted from his role in their EWD environments.

As keynote speaker, Mr. Knox was enthusiastic about the future of California’s economic development strategies and especially about the emerging collaborations arising from enhanced partnerships between government agencies, industries, and colleges. He underscored the need for ‘connections’ at this critical juncture in the State’s economic trajectory. “Our work has changed a lot,” he notes. “Artificial Intelligence will change it more. Our EWD system is growing and changing, and we need to be prepared to change with it.”

The looming changes he sees are many:

High school students today are expected to change jobs or careers at least ten times in their lives.

Seniors (people over 50) are continuing to work beyond the traditional retirement age of 65.

Many workers need training and upskilling to find work in the post-COVID era.

Technology is disrupting more industries than ever before, and that trend will only grow.

The data suggest that an educational/industry restructure that incorporates ‘lifelong learning’ as a central tenet will respond to all of these emerging concerns. Mr. Knox encouraged conference attendees to include the design and build of lifelong learning programs into their ongoing discussions.

 

He also noted how the state government is addressing these issues. Its investment in apprenticeship development is significant and on target. More than one in three California high school graduates do not pursue further education, and many of those end up in menial or only entry-level occupations. Instead, Mr. Knox suggests they consider finding an apprenticeship in an industry they like. California has over 800 recognized apprenticeship jobs and over 1,400 apprenticeship programs training ~73,000 workers to take them. In fact, the State is so invested in these programs that it’s investing hundreds of millions of dollars to grow the available number of apprenticeship spots to half a million by the year 2029.

Knox says the State is also fully invested in evolving its connections with its community college system. The colleges provide services to underserved learners, and California wants to help each school meet the needs of its particular populations. Knox suggests that enhancing the support offered by career centers can help more students get through to not just their certifications but also the jobs they seek. Connecting these students with industry-specific counselors, as well, will also improve graduation and job placement metrics.

 

Looking forward, the Labor Secretary noted the State’s involvement with academic committees, industry leaders, and union representatives to ensure that all players in the sector are engaged in the same conversation.

The State is developing innovative marketing campaigns to attract students back to school after a significant drop-off during and after the pandemic.

In the colleges, for-credit and non-credit course completion will be recognized as ‘educational acquisition’ for credentialing purposes.

The Academic committees will have the information they need to make appropriate decisions for institutional investments.

The State is also expanding its partnerships with unions. Union membership numbers ~2.5 million, and those jobs are responsible for maintaining much of the State’s infrastructure. As the unions themselves grow, so will their support from and engagement with the public agencies that need those well-trained labor resources.

The government is working on itself, too. According to Secretary Knox, the state legislature is reviewing statutes to eliminate those that don’t support today’s EWD demands. Too many of the current regulations were designed and implemented in very different economic times.

More financial support is encouraged, as well. State coffers are already dedicating millions of dollars to educational directives. The federal government offers additional funding, too, especially, says Knox, in conjunction with the Pathways Program, which provides funding for internships in many industries.

 

The experience Secretary Knox brings to his role is invaluable for how it informs his decisions going forward. Early in his career, he was teaching GED classes to students who had lost their jobs due to contractions in the timber industries. They, too, were seeking new skills to obtain a new future in a new job. Knox sees the same unemployment issues emerging now from the petroleum and other industries as those are evolving post-COVID and in this new economic era. He’s using that gained knowledge and inputs from today’s technology to build appropriately responsive job training opportunities.

California is fortunate to have a man with the qualifications of Stewart Knox in the top leadership position at its premier economic development agency.

How to Revolutionize Worker Pathways – Panel One Speakers

Pam Sornson, JD on October 16, 2023

Pam Sornson, JD

October 17, 2023

On October 26th, the Economic and Workforce Development division (EWD) of Pasadena City College (PCC) is hosting its 5th annual Future of Work Conference, “Revolutionizing Worker Pathways“. The Conference is free to attend (register here), and refreshments will keep participants and attendees alert and engaged throughout the event.

In addition to the regular sharing of ‘workforce development’-related insights and information, as a new feature, PCC’s EWD will present the inaugural “Los Angeles Changemaker Award” to the individual whose activities and efforts are deemed both notable and significant to LA County’s economic and workforce development initiatives.

 

Two Panels – Two Questions

This year’s theme, ‘Revolutionizing Worker Pathways,’ embraces the many perspectives that overlay development planning for today’s and tomorrow’s labor force. Industries are in constant flux, so demand for new and emerging skills and abilities is always an issue. At the same time, unemployed workers need training on said skills and abilities, and, in many cases, those programs are not yet in place. At the heart of the conversation is the need to build and sustain an economy that provides a comfortable living for all workers while offering services and supports for the entire community. So much to talk about!

To tackle the subject matter, the Conference is convening two panels, each of which will address one of two fundamental elements of the discussion. The questions asked will address foundational concerns that permeate the EWD sector:

Panel One: Training, Trades & Transformation of Pathways

What do learners need to know to find work in their chosen occupation?

What skills are required, and where are those taught?

How do schools and work-based learning opportunities facilitate a transition from student to employee?

Panel Two: Innovation in Driving Student-Focused Systems Change

What’s already working in California’s education systems to train and place tomorrow’s skilled employees?

What assets need development to enhance the education system’s capacity to support all learners?

How does the EWD community overhaul systems that are obsolete or irrelevant?

The topics are designed to elicit opinions and responses from all EWD sector participants, including educators, business owners, industry leaders, government agencies, and community leaders. Accordingly, each panel is populated by a team of professionals, each of whom plays a critical role within their EWD’ sphere of influence.’

In this article, you’ll meet the experts on Panel One, who will be discussing how to revise existing (or build new) pathways to ensure better employment success for current and future students. In this Pulse edition’s companion essay, we’ll look at who will be sitting on Panel Two.

 

Panel One Speakers:

Training, Trades & Transformation of Pathways

Who better to talk about schools, politics, and trades than educators, government officials, and trade leaders?

 

Dr. Jose Gomez – Dr. Gomez has just recently accepted the job as Interim Superintendent-President of Pasadena City College, bringing with him his deep EWD experience in leadership and advisory roles at California State University at LA, the California State Senate, the Office of the California Attorney General, and the Office of the California State Treasurer. As a young learner, Dr. Gomez attended both Mt. San Antonio and Citrus community colleges before graduating from California State Polytechnic University (BA) and the University of Southern California (MA, MPA, Ph.D.). Consequently, Dr. Gomez has personally navigated many of the systems over which he now presides at PCC. His Harvard graduate degree in Leadership in Education underscores his dedication to helping learners – and schools – achieve their highest ideals. His input to the conversation will be invaluable.

 

Victor Gordo – The Mayor of Pasadena grew up in the city and is a proud Pasadena Unified School District graduate. He was the first of his family to attend college (he’s an alum of PCC), and he graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in business and finance from Azusa Pacific University and a law degree from La Verne College of Law. He parlayed that educational foundation into a career in politics, working as a field representative for District 5 for then-mayor Bill Crowfoot. District 5 is a notably diverse community; in 2001, Mayor Gordo was elected to represent it on Pasadena’s City Council. pHe followed that opportunity by representing the City of Pasadena on the Rose Bowl Operating Committee, serving on the Council’s Finance Committee, and serving as Chair of the Council’s Economic Development and Technology Committee. He was elected Mayor in November 2020 and steered the city through the pandemic, significant social unrest, and an exhaustive search for a new City Manager. He also serves as the General Counsel and Secretary-Treasurer for the Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA) Local 777.

 

Ernesto Medrano – The recently elected Executive Secretary of the Los Angeles/Orange Counties Building and Construction Trades Council is excited to lead his contingent of union workers into the new economic era. Planning to build on the momentum driven by the White House and emerging demands by workers for better working conditions, Medrano intends for his agency to add and ensure union involvement in developing that promising economic landscape. The scope of Medrano’s agency position encompasses 48 separate local unions and district councils, with more than 150,000 members representing 14 trades. After 40 years in the union organization sector, Mr. Medrano brings an educated and sophisticated voice to this conversation.

 

Kelly Lobianco – As director of the LA County Department of Economic Opportunity, Ms. Lobianco brings 15+ years of non-profit and public servant strategizing to this newly inaugurated role. Combining the efforts of four county units into one, this new branch oversees many of the region’s economic and workforce development endeavors that, together, provide support, direction, and resources for the County’s millions of workers. In her role as leader, Ms. Lobianco will be coordinating services that directly impact the region’s job creation strategies, industry partnerships, and business supports, among many other initiatives.

 

Panel One begins at 9:45 a.m. on the 26th, following the keynote address by California Labor & Workforce Development Agency Secretary Stewart Knox. It promises to be an informative and instructional morning. You won’t want to miss it.

 

Education Leads the Way to a Stronger Economy – Panel Two Speakers

Pam Sornson, JD on October 16, 2023

Pam Sornson, JD

October 17, 2023

The suggestion that education should be at the heart of economic development isn’t a novel idea. For years, experts have proven that countries with well-skilled workers enjoy stronger economies and a notable competitive advantage over nations that haven’t invested in their educational infrastructure. National, regional, and local economies all benefit when their shared workforce increases productivity, and even more so when those training and labor opportunities are available to all members of the population, regardless of their age, race, or gender. Communities that invest in a solid educational infrastructure experience lower poverty rates, better gender equality, and overall economic stability, which, together, reduce the social services burden on the government while enhancing the safety and security of the community at large.

Considering that sizeable impact of education on economic outcomes, it’s not surprising that the topic of choice for Panel Two at Pasadena City College’s 5th Annual Future of Work Conference is exploring  “Innovations in Driving Student-Focused Systems Change.” While California’s community college system is already one of the best in the world, it also sees how new gaps and challenges stemming from recent economic upheavals render some of its programs obsolete. That divide between college and career is growing more prominent as industrial systems change while education systems remain stagnant. The LA region intends to fully recover from the pandemic and all its social, political, and economic fall-out, so it is dedicated to revising its education systems to facilitate those inevitable changes in how industries and economies ‘work.’

 

Clarifying Barriers

Accordingly, the second set of panelists on Conference day will discuss leveraging existing educational resources to meet emerging labor demands. There are numerous obstacles to forward movement on the issue, however:

The speed at which the pandemic dismantled many industrial norms surprised most people. In many cases, industrial sectors are still evaluating which internal system elements need revision, replacement, or retirement.

Some occupational categories will need complete overhauls, not just because of technological improvements but also because the workforce is shrinking. Innovators may have to learn to achieve more productivity with less human power to do the work.

The introduction of technology in almost every industrial sector often requires an entirely new set of skills, many of which weren’t even considered just five years ago. Many of today’s educational resources are not yet set up to offer these courses.

Clearly, there is much to discuss, and this set of panelists offers unique and advanced perspectives to enlighten all in attendance.

 

 

Panel Two Participants

 

Moderator: Salvatrice Cummo,

Vice President of Economic & Workforce Development, Pasadena City College

A long career in ‘business’ – family, non-profit, publicly traded – informs Ms. Cummo’s educational perspective. Having worked successfully in retail, she left that occupation to lead the Pasadena Small Business Development Corporation, where she and her team developed practices and tools to assist emerging companies in becoming more successful and profitable. She was named Director of Economic and Workforce Development for Pasadena City College in 2017 and was appointed Vice President in that role in 2021.

 

Dennis Rodriguez,

Director of Business Development, Black & Veatch

This century-old, employee-owned engineering/construction corporation prides itself on its commitment to solution-focused innovation. Mr. Rodriguez manages public sector business development for the Western United States. He brings his years of experience to the panel in LA’s political and business community, where he worked as an aide to LA city council members and as a leader in the LA Chamber of Commerce and the LA Neighborhood Initiative, among many other affiliations.

 

Kelly Mackey,

State Director of Strategic Apprenticeships, State of California Apprenticeship and Workforce Innovation Unit, CA Department of Industrial Relations

MacKey is a celebrated innovator in workforce development, having received the President’s Award from the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) for her pioneering effort to build the country’s first public sector apprenticeship pathway. By doing so, she demonstrated that apprenticeships and work-based learning initiatives can evolve within all aspects of public life, including in government systems. Her insights will reveal how perceived obstacles don’t need to be barriers.

 

Dr. Francisco Rodriguez,

Chancellor, Los Angeles Community College District

As the leader of the country’s largest community college district, the LA Community College District (LACCD), Dr. Rodgriguez presides over nine colleges and 200,000+ students every year. These schools are often the first step for learners on their path to a better life, with half coming from low-income families. The District spends over $200 million per year in student aid, ensuring that every student has the resources needed to begin, persist through, and complete their early college education, whether that’s to pursue a trade or transfer to achieve a four-year degree. Dr. Rodriguez’s long history in both education and education administration provides him with insights and opinions that will surely educate FOW Conference attendees.

 

Nicole Feenstra,

Founder – The DNA Agency

A creative entrepreneur, Ms. Feestra uses her marketing and brand development skills to promote the high values of the trades as a career choice, most notably welding. A gifted storyteller, she knows how to connect an audience with her client’s resources with wit, charm, and precision. She will share her experiences developing marketing tools for trades-based educational programs with the panel and attendees.

 

The Conference is hosted by the Economic and Workforce Development Division at Pasadena City College (PCC EWD) and runs on October 26th, 8 am to 2 pm, in the Crevelling Lounge on campus. Attendance costs nothing, but registration is strongly encouraged.

 

Career-focused Pathways Enhance Student Success

Pam Sornson, JD on October 2, 2023

Pam Sornson, JD

October 3, 2023

In essence, the goal is to develop a system that results in ‘wins’ for everyone and every entity involved: students, businesses, industries, and communities. How to achieve that goal is a challenge, and there are as many opinions about ‘next steps’ as there are people joining the conversation. However, if all participants can agree to a single, overarching, and ultimate ‘universal’ objective (such as a ‘healthy and growing economy’ or ‘no unfilled job openings,’ as examples), then each can determine how their assets and capacities will contribute individually to accomplishing that singular intention.

 

Training, Trades, & Transforming Pathways

Forging a path toward that goal is the subject matter for our first panel of experts at the upcoming (October 26th, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.) Future of Work Conference hosted by Pasadena City College (PCC). (It’s free. Register here.) The events of the past three years have revealed glaring gaps in workforce development preparations and outputs in California and across the country. Thousands of job openings in occupations critical to maintaining economic foundations are unfilled because there are no workers – or no trained workers – available to accept them. In May 2023, on National Skilled Trades Day, America’s industries were missing over 400,000 welders, 18,000 aircraft mechanics, and 78,000 truck drivers. These gaps in workforce capacities limit the productivity of both the company that would hire them and the industries and supply chains with which those are affiliated. It’s a domino effect; when a business can’t complete one leg of a journey, or can’t fulfill an order for one part of a machine, or doesn’t have the resources to facilitate one element within a logistics strategy, then all aspects of that combined joint project – contractors, vendors, merchants, and consumers – also fail.

The lack of skilled tradespeople isn’t a new development, however. For decades, trade school enrollment has been dropping as society shifted its focus to a four-year degree as the ultimate educational standard. Consequently, many people best suited to a trade-type occupation lost their opportunity to attend the school that would have given them that training. Now, there are plenty of job opportunities within those fields that need filling. As of this Spring, there were over 10,000,000 job openings across the nation, but only 5.7 million unemployed workers who might fill those positions.

The pandemic appears to have opened a door to remedy this situation. It both eliminated whole swaths of occupations that were rendered irrelevant or obsolete by technology while also revealing an ever-burgeoning demand for more skilled labor across many industries. Schools with programs that were no longer relevant are now contemplating new avenues for training purposes that will respond to the labor demand. Industries with emerging needs – technology, infrastructure, security, etc. – are looking for responsive resources to fill those gaps (in terms of both educational resources and HR assets). Meanwhile, the government continues to pump billions of dollars – local, state, and federal – into workforce development projects in an effort to regain lost ground and build the foundation for a new and refreshed economic future. With so much of the previous system in disarray, ‘now’ seems like the right time to intentionally move away from what’s not working and toward new endeavors that promise more success.

 

Innovations in Student-Focused Systems Change

Understanding what kind of labor industries and businesses need, however, is just one part of the solution. Another factor is developing the educational resources necessary to address those workforce requirements. Accordingly, the second panel at the Future of Work Conference will discuss the nuances involved in transitioning outmoded existing college and trade school resources into structures that respond to today’s economic and labor force demands. Improving the connection between college and career will also (ostensibly) improve student success metrics, too. These conference panelists, too, have a challenge facing them.

In July 2023, the California Employment Department’s Labor Market Information Division (EDD- LMID) reported:

California’s seasonally-adjusted unemployment percentage is 4.6, which is up a bit over the low point reached (3.8%) in the Summer of 2022.

Three of the state’s 11 major industries have yet to regain their pre-pandemic employment numbers: financial activities, government, and ‘other’ services.

Year-over-year job gains from 2022 through 2023 are promising, with the highest numbers of new jobs added occurring in private education, health services, and leisure and hospitality.

These are relevant factors that can feed the Conference discussion.

And there is growth to be had, too. Looking ahead, EDD-LMIC research also offers indicators of future job creation opportunities. Just three main sectors will account for 65% of the job growth volume over the next year:

The expansion of the leisure and hospitality industry will continue by as much as 7.3%, adding over 130,000 new jobs, primarily in the food services and drinking establishment sectors.

The social services sector (including private education, health services, and social assistance) is expected to grow an additional 4.3%, with almost half (41%) occurring in the social assistance subsector alone.

The business and professional services section will be growing, too, by almost 3% (2.7). Nearly one in five of those new occupations (18%) will involve computer systems design and related activities.

This panel must also consider long-term growth expectations. The California EDD issues 10-year predictions about workforce demands in the state’s 15 economic regions, with the most recent covering the decade between 2020 and 2030. For example, the Los Angeles Basin region (Los Angeles County) is predicted to have significant employment growth in occupations that cross several industrial sectors, including general and operations management, software-related fields (including developers, security, and quality assurance analysts), and accountants and auditors. Registered nurses will also be highly valuable, as will project management and business operations specialists.

 

The task ahead for the participants at PCC’s 2023 Future of Work Conference is daunting. Creating a ‘win-win’ scenario that builds both a robust workforce and a strong economy will challenge each of them to not just impart their wisdom, but also to collaborate with their conference colleagues to new ways of seeing and thinking about ‘workforce development.’ It’s a conversation you won’t want to miss.

California’s Chief Workforce Guru Opens FOW Conference Discussion

Pam Sornson, JD on October 2, 2023

Pam Sornson, JD

October 3, 2023

The State of California’s presence in the nation’s Economic and Workforce Development (EWD) sector is notable for many reasons. Not only does it have one of the biggest economies in the world (~$3.6 trillion in 2022), it is also:

The home to one of the world’s largest port systems (together, the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles comprise the San Pedro Bay Port complex, which manages an annual cargo value of over $300B),

Acts as a geographical and logistical base for countless industries and businesses (eleven major industrial sectors and more than four million small businesses) that generate trillions of revenue dollars each year, and

Hosts the largest collegiate collaborative in the world. The Los Angeles Regional Consortium (LARC) of 19 community colleges encompasses all the community colleges within Los Angeles County.

Accordingly, anyone involved in EWD efforts within the state (and out of it, too) should take the opportunity to listen when the leader of California’s Labor & Workforce Development Agency (LWDA), Stewart Knox, offers to talk about what he and his colleagues see as critical issues within that environment.

 

LWDA Secretary Stewart Knox …

California’s Secretary for the LWDA, Stewart Knox, will be the keynote speaker at the October 26th Future of Work Conference, hosted by Pasadena City College’s (PCC) division of Economic and Workforce Development (register to attend here.) For almost 30 years, Mr. Knox has immersed himself in employment-related issues from all sides of the EWD prism. His expansive career has included roles such as Director of Workforce at both the college (Yuba Community College) and municipal (the City of Glendale) levels, as a director for workforce training programs in rural communities and at the state level, and as EWD director for San Mateo County, to name just a few. Each assignment broadened his understanding of the complexities involved when building a viable and successful economy using workforce development skills and resources.

Knox’s connections across the EWD sector – at schools, in school districts, in economic forums, and as a local, regional, and state-based leader – give him a far-reaching vision of not just where California is now but also where it can (and probably should) go in the future. His perspective will be a welcome introduction to the conference’s primary focus, how to revolutionize worker pathways through education and training programs to their chosen careers with the companies that need them. His experience with virtually every element of the EWD platform informs his overarching comprehension of how each individual system works and how they merge together to function as a cohesive and singular economic development organization.

From early-stage training programs through workforce systems development and implementation to establishing and tracking economic outcomes, Mr. Knox understands the relevance of all players within the sector and how their individual efforts combine to improve the outcomes for all.

 

… And California’s Emerging Economic Landscape

Mr. Knox will speak to a well-informed audience of business, industry, educational, governmental, and social sector participants. While everyone from any walk of life is welcome to attend, the target audience of this free event consists of those already immersed in EWD and related issues and causes. And they will have a lot to talk about.

Reduced State Funding Capacities

California experienced significant economic and workforce contractions during the COVID-19 pandemic, some of which were made worse by accompanying social and environmental disasters. The impact on the state’s economy was immense; California lost billions of dollars in revenues while, at the same time, escalating spending to accommodate the burgeoning demand for an expansive constellation of emergency services. The immediate consequence of those economic contractions is the $24 billion deficit facing the Governor in January as he developed his 2023 state-wide budget.

A Reduced Workforce Population, Too

The state is also dealing with a reduced overall population compared to what it had at the beginning of 2020. Over the last ~three years, California has experienced a net loss of over 817,000 people through deaths (some of which were COVID-related), departures to other countries, or – most often – departures to other U.S. states. Of all the states, California is one of 18 that lost population numbers since the beginning of the pandemic, and it has experienced the fourth-highest rate of loss, too. A notable consequence of this reality is the state’s loss of a congressional seat (shifting down from 53 to 52) after 2020 census numbers revealed insufficient population counts to maintain that position. Consequential to that development is the loss of a voice at the national government level as well as a reduction of the federal resources distributed to the states based on their population levels.

A Diversifying Economic Map

Shifts in economic capacities within and outside the state are also affecting the EWD conversation. A Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce report suggests that it’s no longer feasible to consider California as a ‘single entity’ for EWD and industrial development purposes, so applying a unified strategy to remedy all the issues within the state isn’t likely to succeed.

Instead, the agency looked at the state as a collection of regions in its analysis as to why businesses continue to move away. For example, the northern half of the state, with its economic center being in the Bay Area, derives its economy primarily from the technology sector, while the southern half, centered around Los Angeles, looks to logistics and entertainment as its economic hub industries. Economic ties between these regional entities and those in other states (but not also in California) can lure businesses beyond the California state border to communities where living costs are lower and growth opportunities are more plentiful.

 

These are just three of the many, many issues facing California as it works to design the next iteration of its economy. Attendees at the October 26th Future of Work Conference will have the opportunity to hear what the state’s workforce development leader has to say about them and learn more about how they can contribute to the conversation themselves.

KPIs: Who’s Tracking What

Pam Sornson, JD on September 18, 2023

Pam Sornson, JD

September 19, 2023

There’s a big push these days to improve the integration of governmental, industrial, and educational resources for the purpose of building a more robust, more resilient economy. The initiative makes sense considering the invaluable assets each of those sectors contributes to national, regional, and local economies.

However, the internal workings of each sector are decidedly different from the other two, and they don’t routinely communicate with the others about challenges arising within their spheres of influence. Those non-communication practices are now posing challenges to the establishment of a genuinely collaborative economic and workforce development (EWD) strategy. That strategy will require intentional discussions to uncover common goals that unite group efforts and build systems to achieve those goals, leveraging resources from all three divisions.

One way to structure those discussions is to couch them in KPI development terms. Defining the “Key Performance Indicators” (KPIs) for use as guides by individual enterprises will help project participants move together to accomplish a greater, more comprehensive level of success for all.

 

KPIs Spotlight Gaps …

A KPI is a quantifiable demonstration of progress toward a specific end result. Many companies achieve success by using KPIs to define their goals, activities, inputs, and outcomes. Mapping out a clear set of KPIs is often the primary and most important tool for leveraging corporate assets to achieve enterprise success.

Within the EWD project,  participants in each sector will have to understand and work with the existing KPIs from the other sectors. The initiative will only succeed if all three sectors can mutually agree on and work collaboratively toward relevant KPIs. Considering the significant differences between their respective KPI systems, those agreements may be challenging to achieve.

Existing Government KPIs:

Governments track thousands of data points in their quest to be accountable, responsible, and effective. In the EWD sphere, a priority oversight function tracks the allocation and spending of public dollars for public education systems. School district administrators use KPIs to ensure each school appropriately uses its allocated funding. Data points here include administrative expenditures per student, first to third-year retention rates, student/teacher ratios, and course completion data, to name just a few. Government funding (primarily at the state level) accounts for most public education financing, including that for community colleges.

Existing Industry KPIs

Regardless of their subject matter, industries typically have well-defined KPIs within each subsector and another layer of more encompassing KPIs, knitting those subsectors together into a cohesive division. KPI systems can track hundreds of industrial activities within a single enterprise, and each individual data point reflects a critical element in the success of the overarching arena. For example, participants in the manufacturing sector often measure productivity quantifiers, such as machinery downtime, capacity utilization, and inventory turnover. Other KPIs measure workforce data, including scheduling, staff turnover, benefits management, and training costs.

Most notably, a quick review of KPI strategies in both government and industry sectors reveals very little overlap among them – what one sector is measuring is not measured by the other. The gaps between them are where the EWD initiatives can emerge. Participants in both sectors can collaborate to develop their common EWD goals and build collaborative – cross-sector – systems to achieve them.

 

… And Offer Pathways to Solutions

Developing a unified set of KPIs that encompass cross-sector EWD activities lays the foundation for the work to come. Within these discussions, sector participants can clarify where their priorities lie, how they can contribute to the global project without losing traction on their internal master plan, and the intended outcomes they will all strive toward. Accordingly, the first conversations should encompass these five KPI development principles:

    1. Clarify the purpose of the joint project, in this case, how to share sector assets and activities to further mutual EWD goals. The project’s ‘purpose’ will also define its intended outcome; a successful strategy is more likely when all participants agree on and commit to pursuing this set of mutually agreed upon results.
    2. Connect internal, sector-based activities to the project’s outcome(s). In some cases, existing activities and systems are already in place; in other cases, current programs may need revisions or sunsetting in favor of actions more in keeping with the larger initiative.
    3. Ensure that efforts to achieve each common goal are also relevant to the decision-makers in each sector. Experts at KPI development suggest that each indicator should be ‘SMART’: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Reliable, and Timely. Sector leaders can rely on the KPIs within their specific pillar to guide them to success. EWD project leaders can rely on those results to build the more complex systems of the larger scheme.
    4. Embed existing mandates and benchmarks into the KPI constellation. All three pillars – government, industry, and education – are governed by regulations, rules, and policies. Those requirements must be met, so embedding them within the scope of the KPI strategy will ensure success toward both mandates – those of the industry and those of the EWD project.
    5. Engage stakeholders early and often. No project can succeed if it fails to meet the needs of those it is designed to assist. In this instance, the ‘stakeholders’ are, essentially, every member of every community: students (of all ages), workers, businesses, industries, government agencies, and anyone else who benefits from a strong economy.

 

A review of KPIs across industries reveals how organizations are now measuring their success. That review also shows how narrowly focused the indicators are on the efforts of the specific entity. If society is seeking a reinvigorated economy by integrating its governmental, educational, and industrial assets, then it needs to develop a single set of KPIs that defines what that economy will look like and how it will be built. Those collaborative conversations among government overseers, educational leaders, and industrialists are just beginning.

KPIs: Clarifying Government, Higher Ed, and Industry Metrics

Pam Sornson, JD on September 18, 2023

Pam Sornson, JD

September 19, 2023

You can’t know where you’re going if you don’t know where you are. That’s the theory behind the use of ‘Key Performance Indicators,’ or KPIs, a measuring practice that tracks the connections between goals, activities, and outcomes. While each of the three economic and workforce development ‘pillars’ – government, industry, and education – tracks its own set of sector-specific KPIs, they don’t, as a unit, track how the other two impact their ultimate success. Maybe it’s time to develop those KPIs – the ones that tie governmental investments in industry and education to work and labor force demands and the consequential expansion of economic success.

 

KPIs – Roadmaps to Success

Typically, the standards used as KPIs relate precisely to enterprise specifications, as those have evolved over time through actions mandated by internal corporate leadership, emerging industrial trends, and external regulations. Businesses use them to track and control inventory, sales, and production costs; communities use them to identify and build the resources needed to support residents and systems, and regulators use them to track industrial trends and compliance activities. Virtually every organization develops and implements its own set of internal KPIs to ensure it maintains its focus on its core mission and goal values.

The practice of establishing and maintaining a core set of KPIs may also be applicable within the economic and workforce development sector. For perhaps the first time, industrial, governmental, and educational entities are committing to work together to build a more robust economy that better supports them all. From a 30,000-foot perspective, the endeavor makes sense:

The government typically has the financial resources for developing economic assets and systems but not the expertise or personnel.

Industry typically has the expertise, technologies, and physical facilities needed to build economic assets but requires a strong and well-trained workforce to provide the labor.

Educators typically impact both raw and evolved workforce talent but don’t have the employment/deployment capabilities to leverage their value.

Together, each of these three ‘economic development pillars’ – and countless other smaller and ancillary ‘workforce development’-related arenas – comprise the foundation of the shared global, regional, and local economies that sustain societies and their constituents. Yet, regardless of the critical roles each of the three plays in the activities of the other two, as a group, they do not track how the actions and outputs of the other pillars impact the efforts they make within their own sector. Their internal practices aren’t designed to work in tandem with the others toward a mutually accepted objective that will improve their shared economy.

Instead, each entity, enterprise, and pillar develops and pursues its internal KPIs with little or no awareness of the comparable activities of its economic colleagues. And without intentional and directed connections among and between them about who’s doing what and why, there is almost no way for them – as a collaborative team – to create a revised economy that responds to the current economic chaos while maximizing both existing and emerging workforce and economic resources. Developing a comprehensive connection strategy among them might ease the effort of each in finding future economic success in the form of a sustainable, fair, and generous economy that supports all of its constituents.

What the triad of pillars might need is a single set of KPIs that tie the efforts of each to the successes of the others. Each pillar can embed the new metric-tracking processes into its own internal strategy to better meld its individual accomplishments with the overarching societal goals that all three strive toward.

 

 

Educational KPIs – As An Example

The routine collection of information related to ‘college student success’ began in the mid-20th Century and grew increasingly important as a way to measure the value of public investments in higher education. Today, colleges have an established set of metrics – KPIs – that they use to track their progress as teachers, community members, and institutions. The effort taken to implement programs responsive to those KPIs pays off when the data demonstrates the school’s compliance with internal and external mandates.

However, in most cases, those metrics do not relate to how well their graduates are faring in the work world. Other than finding a job in their chosen field post-graduation, the ‘student success’ metrics reported by colleges reflect success as a student in a school and not as a future employee or societal economic asset.

From the college perspective, ‘student success’ metrics track how well their student body as a whole fares throughout the educational journey. Schools report high marks for ‘student success’ by collecting data related to these criteria:

They have a high graduation rate – the number of students who graduate within a specific time frame;

They have a high ‘course success’ rate – the number of students who complete a course;

Their students demonstrate a high ‘persistence’ rate – the number of students who ‘persist’ in attendance from semester to semester;

Their students also demonstrate a high level of ‘student engagement’ in both course and extracurricular activities;

There is a low level of ‘disproportionate impact’ of challenges on specific student groups or populations, and

There is a high passing rate for licensures by graduating students.

None of these collect data on the graduate’s post-education activities, whether they found work, whether the training they received was valued in their chosen field, or whether they are able to sustain a comfortable lifestyle based on their educational attainment.

Further, there is also no mechanism within the other two pillars that automatically connects educational inputs to industrial or economic outcomes. Without that intentional evaluative tool, it will be exceedingly difficult to measure whether the collaborations now evolving within the economic and workforce development sectors are – or will be – successful.

Economic challenges emerging from the recent pandemic suggest that such a new ‘combined outcomes’ measurement strategy might be beneficial, especially if the nexus of government/industry/education is going to achieve the level of economic growth it seeks. Full economic recovery might be attained earlier if collaborations among the three pillars can establish, implement, and report on their individual progress toward mutually agreed upon common goals.

Workforce Factors Affect Economic Development Strategies

Pam Sornson, JD on August 15, 2023

It’s not just the chaos caused by the pandemic, social concerns, and climate upheavals driving California’s urgent need to reinvent and reinvigorate its workforce. Economic experts seeking solutions to the challenge must also consider the rate of migration out of the state, a slowdown of immigration into the state, and California’s already aging population, as well as trends in the nature of the workforce in general. Rebuilding the economic foundations that have been lost while building fresh infrastructure for future industrial and economic growth will require collaboration among all of the state’s varied sectors if California is going to achieve in the future what it’s accomplished in the past.

Birth, Death, and Migration …

For decades, California’s booming population has fueled its equally booming economy. The end of World War Two triggered a ‘baby boom’ as returning GIs began building their futures and their families. In 1946, California’s population stood at just over 9.5 million. By 1960, that number had almost doubled to over 15 million. Now, in 2023, the state’s population has exploded to ~39 million, with both boomer babies and a thriving influx of immigrants powering state-wide economic growth for almost 80 years.

That constant population growth is slowing, however, and the state now has more job openings than it has available workers. As of June 2023, there were more than one million unfilled job positions in California, the highest number of occupational vacancies in the country. Several factors contribute to the low number of potential workforce participants:

Californians are leaving. While the population has been declining in the state for at least two decades, just since 2010, ~7.7 million people moved away. Only 5.8 million moved into the state during that period, leaving a net population loss of ~1.9 million. The pandemic, social concerns, and environmental issues caused another exodus of 407,000 between July 2021 and July 2022, a record net outflow.

Birth rates are down. Since 1992, the rate of births per 1,000 people has been steadily dropping and has now reached its lowest level in 100 years. Thirty years ago (1992), the state added 613,00 new babies to its yearly census. In 2021, that number had dropped to just 420,000.

Fertility rates are down, too. California calculates that each woman needs a birth rate of 2.15 children over her lifetime to maintain its current population levels. Today, that birth rate has dropped to just 1.52, dropping the state’s birth rate rank from 17th to 43rd among all the states.

Death rates are up. The number of aging Californians is rising as the ‘Boomers’ reach retirement age and beyond. In fact, the state’s over-60 crowd is the fastest-growing subset of the overall population, and by 2030, experts project that seniors – almost 11 million of them – will make up a full 1/4 of the state’s entire population. And, of course, they’re dying at a faster rate than younger populations, too. California’s ‘crude death‘ death rate per 100,000 jumped from 6.5 in 2013 to 8.1 in 2022, pacing an annual rate of 2.7%.

The consequence of these population metrics – birth rates, death rates, and the population exodus – is that the number of available workers has declined and will continue to do so. That challenge will continue to plague the state’s economy, too, as government figures predict that its total population will remain stable (stagnant) at around 40 million through at least 2060.

 

… And a New Perspective on Why and How Workers ‘Work’

The shortage of workers in the labor force has also rearranged the dynamic between employer and employee. The pandemic was especially impactful on this reality. Many workers quit their jobs because of COVID concerns, and when others stepped into their roles, they asked for higher compensation to reflect their new significance to the company. In other instances, people whose jobs were deemed ‘essential’ now recognized their true value to the organization and began asking for enhanced compensation to reflect that status. Dubbed the ‘Great Reshuffling,’ the phenomenon continues to roil the labor force as workers seek better – and better paying – occupations rather than leave the workforce altogether.

 

Contractions and Consequences

The lack of a fully functioning workforce is felt throughout the state, as individual businesses and entire industries restrict growth to accommodate the absence of employees willing to take on that effort. Several sectors, in particular, have been hard hit, and their losses extend into the communities they serve.

Transportation – The pandemic’s impact on the global supply chain industry was palpable to virtually everyone. Disruptions that began during that period, however, are still in effect, both in California and the rest of the country. Labor shortages impede the transportation sector as companies struggle to find truck drivers, couriers, skilled technicians, and warehouse personnel. According to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, this downward employment trend has reduced the nation’s logistics workforce by 3,000 to 4,000 in just the last year.

Healthcare – A recent (2022) survey by AMN Health revealed that 85% of the healthcare facilities they questioned reported labor shortages primarily in their rosters of allied healthcare professionals – sonographers, dental hygienists, and radiology technicians, to name just three. Adding to that stress is the reality that approximately 46% of those same facilities were losing staff due to burnout and overwork. When experienced professionals are replaced – by necessity – with less experienced or temporary replacements, then the quality of care provided also often suffers.

Retail trade and the hospitality industries are also still smarting from labor losses. In the retail sector, brick-and-mortar store operators have lost the most financial ground, both in profits (because more people are shopping online) and in staffing (fewer people are willing to work those hours at that pay rate.) In hospitality, 87% of survey respondents acknowledged that they are still having difficulty finding the workers they need. Hotels are stuck with excessive vacancies because they can’t find the necessary housekeeping staff to keep them open. Perhaps most alarming: 96% of respondents in the restaurant sector reported labor shortages across their enterprise, from servers and cooks to supply chain deliveries.

 

The participants and attendees at the 5th Annual Future of Work Conference, hosted by the Economic and Workforce Development division (EWD) at Pasadena City College (PCC), will address these concerns and more during the October 26th event. The day’s goal is to highlight both the challenges and opportunities that California is facing as it works to rebuild its flagging economy. Join us to add your perspective.

State Priorities Guide Student Success Innovations

Pam Sornson, JD on August 15, 2023

Pam Sornson, JD

August 18, 2023

The 5th Annual Future of Work Conference hosted by the Economic and Workforce Division (EWD) of Pasadena City College (PCC) is happening on campus in the Creveling Lounge on October 26th (8 AM – 2 PM; register here). Panelists will be discussing (among other topics) the need for California’s community colleges to develop programs and courses that respond to local, regional, and statewide workforce demands, as well as align with state and national economic priorities.

Revising any entrenched system to match emerging needs is an immense challenge for any organization. The task at hand becomes especially complex, however, when considering that California’s community college system comprises 116 schools serving almost two million learners every year. Conference speakers, hosts, and attendees will all gain insights and clarity about how the advanced education system might re-invent itself to ensure that every invested entity – students, schools, industries, and communities – can achieve its goals by working together to forge a stronger workforce development network.

 

 

Unique State = Unique Challenges

As a state, California enjoys a unique position within the country and the world. Its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2022 was $3.6 trillion, which makes up over 14% of the total national economy. When compared to other countries (not American states), California boasts the 4th largest economy in the world, behind the U.S., China, Japan, and Germany. That economic power drives industry of all kinds, both established and emerging, and sustains a satisfactory standard of living for most of its residents.

However, the world is currently struggling to find its new, ‘post-COVID’ economic normal, with many industries shrinking and others blossoming. California’s industrial sectors are lurching along that path, too. In response to today’s truly unprecedented reality caused by the pandemic, climate change, social unrest, and other factors, the state and its industries are working to develop new avenues to achieve economic growth and recover from economic losses. Both public and private entities are setting new goals and priorities to clear away obsolete practices and policies to make room for innovation and expansion. Financial and industry analysts are offering their take on the situation; the conference will look at how community colleges will contribute to the process of developing and achieving system-wide solutions.

 

Addressing Immediate ‘Priorities’ …

The state government establishes its priorities in part on previous initiatives and in part on consumer inputs. A September 2022 survey by the Public Policy Institute of California revealed that remediating economic concerns is the highest priority for most respondents, who highlighted the significance of improving job availability and curbing rising inflation. (Of those respondents, 38% reported suffering economic hardships caused by rising prices. Half of the lower-income adults surveyed raised the same concerns, as did higher percentages of Latinx and African Americans. Central Valley residents reported the highest number of and most severe challenges, while the San Francisco Bay area reported the fewest.)

Consequently, the state government has had to pivot away from earlier priority strategies to address its constituents’ immediate concerns. One of those pivots is to redirect public funding toward training workers for businesses and industrial sectors that show a promise for economic growth. The state’s eight-member Employment Training Panel (ETP) establishes those funding priorities based on demand by employers and changes in the state’s labor markets and the overall economy.

The ETP FY23/24 ‘Priority Industry’ funding strategy allows for a higher fixed fee reimbursement for businesses in specific industries that are clamoring for more well-trained workers; employers who underwrite the expense of training their workers will receive a higher rate of reimbursement for that purpose than they would have received in previous years. The practice encourages companies to invest in training processes without having to experience financial hardships by doing so. They get a more robust workforce, and California gets more workers on the job.

The agency’s FY23/24 newly identified ‘priority industries’ include:

Accommodation and Food Services

Administrative and Support and Waste Management and Remediation Services

Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing, and Hunting

Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation

Construction

Finance and Insurance

Health Care and Social Assistance

Information

Manufacturing

Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas Extraction

Other Services (except Public Administration)

Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services

Transportation and Warehousing

Utilities

Wholesale Trade

By identifying these industry sectors as ‘priority,’ the state is asserting its belief that they will be responsible for a significant portion of California’s future economic growth. The choices will guide funding support and industry collaboration toward those initiatives.

 

 … While Remaining Focused on Long-term Goals

In addition to providing immediate relief for today’s economic woes, California has also held fast to its investments in longer-term initiatives, many of which will also facilitate some relief from current economic stresses.

Decades of reduced spending have left much of the state’s infrastructure in disarray. Roads, bridges, schools, and other fundamental community assets have eroded in quality and durability. Funding directed at making those repairs will also generate new jobs and ease inflation concerns.

Regional environmental conditions have crippled hundreds of communities. Drought in the Central Valley and wildfires in counties across the state have caused billions of dollars in damage. The state is investing resources to recover from those losses while rebuilding impacted communities and industries.

Climate conditions, in general, are also getting attention from the state government. Renewable energy initiatives, in particular, encourage the development of new businesses to facilitate state mandates on controlling greenhouse gases and reducing the state’s reliance on fossil fuels.

 

This short synopsis lists only a few of the local, regional, and national priorities that guide decision-making for California’s community colleges. The October 26th discussion will focus on them closely as those experts collaborate to craft new educational pathways to facilitate their attainment.

Graduate Outcomes Require Revised Systems

Pam Sornson, JD on August 13, 2023

Pam Sornson, JD

September 5, 2023

For decades, California’s higher education system has focused on three primary goals:

    1. Preparing students academically to achieve their educational goals,
    2. Facilitating a smooth path from a two-year to a four-year school for learners who choose that path, and
    3. Enhancing the college life experience for all its scholars.

Recent developments, however, suggest that adding a fourth perspective to this list of initiatives may be in order:

    1. Facilitating a smooth transition from school to work by training students in the skills and abilities they’ll need to succeed in the occupation of their choice.

Essentially, the fourth initiative suggests including ‘career readiness’ as a new and independent factor in the higher education ‘student success’ metric.

The chaos created by the pandemic, ongoing economic instability, and disrupted social systems have created a ‘perfect storm’ of crises that require immediate attention to save the country from further financial disaster. However, they also present a unique opportunity to build a new economic infrastructure on what is left of stable foundations that will drive growth now and in the future.

 

In the Spotlight: Gaps in and Misalignment of the Education/Industry/Economy Landscape

Pasadena City College is hosting its 5th Annual Future of Work Conference next month (8 AM to 2 PM, October 26 on campus in the Creveling Lounge – register here), and the focus of this year’s discussion is how to better align community college activities to ensure graduates find – and succeed at – the job they want in the field of their choice. It promises to be a spirited and well-informed dialogue.

Just one of the several topics that will be discussed is the surprisingly high number of recent college graduates reporting that they are not working within their field of study. When parsed out across educational classes (Associate, Bachelor, Masters, and Doctorate degrees and Trade School certifications or diplomas):

Less than 60% of Doctorate and Masters grads are employed full-time in the industry in which they majored, a reality shared by 50% of Bachelor’s holders, 43% of Associate degree awardees, and 33% of Trade School completers.

Those with part-time employment in their field report even less success: 28% of Associate grads, 22% of Bachelor’s, 20% of Master’s students, 11% of Trade School grads, and 6% of Doctoral recipients.

Finding a full-time job has been difficult anyway: across the higher educational slate of academic achievements, full-time work in even an unrelated field averages only 13%.

 

The reasons given by many college graduates as to why they are unable to find work in their chosen occupation are equally interesting:

Their educational path – the programs they chose and pursued – didn’t provide them with the training that they actually needed.

There were no programs available that covered the particular type of work available, so there was no way to learn its requisite skills.

The jobs they want now don’t yet have training programs in place.

The statistics appear to indicate a significant disconnect between college achievement and career attainment – graduates are not leaving their school years fully prepared for their chosen occupation. Today’s challenge, then, is to identify where that disconnect is happening and implement reforms to eliminate it.

 

It Takes a Village …

… to train a workforce. Generating a practical and functional ‘career readiness’ strategy will require input from more than just school personnel. A thorough understanding of current and future workforce expectations comes from interacting with all players within the workforce development environment:

There may be an insufficient number of jobs in specific fields of study. Job volumes evolve as the demand for those skills ebbs and flows; some occupations may simply be becoming obsolete.

Academically attained skill sets might not match those needed in the field of study. Industry standards are changing rapidly, and new requirements may not yet be reflected in the course curricula.

It may not be the subject matter education that’s insufficient, either. Some reports indicate that graduates didn’t know how to find work in their chosen field, even if it was available.

 

These concerns suggest several responses that schools could take that would work in favor of future higher education students. Overhauling internal systems to match industry and occupation requirements will provide better support for and reflect their attention to their learner’s ‘career readiness’ goal.

Investments in resources that clarify occupational demand and availability would facilitate tailoring program offerings to those that show the most promise for high employment numbers.

Use the ‘occupation demand’ data to craft more flexibility into their existing programs and build new ones that accommodate those progressions.

Use industry experts to inform and design these programs that both train to current skill sets and provide work-based learning opportunities.

Embed on-the-job training in degree, diploma, and certificate requirements, then build out the systems that connect learners to these resources.

Rework their internal student success metrics to reflect occupationally relevant data, not just attendance, grading, and credit attainment statistics.

Ultimately, responses to today’s fraught economic and social situations may require adopting a new focus for California’s higher education system. In a 2019 report, the Public Policy Institute of California listed “eight key areas” that reflect the State’s ‘most pressing higher education challenges.’ Of the eight, the top six initiatives focus on improving the college experience, while the last two on the list address workforce needs and career education. While the first six are laudable and certainly imperative within the sphere of college and university practices, they might be considered not just goals in and of themselves. Instead, the six initiatives might also be seen as interim objectives to be met on the way to achieving the ultimate goal as identified in the last two: responding to California’s workforce needs by strengthening career education.

 

Today’s ‘student success’ metrics track the data that reflects how learners are faring on their educational journey. However, it’s no longer good enough for a college to simply improve its diversity, completion rate, and accessibility if its broader graduate population isn’t also successful in attaining its occupational and career aspirations. Student success metrics should also report on the effectiveness of how well that educational journey facilitates the launch of a successful worker who contributes positively to their greater community.

Why Institutional Leadership is Critical to Student Success

Pam Sornson, JD on August 13, 2023

Pam Sornson, JD

September 5, 2023

As if today’s higher education leaders don’t have enough on their plates. They’re already experiencing intense pressure from the community to improve campus diversity, shore up support for at-risk students, and rewrite the academic agenda to meet emerging post-pandemic labor force demands. However, achieving any level of success with strategies aimed at these initiatives may not be enough if, at the same time, those learners are not going to or can’t find the social, occupational, and economic benefits they expect to attain from completing their program.

Possible responses to these concerns will be part of the discussion we will have on October 26th during the 5th Annual Future of Work Conference hosted by the Economic and Workforce Development division (EWD) of Pasadena City College (PCC), from 8 AM to 2 PM, on campus at the Crevelling Lounge. Of the three primary topics to be covered, one focuses specifically on the unique position that community colleges and their leaders hold in generating ‘student success’ in the workforce development sector.

These schools wield enormous power – they consume billions of public dollars to produce a never-ending supply of ‘well-trained’ workers and workforce contributors. They also face enormous challenges – as society evolves to embrace a more divergent and technologically advanced industrial complex, they must pivot their existing resources to address the concerns arising from those uber-immediate realities. And when the connections between the school and its local and regional industrial colleagues are few and far between, it’s even harder for those leaders to know how to move forward into that unknown workforce development environment.

The conference attendees will explore possible best practices and strategies to ensure that community colleges and their regional EWD collaborators align national and state priorities and ‘student success’ metrics to improve or enhance student and institutional success and economic growth.

 

Why Strong College Leadership Matters Now (More Than Ever)

In pursuit of conventional mandates, a ‘successful’ college is one that generates positive data related to well-defined ‘student success’ metrics. Those metrics reflect how well the student body – individually and as a whole – is attending classes, persisting through programs, and graduating within reasonable time frames. Those successes are achieved because the school leadership team members – the President, Superintendent, Board of Trustees, Etc. – have aligned campus activities and aspirations with legal and educational requirements related to those standards. As a group, the stewards of the college or university have worked as a team to develop and implement the systems that both provide appropriate teaching resources and sufficient student support to guarantee a high level of graduates.

Today’s concerns, however, require the higher education system to go beyond those earlier mandates that focused solely on the learner’s academic achievements. The traditional goal of getting a cohort group to graduation is gradually being pushed aside in favor of launching a well-trained class that finds appropriate and gainful employment within their field of study and then contributes positively to the economic foundation of their society. Social, industrial, and political drivers are now compelling school leadership teams to assume responsibility for achieving this goal, too. Just as they did to achieve previously established directives, as a group, the team must now work together to assess what changes are needed and where, who and how to execute them, and, ultimately, the new slate of indicators that will track and measure the then-evolved standards of ‘student success.’

 

Aspen Institute Weighs In

The think-tank Aspen Institute (Aspen) asserts the need for strong college leadership as an imperative for this new mandate, too. In its 2021 report, ‘The Role of Presidents, Trustees, and College Leaders in Student Success,’ which explores the leadership backgrounds of the winners of its “Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence,” the agency discusses the critical impact that successful higher ed leadership has on student success. Notably, an assessment of the ‘C-Suite’ of past Prize winners reveals that they all had ‘exceptional presidents’ who successfully steered their institutions through multiple evolutions and reforms.

Aspen notes that each school’s President (and supportive Board of Trustees) used their innate strategic ability and commitment to student success to overcome some of the sizable obstacles learners face that prevent them from attaining their best achievements. Collectively, the inputs and efforts of these leaders clarify several reasons why a strong leader in the presidential role is critical to the student’s success.

1. Redirecting Cultural Expectations

Meaningful change requires adjustments in multiple school divisions, not just in the ‘student success’ or ‘student support services’ departments. One concern facing all members of the upper leadership team is the cultural norm that facilitates significant autonomy for department chiefs and faculty. While laudable for allowing individuals to direct resources as they best see fit for their immediate constituents, that segregation of authority can also interfere with school-wide communications and protocols.

Administrative decisions flowing from ‘division self-governance’ are just one way individual divisions can cause problems if theirs don’t align closely with broader institutional initiatives. Professional development requirements, for example, can be very technical to the subject matter but not necessarily conducive to student success. Developing a common, school-wide strategy for advanced accreditation that also supports enhanced student success metrics benefits both the school and the learner.

2. Financial Allocations Must Change, Too

Especially in these days of reduced enrollments, colleges must be extra careful with how they allocate their funding options. Previously, ‘student success’ was not necessarily considered when making monetary decisions, except, perhaps, within those specific departments. These days, however, if the intention is to have more employed graduates, then every school dollar should be tied to at least one step of the way toward that goal.

3. Aggregated Data Speaks Loudly

The college system itself can learn from its industry colleagues: success comes from maintaining focus and effort on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Data generate those KPIs. Divided departments don’t always share information, and even when they do, the data gathered may not have relevance outside that division’s doors. Consequently, leadership may not have access to the data it needs to make genuinely significant decisions that further the career possibilities for students. A strong ‘C-Suite’ can mandate the type of data required to ensure all divisions are working toward the student success mandate.

 

The President/Superintendent’s job is already over-wrought with challenges; emerging mandates to enhance the ‘college-to-career pathway’ only add to that burden. However, as the Aspen Institute notes, several schools have already mastered the task and developed a template that should transfer to virtually any school that intends to follow their lead. The leaders attending the Future of Work Conference will surely have their own input on these issues.

 

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