Pre-Conference Sessions
Pre-conference sessions are full or half-day intensive and interactive training sessions. All sessions are held at the Washington Hilton Hotel on Saturday, March 10, 2012. Pre-registration is required; however, if you have not yet registered for a pre-conference session you may still register Saturday morning at the Registration Desk.
Continental breakfast for Pre-Conference attendees is available from 8:30 AM – 10:00 AM. Lunch is provided for participants in the full day session.
WIB Members in Action – Making an Impact on the Community
Presenters:
Tim Aldinger, Special Assistant on Professional and Project Development, NAWB
Cheryl Carrier, Ford Motor Company Fund, NAWB Board Member
Frank Gradijan, Senior Business Consultant, Full Capacity Marketing, Inc.
Length: Half day, 9:00 AM - 12 PM
Session Description:
Workforce Investment Board members are charged with creating strategic workforce solutions for their local community. This goal is made more challenging by the complexity of the public workforce system, the need to build partnerships among many different entities, and the uncertain policy and economic climate.
The session is designed to prepare board members to address these challenges and become productive trustees for their board. This training is focused on grounding participants in NAWB’s WIB Performance Framework of Legislated and Leadership responsibilities. Participants will leave with a foundation for thinking and acting strategically in their community and what they can do as individuals to make their Board more effective. This training has been delivered to over 50 WIBs online and in person on several occasions and Board members have been consistently positive.
Data Driven Decision-Making – Using Workforce Information to
Target and Adapt Investments
Presenters:
John Dorrer, Program Director, Jobs for the Future
Ken Poole, Executive Director of the Council for Community and Economic Research
Length: Half day, 9:00 AM – 12 PM
Session Description:
This session will discuss simple approaches to use available workforce information (from free and proprietary data sources) to provide up-to-the minute market intelligence about your employers and their workforce needs, monitor emerging workforce needs, and fast-changing industry conditions. The session will include practical examples and hands-on work with data and help you open up a new way of making hard choices about the finite resources you have available to help jobseekers find work and training providers to rapidly respond to employer demands.
John Dorrer and Ken Poole will help you understand what you need to know and how to access the data and skills your staff need to drive planning, improve the relevance of your employer outreach, and improve your placement opportunities. In this session, we will explore how to bring data from multiple sources to profile jobs that are available today and likely to be available in the months and years ahead; the skills and certifications those jobs will require; and the known gaps as described in the data and by employers.
Using Return on Investment (ROI) to Guide Program Development
and Evaluation: Recent Results
Presenters:
Dr. Christopher T. King, Director, Ray Marshall Center, The University of Texas at Austin
Dr. Kevin Hollenbeck, Sr. Economist, W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research
Dr. David W. Stevens, Director, Jacob France Institute, University of Baltimore
Length: Half day, 9:00 AM – 12 PM
Session Description:
In today's fiscal environment, ROI can be an important metric to demonstrate the value of program initiatives to the community and legislatures. It also can lead to important program improvements and may serve to preserve or increase funding available. Programs need to be 'data-driven' when they are conceived, implemented and evaluated.
The preconference is designed to inform the participants of current resources for workforce research. Experts from the Ray Marshall Center, the Upjohn Institute and the Jacob France Institute will share the latest ROI findings and illustrate ways to use them. The session is designed to be highly interactive and allow the participant to learn sources of workforce research and how to use those findings to guide program development and evaluation.
Proactive Support for Workers and Companies in Transition
Presenter:
Mark Troppe, US Department of Commerce, NIST Manufacturing Extension Partnership
Lisa Rice, President, Brevard Workforce Board
Byron Zuidema, Regional Administrator, Region IV
Cheryl Slobodian, California Manufacturing Technology Consulting
Don Nakamoto, Verdugo (CA) WIB
Length: Half day, 9:00 AM – 12 PM
Session Description:
Layoffs and economic dislocations can devastate a local economy; workforce entities need to be proactive to prevent or ameliorate layoffs or respond effectively to dislocations after they occur. This preconference includes examination of strategies along a continuum of rapid response, from proactive strategies to prevent layoffs, to strategies to mitigate the effects, to strategies post-layoff that reduce the transition period or lessen the impact on workers, companies, and communities. The session will include discussions of layoff aversion strategies launched by local WIBs in partnership with NIST Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) centers; the Brevard Workforce Board’s response to the devastating dislocation caused by the elimination of the NASA Space Shuttle; and DOL’s spectrum of resources within its Rapid Response framework.
Click here for presentation and handout materials for this session.
Participants will learn about:
- How state and local Workforce Boards are partnering with NIST Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) centers to provide layoff aversion services such as early warning systems and economic development partnerships that help companies address challenges before they become critical and lead to layoffs or plant closings.
- Resources and tools to assist companies in transition to save jobs and how to use rapid response workforce funding for layoff aversion services.
- The steps the Brevard Workforce Board took to respond to the elimination of the Space Shuttle program which resulted in a direct job loss of 7000 jobs and innumerable second tier jobs. Those steps include an Advocacy plan, dealing with large numbers and identifying and including the key stakeholders.
- Valuable DOL tools and resources (e.g., the Self-Assessment tool, layoff aversion strategies, and the Rapid Response Framework outlined in ETA guidance) to provide locals with a variety of solutions and activities that support high quality Rapid Response.
Powerful outcomes can result when a WIB acts as the catalyst for coordinating and facilitating a powerhouse of stakeholders around a critical workforce issue. Learn from a variety of perspectives how building such alliances and partnerships can bring about awareness among elected officials, businesses, community organizations and regional partners, increase your WIB's leadership role, and achieve unexpected funding.
Leadership by Design: Facilitation Skills for Workforce Development
Presenters:
John D. Baker and Virginia Hamilton
Length: Full day, 9:00 AM – 4 PM
Session Description:
As leaders within workforce and economic development, WIB members, directors and staff are increasingly called upon to work with partners and stakeholders to achieve shared awareness, shared agreements and shared outcomes. This work does not often require new knowledge of what needs to happen. We often are clear on the outcomes we want and need to achieve. But there is a gap between this knowledge and how we get there. Facilitation skills and design literacy are the missing element. This preconference session will focus on the leadership role of WIBs as community conveners. It will cover concrete methods that increase a group’s ability to listen to diverse points of view, capture the group’s best thinking, surface new ideas and solutions, and move from discussion to action. This session will help you design better WIB meetings and agendas, produce successful participatory community and industry summits, convene stakeholder meetings that lead to different and better results, and an efficient way to develop questions for focus groups. The session will also teach you some basic and fundamental principles for conducting any kind of meeting or conversation.
John and Virginia have trained many workforce leaders in facilitation skills. You will walk away from this session with practical tools you can use right away in your work, volunteer and personal life.
Download the Program Book for additional Forum information and schedules.
- “The NAWB Forum is it! If you're part of or connected to the nation's workforce system and don't attend you're doing your community a disservice.”
- “Forum attendance for our board leadership, key staff and community partners is a must.”
- “Without hesitation I can say our local region has benefitted from our participation at NAWB's Forum.”
- “The connections, best practices, and insight at the NAWB Forum are unparalleled.”
- “If you're a workforce thought leader, you're at the NAWB Forum.”
- “The NAWB conference is the best place to network, hear first-hand from DC policymakers, and learn about innovations and trends in the workforce system.”
- “I always leave inspired and reminded that what we do every day is making a real difference.”
- “Powerful and productive!”
- “The Forum provides new information—timely, inspirational and practical.”
- “A good investment of our time and resources.”