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We had the specific focus on career awareness and student awareness of work opportunities. We started with this list of what we thought we should do to career awareness. We thought internships and employer training is important. We need effective communication between all players. If you’re a parent or a student we could be better connected with similar language. We also thought that rethinking graduation requirements would be important. We need to look at what activities and opportunities are currently available. We need to introduce career opportunities in part using the NCE model. This visual model and concept is very helpful in understanding how it all fits together. It’s not just for an individual person, but also useful from an economic standpoint. We need knowledge and skills to fulfill those businesses as well. This might be the one thing that will help us have a common language. The careerconnections.org can be very helpful. As it gets more developed and you select manufacturing, for example, you’ll see that it’s a high demand area. Also, this website highlights Nebraska businesses. Focusing on the K-12 population, we know that we want to have the parent and family connection. We need equity and access. Some of these are underlying principles. The conversation brought up the idea that we’re culturally aware but we see that sometimes that message doesn’t really reflect reality. Do we really want all Nebraskans, even if they’re immigrants, to succeed? This flows right into community outreach. In Sioux City, internet access is not available to all families. They are considering creating a community center to provide free access in places like trailer parks. If you have all these opportunities for career, then you need a personal learning plan. Hopefully this will be a natural part of how to reach our goals. Our goals are that the NCE model is shared with higher ed and businesses. If the model takes off and everyone gets the common language. Maybe even the classifications ad will reflect these categories. We’d like to get to the point where there is buy in from the Department of Labor and Economic Development offices. Right now, manufacturing has campaigns to attract people. Hospitality centers. We feel this is an opportunity for them to plug in. There is huge impact from the political factor. We need buy-in all the way from the top to the bottom.
2 Partnerships We developed a plan focused on partnerships and considered including many players. We started with the obstacles and issues. We captured some of the things that are part of the situation. From that we looked at what needs to happen. The first one that emerged is a better awareness of the specific needs in the labor shortage. We need to know where those are and communicate it to all the actors and use common data, so that we’re on the same page. Some of the agencies use different sources. This led to a second goal which is to use data to drive the conversations and the decisions. We used an example of South Sioux City. If a community says that all the kids have little interest in manufacturing, maybe we need to do something to increase their awareness and interest in this area. We’re pretty good in a single town for collaborating and when we come together state-wise, we’re good. But we’d like to create partnership zones which would come together either by region or type of interest. For partnerships to work there needs to be willingness and initiative. When it’s not on anyone’s job duty list, it may not get done. We need to identify a “champion” to lead the collaboration. One of the challenges we have is how to measure success. What constitutes success in school may not translate in the workforce. We want to look at how we can integrate that. This leads us to get more interaction from employers. We want to create a dialogue between them and the students. One of the things that emerged in terms of partnerships is that we need to find a way to get parents involved. They are key decision-makers for the k-12 students. We also focused on groups who represent minorities and immigrants. In terms of the policy we need to ease regulations so that students can enter into the workforce. There are some barriers right now in terms of safety and age. We need to create awareness that policies on immigration affect this entire system and we need to understand how all these systems work together. This all boiled down to three main points:
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3 Private Sector We focused on recruitment and retention. We looked at what was available in the private sector. There is a common system in Nebraska where anyone can post their job offerings, though most places don’t take advantage of that. We need to get more people to use this system. You could be in another state, get a job in Nebraska and find out all about it and the community. We need to market this system. The Department of Education could use this system for curriculum guidance. Higher education could use this for internships and placement. In the second year we focused on providing training, recruiting and retention. We want to focus on the flexibility of ages. We want to show how it would benefit companies. The third year we want the Department of Labor to enhance incumbent worker and training programs with matching funds from businesses. This brings up the fact that we’re short of math and science teachers. That program would be ongoing. We would want all the stakeholders to provide something. The fourth year is about investing in future occupations. We don’t know what will be here five or ten years from now. We said that we need to enhance partnerships that help people adapt to change. We need to help encourage people to change and help them feel safe in the change. We brought the legislative part in this because they influence initiatives and regulation. We need them to make funding a priority and remove barriers and increase communication. The kind of thing, such as lack of knowledge about this system, just shouldn’t have it.
4 Students Our team had a bit of a slow start, but we were charged with developing a six year plan for a partnership between business and education. We came up with nine initiatives for the early stages:
With only five minutes left, we got to work on our goals. We came up with four major ones.
We see that there could be many collaborative partnerships. These can be forged with:
We didn’t get very far on the milestones, but here are a few:
The last one is critical. Whether they are going to college or into the job market, they have to be prepared. We need to be doing a much better job to achieve this goal. There were other topics that we just didn’t have time to get to, but I think that it is a good start.
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5 Education Partnerships Our big idea is to Think Global! We really need to think outside of our own borders to make this work. Nebraska benefits by global thinking from by products. There are several important tasks in front of us:
There need to be an incentive for economics, workforce and education to collaborate. We know that incentives can be put into place to accomplish this. These incentives are not just financial but also to reduce historical barriers that have prevented progress in the past. The public needs to understand and support that this is a very urgent situation. The process should have been started 10 years ago and we cannot wait another decade to get underway. We need to get all of the legislators on board today. In six years this needs to all come together to achieve some state-wide measurable result. It all boils down to increasing the 18-34s and reducing drop outs. Another big idea from our group is that we need to allow students to “test drive” a career to see how it fits. Students feel forced to choose a decision and that can become decisive or even drive them out of school. Instead, we should use this time as an opportunities to find a good match and the best way to do that is to literally “try on” one or more career options.
6 Teenagers We needed to put together a plan to make the learning process meaningful and to get the different organizations on board that need to be working together. We talked about several ideas that are very important:
We also need to develop an environment of adaptability. We need to integrate partnerships with credentialed and experienced professionals. There is a huge gap around career awareness. Our students just don’t know what is possible. There are some barriers and we see ways to work with, but probably not eliminate them. For example, the non-compete clause between industry and education must be revised. The major characteristics of our six-year plan are:
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7 Internships & Apprenticeships Our first goal is to get rid of restrictive laws that prevent students from having experiences in the workplace. Right now anyone under 18 can’t do internships or apprenticeships. We started with the end in mind. We want to do away with the traditional teacher. We want someone who can apply what they’re teaching to the real world. We want to make things relevant. There would not be a geometry class, there would be an engineering class, so they learn how geometry applies to the real world. We have a lot of really good teachers, and we can learn from the business world. We want to require internships for all students. Everyone needs to know how it is in the real world. They can graduate at 16 if they master the material. There are 9th graders who may be ready for computer programming, but others may not be ready until they are seniors. We want to change the restrictive laws. So the outcomes in year 6 are more important that what happens in years 1 - 5. And it may be different in a larger community than in a smaller community. Comment: I like how you are rethinking the process. There are college professors who are insulated from reality and don’t know what’s going on. This addresses that issue. I am just finishing up my doctorate, and taking my last class. It was a class on leadership, and the professor told us not to spend all our time lecturing, but he was lecturing all the time. This is the way I don’t want you to teach in the real world, but that is how I am reaching you! If I can show master of objectives, do I have to sit in a seat for 9 weeks? No. If someone asks why they need to know something, we need to show them how they will use the information. Comment: Microsoft is putting business people in college to teach IT skills to students. This is a wake-up call. And what better way to do it than people who use it every day. Even the best teachers - if they haven’t been in the real world for a while, they may not know. If this is what really happens, this is how we teach it. Comment: How does your principal feel about this?
8 Business Legislation Our focus is on legislation and policy initiatives relating to business. What do we need to do to address the needs of businesses? Our goal is to have a competent workforce to fulfill business needs. Tax incentives Someone in McCook wants to talk to Omaha, and they have to go through Kearney to Grand Island to Omaha. They can’t connect directly. It’s silly. If we’re going to enable employees to work remotely, we need a way for people to do it. Someone can live in Kearney and work for Mutual of Omaha. Comment: I work remotely, and a lot more people are starting to do that. You are the exception to the rule, and remote work needs to be the rule. Creating a favorable tax and business climate - this has to do with immigration, making it easier to comply with immigration laws. Policies that support internships and externships. Schools are having trouble linking up with business. Workers comp issues are a barrier. Liability. There have to be policies and legislation to define the liability issues. Right now people have to guess - right now they guess they don’t want to do it. At Metro Community College, a professor is teaching the same class at UNO and at Metro, but UNO wouldn’t accept the transfer credits for the student. How do we pair up between business and education to know what business really needs in the soft skill area? We need a way of assessing what the business needs are. Our plan: Year 1: Collect information. Assess needs and priorities of business.
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9 Education Legislation Our topic was how do we use policy and legislative change to overcome shortages and barriers. Policy Legislation to support partnership Part of the problem is that insurance is prohibitive. Insurance will not accept the liability. As an educator I accept that responsibility every day. Businesses should be given incentive to increase opportunities. If an employer brings someone to school they still need someone to do the job. Fiber optics - NPPD could put in fiber optics tomorrow, but we aren’t allowed to compete against the existing businesses. Expose teachers to the real world: Teachers should go out to business and actually see how things are done. Students should be able to see exactly what they would be doing. Expose youth to economic opportunities. Specifically career mentoring so that students can see what’s available. We should be training for jobs that we need to fill here in Nebraska. The curriculum may be outdated. Why? “Because we’ve always done it.” That’s not good enough. The key to all the viewpoints are respect, responsibility, and accountability. This is the starting point. Our 6 Year Plan A key point is active business involvement in the schools. Adopt a school programs are not geared toward mentoring. We need to help people make career decisions. I spent 4 years preparing a to be an elementary school teacher before I realized that it was not a good choice for me. How do we use business to help us do that?
10 Latin Americans There's a significant worker shortage here and it will only worsen if we don't do something. We worked on a 6 year plan to integrate workers from Latin America. Here are the challenges. Key Challenges
Expose Young People
Support Systems and Infrastructure
Role of Nonprofits
The Goal Educate and assimilate Latinos to be a part of society so that they can be productive, contributing members of the local economy and community. Milestones
Initiatives
Policies
Partnerships Development
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11 Asians The first thing we did was list our challenges. They were:
ELL services
The next question was about the role of Non-Profits
Then we worked on what we could do to expose young people to economic opportunities.
Here are the goals that we outlined.
Immediately should be concentrating on:
12 Incumbent Workers We talked about the 5 groups that need to work together: 1) Business and Industry, 2) Educational, 3) Higher Education, 4) Dept. of Economic Development, and the 5) Dept. of Labor First we talked about Business and Industry needs. They need adult learners to increase their participation in higher education. Business and Industry needs to keep adults in the workforce longer - reduce stigmas. They need to help build education.Then we talked about what each group brings to the system. What Business and Industry brings is opportunities and reality. The Educational system needs custom job training and funds - this ties with the business needs. What education brings is:
Higher Education Needs: Don't duplicate things, Centers of Excellence, Find niche for Nebraska, Equitable Funding for Community Colleges, Stronger coordination distance education system. Dept. of Economic Development brings, targets, economic incentives - Advantage Nebraska. All this helps in maintaining competitive edge. What the department needs is more players Dept. of Labor provides leadership, staff to coordinate, and research LMI, federal guidelines, and partnerships. What the Dept. of Labor needs is more specialized studies, enhanced career centers, and kiosks. Our Goal
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DebriefMichael: What are some of the patterns and themes that you’re hearing?
Michael: Any surprises? Not hard to plan but hard to do Michael: You’ll find that you can do more than you think you can. Some of the ideas brought up during the brainstorming were wonderful, such as a MySpace site for career opportunities. Michael: We recently worked with the Federal Reserve and there was a guy there who raised over $4B by putting his message into myspace.com The differences standards we have also create a lot of challenges. Michael: Does anyone know who owns Visa? It’s a collaboratively participatory group that competes with each other. The whole system works and there are ways to do that. As we become more diverse, how do we bridge the barriers we have now. At some point, native Nebraskans are not all white and we need to become sensitive to that. I was surprised by the lack of technology. We need to recognize that technology helps us be more than are as human beings. Maybe this is assumed but I didn’t hear it. Michael: Anyone get a big ‘aha’? I heard about a frame of reference that said we need to work to live and not live to work. That’s a great vision and I was very pleased to hear it. Michael: A condition that we all face is the radical nature of change. The business sector is ahead of the public sector. Everyone has to confront their own personal transformation. Many times that’s where it starts. There are a lot of challenges that we face in dealing with the rate of change. It is a good exercise to look at ourselves and see what we have to deal with in this way. One of the personal transformations that helps is to create a space where you can say, “I don’t know.” Next it is good to be able to be in a group that can say it as well. After being here since 9am this morning, I’m surprised that I’m still interested in what’s happening. Usually by this time, I’d be flagging. Michael: Any concerns? Personal challenges?
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Assignment Objective
For every individual who enters the workforce in Nebraska today, two leave the workforce, primarily due to retirement. There is a significant worker shortage here, and if it weren’t for immigration the state’s overall population would be static. The workforce situation will only worsen as time goes on - unless we do something.
The objective of this round of work is to develop a Six-Year Plan to address the situation described above.
Your plan should address each of the Five Major FutureForce Viewpoints (See the diagram: Business and industry leaders, the Department of Economic Development, the Department of Labor, the Department of Education, and Higher Education).
- What does each Viewpoint group bring to the solution?
- What does each need from the process?
Your plan should identify:
- Goals
- Milestones to be achieved (and by when they would be reached)
- Initiatives undertaken, and by whom
- Partnerships developed
- Policies created
Six Year Plan Teamlist
| Team 1 | Team 2 | Team 3 | ||
| Connie Eichhorn | Barb Onnen | Carol Andringa | ||
| Dave Masilko | Bob Arp | Deborah Romanek | ||
| Dean Folkers | Bob Lungrin | Ernie Goss | ||
| Dennis Headrick | Ernie Gross | Fernando Lecuona | ||
| Donna Vrbka | Janet Drudik | Kathy Gifford | ||
| Francoise Matthis | Richard Katt | Lori Hein | ||
| Jerry Smith | Seth Derner | Rick Moses | ||
| Lindy Foley | Tammie Burns | Shirley Baum | ||
| Scott Broady | Tony Glenn | Steve Richmond | ||
| Team 4 | Team 5 | Team 6 | ||
| Bill Eakins | Barb Waller | Dan Hoesing | ||
| Carly Runestad | Chris Polenz | Daniel Davidchik | ||
| Cynthia Baum | Greg Smith | Daniel Doherty | ||
| Joe Rowson | Jay Sears | Donlynn Rice | ||
| Kim Larson | John Bell | Greg Stahr | ||
| Lori Vanderheiden | Ken Spellman | Lori Scherer | ||
| Mary Barkeloo | Marilyn McGahan | Roger E. Glawatz | ||
| Mike Price | Matthew Fisherq | Thomas Miller | ||
| Rhonda Jindra | Pat Crisler | Tim Nollette | ||
| Team 7 | Team 8 | Team 9 | ||
| David Gordon | Beverly Newton | Betty Palmer | ||
| Duane Matson | Curt Beck | Dallas Beshaler | ||
| Gayle McClure | Deb Sanne | Dan Mauk | ||
| Joan Modrell | Doug Christensen | Heather Whaley | ||
| Justin Wagner | Jody Krueger | Jan Norlander-Jensen | ||
| Kathie Lueke | K.C. Belitz | Jim Walsh | ||
| Rebecca Eberly | Mike Abdouch | Julie Karavas | ||
| Sheryl Wright | Rich Pahls | Manelle Keefover | ||
| Timothy Shafer | Susan Scott | Tom Whalen | ||
| Team 10 | Team 11 | Team 12 | ||
| Bonnie McPhillips | Caleb Pollard | Ann Dales | ||
| Bonnie Sibert | Dennis Baack | Anthony Koyzis | ||
| Constance Daly | Jan Brandt | Betty Red Leaf-Collett | ||
| Dwayne Probyn | Jean Brown | Gregg Christensen | ||
| Erika Volker | Jolene Jeffries | Jack Shepard | ||
| James Linderholm | Kris Howe | Jill Schreck | ||
| Larry Starr | Lisa Johnson | Julie Panko | ||
| Wayne Saske | Rebecca Hasty | Sarah Dempsey | ||
| Wendy Boyer | Sandra Scofield | Steve Joel |
