Wyoming Industry Partnership Solutions

About IPS

The Wyoming Workforce Development Council (WWDC) and the Department of Workforce Services understands that there are many workforce concerns throughout the state, many of which are unique to certain industries. The WWDC also understands that conventional means have not been enough to combat the unique problems we face in this state. The Workforce Development Council's mission is to shape strategies and policies to develop, recruit and retain Wyoming's workforce. To further this mission, the WWDC wishes to support industry partnership collaborations that bring together employers and employees around the common purpose of improving the competitiveness of a sector by addressing development, recruitment and retention challenges.

PURPOSE

A highly-skilled, globally competitive workforce is essential to Wyoming's future economic development and the ability of its industries to compete in the global marketplace. The WWDC's intent in supporting industry partnerships is to concentrate attention and resources on particular sectors that provide good wages and benefits, have the greatest potential for economic growth and/or which face serious challenges to growth or retention.

Industry Partnership Solutions should be the foundation for Wyoming's demand-driven workforce development strategy, designed to meet the workforce needs of businesses, the career goals and training needs of workers, and the economic development objectives of the State.

The expectation of this initiative is to realize successful Industry Partnerships which have three key elements:

• They focus intensely on specific industries over a sustained period of time, customizing solutions for multiple employers within a region.
• That aim to strengthen economic growth and industry competitiveness, thereby benefiting individuals by creating new pathways into and through the industries that lead to higher wage jobs.
• The work to promote systemic change that achieves benefits for the industries, workers, and the community and State.

The goals of an Industry Partnership are to:

• Foster innovation and a competitive advantage in global markets;
• Organize businesses, employers, workers, labor organizations, and industry associations into a collaborative structure that supports the sharing of information, ideas and challenges common to their industry;
• Identify the training needs of multiple employers, especially skills critical to competitiveness and innovation to the industry;
• Facilitate economies of scale by aggregating training and education needs of multiple employers;
• Assist educational and training institutions to align curriculum and programs to industry demand;
• Assist industry partnership companies to work together to identify and to address common organizational and human resource challenges, such as recruiting new workers, retaining incumbent workers, implementing a high-performance work organization, adopting new technologies and fostering on-the-job training;
• Develop and strengthen career paths within and across companies and industries to enable entry level workers to improve skills and advance to higher wage jobs;
• Assist industry partnership companies to attract potential employees from a diverse job seeker base, including individuals with barriers to employment, including job seekers who are economically disadvantaged, women, younger workers, older workers or workers who previously have been incarcerated;
• Assist employers in maintaining a constant and sufficient supply of available and qualified workers; and
• Assist job seekers in enhancing their employability, career potential and labor market rewards.

Effective Industry Partnerships will accomplish the following:

• Identify the training needs of businesses, including skill gaps critical to competitiveness and innovation;
• Facilitate companies to come together to aggregate training and education needs and achieve economies of scale;
• Help educational and training institutions to align curriculum and programs to industry demand, particularly for higher skill occupations;
• Facilitate bringing employers together to address the challenges of connecting youth to careers;
• Help companies identify and work together to address common organizational and human resource challenges – recruiting new workers, retaining incumbent workers, implementing high-performance work organization, adopting new technologies and fostering experiential on-the-job learning;
• Identification of barriers to entry level employment for workers and strategies to remediate those barriers;
• Develop career ladders and lattices within and across companies, enabling workers to improve skills to advance into higher skill, higher wage jobs;
• Develop new industry credentials that give companies confidence in the skills of new hires and workers more mobility and earning potential across firms; and
• Promote communication networks between firms, managers and workers to promote innovation, potential economies of scale and best practices. In some cases, these activities will result in the development of new learning collaborative, Centers of Excellence, or joint economic development activity.