Colorado Jobs Plan Engages Employers to Improve Workforce Quality

Outlining his Colorado Promise three years ago as a newly-elected governor, Gov. Bill Ritter envisioned an economy that supports high-wage jobs and offers an environment for businesses to expand and thrive. Educational programs would be synched with industry needs to produce a skilled workforce, workers would be trained in the high-demand fields relevant to each of the state's diverse regions, and enough businesses would be operating to employ them.

Two years later, Gov. Ritter convened the Jobs Cabinet, bringing together the state's economic development, education, and workforce communities to make recommendations for aligning jobs with industry needs. The cabinet presented to the governor last month a report and recommendations for achieving this goal in the report "Economic Competitiveness through Collaboration, Talent Development, and Innovation."

Operating on the notion that in today's global economy, competitiveness is less about providing infrastructure or tax incentives and more about providing innovation and talent, the cabinet makes several recommendations focused around five core areas: collaboration, engagement, marketing, information, and leadership. Some of the recommendations include:

• Conduct ongoing evaluation of local business training needs;
• Develop and promote credentials and certifications that are meaningful to employers;
• Prioritize funding for education programs in middle-skill workers. These jobs typically require some level of post-secondary training or certification;
• Seek grants and leverage resources to raise awareness of programs;
• Provide a web-based pathway to information about workforce assets and resources to be hosted on the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment web portal;
• Develop data sharing and updating processes for state-sponsored information on the website;
• Develop metrics and a strategic dashboard to measure success; and,
• Merge long-term Jobs Cabinet duties in the Colorado Workforce Development Council.

To continue the efforts set forth by the cabinet and ensure progress is made, the governor's office should continue to actively guide and support this effort with special emphasis on developing a replicable model for local collaboration and a beta website, according to the report. The report also notes that both of these efforts would use existing resources in order to succeed in the current economic environment.

While funding is not specifically addressed in the report, several of the recommendations focus on aligning current programs to maximize limited resources. Colorado is one of several states to make recent cuts in their current fiscal year budget. Last month, Gov. Ritter announced a $320 million budget-balancing plan that went into effect Sept. 1.

The cabinet held eight listening sessions across the state during which time they met with local educators, workforce, government, economic development and business leaders.  Multiple meetings with regional coordinators also were convened to learn about the needs of local communities, industries and workforce.

The full report is available from the governor's office at: http://www.colorado.gov/governor.