WEDNet: State Overview/Plan

Industry Partnerships: Building Sustainable Business Practices for the Long Haul

Through Job Ready PA, industry partnerships have been developed throughout the Commonwealth as an institutional innovation to assist in meeting the skills needs of businesses, the career goals of workers and the economic development goals of the Commonwealth.

These partnerships are designed to bring together multiple employers to identify the common needs and goals and what they need to do to sustain their particular industries.

This can be accomplished through:

Identifying skill gaps and training needs that are critical to compete in the global marketplace;
Developing aggregate training plans;
Partnering with education and training to align current programs and developing new ones to meet industry demand;
Assisting companies to identify common organizational and human resources needs such as recruitment and retention of skilled workforce to the implementation of new technologies;
Promoting partnerships with various stakeholders to educate and connect today's youth to the industry;
Creating new career ladders and credentials for new and existing employees to define a skill standard that is recognized and portable within the industry;
And lastly, developing strategies to sustain the partnerships over time to meet the shared goals of the partnership.

The goal of the industry partnership ultimately is to affect positive productive systematic change. This works on the assumption that all members share the same needs and goals. Partnerships may develop and implement successful projects but may decide that a longer term partnership is not necessary. The level of commitment to the partnership may vary, commitment to the goals of the partnership may be unclear, and ultimately the commitment of resources may be very different.

www. pa workforce.state. pa .us/about/cwp/view.asp?a=471&q=155669 - 40k -

Job Ready PA Update

As of May 2007, 90 active partnerships across the clusters have been created and sustained through public funding as part of Governor Rendell's Job Ready PA initiative which allocated over $20 million toward both the partnerships as well as incumbent worker training within the industry clusters. Some of these partnerships are quite active, some are growing and some are in the early stages of development, but one common element shared by all is the financial support they have received. The question has now shifted from how to organize to how do we sustain the partnership?

This question is not an easy one to answer. What is the level of commitment of the member companies to continue? What is the basis of this commitment, is it the shared goal of the partnership? And most important, what resources are the members willing to commit to sustain the partnership?

Northampton Community College has served as an educational partner in partnerships in the Lehigh Valley across various industry clusters to provide innovative training solutions to meet member needs. One of the challenges local partnerships are facing is engaging the member employers to understand the projected long-term benefits of the partnership. To drive their specific industries, members need to:

stay focused on the goals of the partnership,

make sure that members share a stake in the effort,

increase the number of members in the partnership, and

identify what resources will be needed to sustain it for the long haul.

These are tough questions for member companies to address while they continue to stay competitive in today's market. And in some instances, member companies compete for the same market share.

These partnerships are still in early stages of development and it is little too early to predict their level of success. I look forward to our continued involvement with the existing partnerships in the Lehigh Valley achieve their goals.

If you want to learn more about these collaborative initiatives and how your business may benefit, please contact me at 610-861-4588 or mpappalardo@northampton.edu .

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