Greenville Works came out of the Greenville Business Retention and Expansion Program (BREP) that was started by a number of county and state agencies in 2007. Participating partners contacted leaders of manufacturing businesses, business headquarters and major service providers in Greenville County to find out what was needed to continue to grow their businesses and to improve the business climate in Greenville County.
67%, or 2/3 of the 213 companies, contacted expressed specific issues with the workforce, either workforce readiness for entry level personnel or lack of availability of skilled workers. “The main feedback was from manufacturers concerning the quality of entry level labor and the lack of availability of skilled labor in areas like machining, multi-skilled maintenance and other types of advanced manufacturing skills,” says John Baker of the Greenville Business Retention and Expansion Program.
Greenville Works was launched July 1, 2009, to actualize the BREP strategic plan and to address the workforce issue. Greenville Works became an umbrella agency to deal with broad issues that no single agency could affectively deal with by itself. The organization is a partnership among workforce development, educational, and economic development organizations that cover the full spectrum of workforce and economic development activities in Greenville County.
To improve the skilled labor pool, there needed to be changes to the educational system, as well to the workforce development agencies. “One of the things we were seeing was that the skills of the adult labor force didn’t match up with what manufacturing would look like in the future,” says Baker. “There’s not a job that anyone can get anymore where you can work for 30 or 40 years without having to do significant learning as you go. That didn’t use to be the case but it is now. You have to be able to continually adjust.” Greenville Works is taking a more holistic approach to addressing workforce issues. By partnering with groups such as Greenville Technical College, Greenville County Schools, Personal Pathways to Success, and the Greenville Area Development Corporation, Greenville Works is able to accomplish more as one unit than any of these organizations can do alone.
One of Greenville Work’s initiatives is to encourage businesses across Greenville County to use recognize, request, or require the WorkKeys-based Career Readiness Certificate within their hiring process. WorkKeys is a nationally recognized evaluation of an individual’s skill level and capabilities and categorizes workers into four levels of accomplishment. Self-directed online study software is provided through the state, and more than twenty organizations offer preparatory classes and training for the program. “Employers can look at how an applicant scored on WorkKeys and it will help them understand what the employee is capable of doing,” says Baker. The national standard already existed but needed a much broader application in Greenville County. “When we started this initiative there were five companies in Greenville County using WorkKeys and we are up to over 60 now,” says Baker. Michelin, Bon Secours St. Francis Healthy System, and Greenville Hospital System are among those using the program.
Greenville Works has also formed industry clusters in aviation/aerospace, chemical, textile and life sciences to assess hiring and educational needs for future and current employees. Through its partners, the organization facilitates training for current employees and also provides training for prospective employees. Employers are then able to hire from a pool of trained applicants that have a WorkKeys certificate and have had background checks.
Last year Greenville Works was given a grant by National Fund for Workforce Solutions with which they are now running a project called Transportation Manufacturing. “We just finished teaching the first class and people are going through the process of applying for jobs with the eight companies who agreed to be a part of the process. This grant runs for two years. We’ll run through about 25 classes with approximately 25 people in each class. The employers will look at the employees coming out of the program every time a class is run,” says Baker. “This is not just the body shop premise of getting people into a job. This is about a lifelong process and showing them the steps needed to continue to advance in the organization and to have a sustainable income.” With a better trained workforce, the overall per capita income starts to rise because you have more qualified people which in turn encourages manufacturers to invest here because they see a workforce that can meet their future demands.
“Greenville Works has done some amazing things for economic development,” says Cynthia Eason, Vice President for Corporate and Economic Development at Greenville Technical College, a founding member of Greenville Works. She is a current board member and former Chairman of the Board of Greenville Works. Eason says previously when a new business prospect would come to Greenville and approach different entities like Greenville Tech or the School District, they would hear several different stories. When a prospect comes now, they hear one story among the partners of Greenville Works. “This is not the typical way it is done across the country,” she says. “The better we tell our workforce development story, and the better we are at being able to let that prospect know that we are good at understanding their needs, at discovering what their needs are, and putting together a good solution to meet their needs, the more competitive we are,” says Eason. “We are going to continue to see an even greater focus on workforce development because it is critical for economic development.
Companies can only locate and expand in a location that can supply the type of workforce they need. We can’t be competitive if we don’t have the skills and the number of people in the workforce that are needed to support the kind of employers that we want to attract and the growth that they can experience here.”
For more information about Greenville Works job opportunities go to www.careerskillsnow.com or www.GreenvilleWorks.com.