Representatives from the Ozarks Technical Community College Center for Workforce Development, the Missouri Career Center and the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce say Greene County needs an important distinction as it fights to attract jobs to the area. The answer, they say, is in the Certified Work Ready Community designation.
For that to happen, however, more businesses and job seekers are going to have to be sold on the value of National Career Readiness Certificates.
Springfield chamber Manager of Workforce Development Kristen Westerman said NCRCs require passage of the WorkKeys program test, a product developed by Iowa-based ACT Inc., creators of the ACT college entrance exam.
A community can become a Certified Work Ready Community by achieving goals set by the Missouri Workforce Investment Board, Westerman said, adding the WIB worked with ACT Inc. to establish goals per county based on populations.
In Greene County, a total of 971 individuals would need to receive NCRCs. So far, only 146 have earned the certification. In addition, Greene County has a goal of 200 businesses supporting the NCRC, and using the designations as a consideration when hiring. As of Dec. 13, 12 businesses had committed to recognizing the NCRCs.
“The reason we’d like to apply for this is it would give us a quantifiable number with regard to where our workforce stands. For example, when we have businesses (relocating) and they are looking at Springfield and ask, ‘What skills does your workforce have?’ It can be a difficult question to answer,” Westerman said. “We have a general idea … but to say, ‘We have 65 percent of workforce falling in the silver category for the NCRC,’ then they have a good general understanding.”
The program has been administered through the Missouri Division of Workforce Development for about five years, according to Connie Kronholm, a state business representative who works out of the Missouri Career Center on East Sunshine.
“The whole premise behind becoming a Work Ready Community is that it is an economic development tool,” Kronholm said. “For us to differentiate ourselves from and better compete with similar cities, we want to be able to say we have a certified workforce.”
The WorkKeys test comes in three sections, Westerman said, each taking about an hour to complete. It tests skills in the area of mathematics, reading and locating or cognitive abilities.
Testers are ranked in one of four categories: bronze, silver, gold or platinum, with platinum signifying a person is highly trainable and ready for nearly any job. To receive certification, job seekers must attain at least a bronze level, which represents a basic foundation for job readiness.
Westerman said if individual and business certification goals are met, then Greene County can become a Certified Work Ready Community.
Kronholm said she has she been actively promoting the Work Ready Community initiative the last two years. A problem she’s run into is getting both workers and businesses interested in the NCRCs at the same time.
“Do we get businesses signed on first and then get workers tested or do we get workers tested and then ask businesses to participate?” she asked. “We’ve been launching this simultaneously (because) each one drives demand in its own way.”
Sherry Coker, director of the Center for Workforce Development at OTC, is working to get more people certified, specifically those in the emerging workforce category, by coordinating with the Higher Learning Commission to make the WorkKeys test an exit exam for graduating OTC students. Of the goal to certify nearly 1,000 workers in the county, 592 are expected to be those entering the workforce, while 306 should be transitioning workers and 73 currently employed.
“It would benefit the community, but it also would give our students a leg up over other people entering the workforce,” Coker said. “In today’s day and time, every credential that you can earn is so important.”
She said, by the 2013 spring semester, the school could require graduating students take the test.
Herb Dankert, general manager at the Springfield plant for Greer, S.C.-based injection molding manufacturer Jarden Plastics Solutions, said his site has recognized workers holding the NCRC for about three years. Dankert, who was appointed as a member of the Missouri Workforce Investment Board earlier this year, said he had forgotten his human resources manager had signed up the company with the Missouri Career Center to consider potential workers until the board recently talked about the certification.
And that’s part of the problem. Dankert said not enough people know about the NCRC.
“If you have one, you may tell an employee and they say, ‘So.’ But those who do know about it will recognize that certification as a major accomplishment,” Dankert said. “Someone who has at least put the time in to be certified shows a willingness to have the work ethic you’d be looking for.”
Dankert isn’t aware of any Jarden workers hired with the certification to date.
Coker said local officials plan to apply to become a Work Ready Community in Greene County by April 30, the next application deadline. Once submitted, the county has two years to reach goals determined by the WIB and ACT. Jasper County became the first Missouri county to apply for the designation when its Work Ready Steering Committee officially submitted its application Nov. 19.[[In-content Ad]]
