Located in:
- II. Strategic Elements
The Unified or Combined State Plan must include a Strategic Planning Elements section that analyzes the State’s current economic environment and identifies the State’s overall vision for its workforce development system. The required elements in this section allow the State to develop data-driven goals for preparing an educated and skilled workforce and to identify successful strategies for aligning workforce development programs. Unless otherwise noted, all Strategic Planning Elements apply to Combined State Plan partner programs included in the plan as well as to core programs.
- b. State Strategic Vision and Goals
The Unified or Combined State Plan must include the State’s strategic vision and goals for developing its workforce and meeting employer needs in order to support economic growth and economic self-sufficiency. This must include—
- b. State Strategic Vision and Goals
II. b. 2. Goals
Current Narrative:
GOAL 1: SYSTEM ALIGNMENT -- Create a seamless one-stop delivery system where partners provide client-centric integrated services, including youth and individuals with barriers to employment.
Partners within the talent development system are working with limited resources as well as limited information about the services being provided by one another. Agencies have similar goals and complementary services, yet programs often operate in silos. The system should align around solutions, rather than funding streams and programs. Greater focus must be given to a true systems approach which aligns resources to maximize their impact and fundamentally transform the way in which the Indiana workforce, including youth and individuals with barriers to employment, are served by the system. Within such an approach, agencies and organizations work together, integrating resources and services, sharing goals, strategies, and successes, and ensuring that Indiana’s workforce (including youth and individuals with barriers to employment) are provided with opportunities to improve their education, knowledge, and skill levels.
GOAL 2: CLIENT-CENTRIC APPROACH -- Create a client-centered approach, where system partners and programs coordinate in a way that each Indiana citizen (including youth and individuals with barriers to employment) has a pathway to improving his or her education, knowledge, skills and, ultimately, his or her employment prospects, with a focus on in-demand careers.
The State’s education, job skills development, and career training system must ensure that the talent development system focuses on the individual’s aspirations and needs and provides them with access to pathways for improving employment prospects. In many cases throughout the existing system, activities and services provided are program-focused, with the specific program being placed at the center of service delivery. In such a model, greater focus is given to meeting program requirements and less attention is paid to truly serving the individual. This has left Indiana’s workforce navigating a complex web of program requirements, often having to visit multiple program locations, multiple times, and providing the same information at each stop in order to receive the services needed. This paradigm must shift dramatically towards ensuring that system partners and program requirements are aligned with the client at the center of service delivery, regardless of whether the client is an adult, youth, dislocated worker or individual with barriers to employment. In this client-centered approach, system partners and programs coordinate in a way that each individual has a pathway to improving his or her education, knowledge, and skills and entering into a fulfilling and rewarding career, with partner and program resources designed to complement the individual’s pathway.
GOAL 3: DEMAND DRIVEN PROGRAMS AND INVESTMENTS -- Adopt a data-driven, sector-based approach that directly aligns education and training with the needs of Indiana’s business community.
The National Governors Association reports:
Sector strategies are among the few workforce interventions that statistical evidence shows to improve employment opportunities for workers and to increase their wages once on the job. Employers report increases in productivity, reductions in customer complaints, and declines in staff turnover, all of which reduce costs and improve the competitiveness of their companies.[1]
Due in part to the limited public resources available for education, training, and career development, it is important that the State ensure that the resources it makes available are closely aligned with the sectors that are key drivers of the state’s existing and emerging economy. Further, partners within Indiana’s education, job skills development, and career training system must enhance their ability to engage meaningfully with employers within these sectors, and ensure that programming addresses the emerging and existing education, knowledge, and skill needs of these sectors from entry level to advanced. Concurrently, the State and its partners need to ensure that there are effective and meaningful forums for employers in these sectors to collaborate with each other and to work with the system’s partners.
[1] National Governors Association, “State Sector Strategies Coming of Age: Implications for State Workforce Policy Makers.” http://www.nga.org/files/live/sites/NGA/files/pdf/2013/1301NGASSSReport.pdf