During its facilitated planning sessions in 2017, the DWDB established the following four goals. Key objectives and strategies to attain these goals, and areas of connection across goals, are also discussed below.

Goal 1: Resource Alignment and Expansion

Delaware’s workforce system will craft a clear vision for collaboration and service improvement, based on shared partner goals and strategies for job seeker and business customers. Four components will comprise this vision:

• Building partnerships

• Leveraging and aligning resources

• Developing and implementing a sustainability plan

• Interagency partners will be developed to drive the alignment and braiding of resources and service strategies.

A key component in attaining resource and service alignment will be development of an environmental scan of existing funding streams and service strategies. The process will examine policies, legislation and practices to identify duplicative efforts, as well as gaps in services. From there, processes will be redesigned and implemented via service integration, cross-agency functional teams and staff training. The activities and outputs of this goal team will support the activities of the Cultural Transformation and Process Redesign goal teams.

Goal 2: Cultural Transformation

The DWDB supports a high-performance culture for workforce development staff that will promote the vision of a customer-driven system and develop services that support economic prosperity for Delaware’s citizens, businesses and regional economies.

To attain this goal, partners will engage in cross-agency planning to develop consistent messaging of the vision and strategic direction of resource alignment. This information will be communicated to staff in all the key partner agencies in two phases: a soft launch with management staff; and full-scale implementation for all system personnel via a live summit.

Once the messaging has been implemented, partners will identify the skill and training needs of system staff and develop and implement a master training plan to close the identified skill gaps. This process will begin with front-line staff in One-Stop centers and will include interagency collaboration and cross-agency training strategies.

To evaluate the impact of this enhanced professional development model, the system will establish a process for assessment and continuous improvement. Development of this goal and its implementation will entail coordination with the Resource Alignment and Career Pathway goal teams.

Goal 3: Process Redesign

Consistent with the two prior goals, the DWDB supports work processes that are aligned and integrated across workforce partners. Once the cohesive workforce system vision and brand have been developed, articulated and communicated throughout the system, partner agency will examine how they each currently serve job seeker and business customers. The DWDB envisions the design of new processes in four key areas that will enhance customers’ service experiences and set the state for the alignment and braiding of resources.

• Client assessment, referral and case management, including common triage and an integrated electronic referral system

• Improvement of online resources for customers, including a suite of valuable new tools

• Unified business engagement model

• Interagency social media campaign

Activities of this goal team will be coordinated with the Career Pathways and Resource Alignment goal teams.

Goal 4: Pathways Evolution

Encompassing the spectrum of individual customers - from in-school youth to adult learners - the DWDB supports the integration of state and local education and workforce development efforts using the existing Delaware Pathways system. This system has established a fluid relationship among the public education system, the post-secondary education system, non-profit organizations and employer communities to ensure Delawareans have access to pathways to higher education and well-paying jobs. Enhancing alignment of efforts across partners will involve several key strategies:

• Aligning secondary, post-secondary and adult education and training programs across Delaware’s career pathways systems

• Focusing education and workforce funding on middle- and high-skill occupations in key industry sectors, including apprenticeship

• Strengthening employer engagement and outreach across pathways’ programs and partners

• Coordinating activities that support in-school and out-of-school youth across the career pathways system

• Developing a shared accountability model across Delaware’s career pathways system, including common performance measures, a statewide longitudinal data system and providing employment/wage data outcomes on customers across the system

These activities will be coordinated with the work of the other goal teams, as the Pathways Evolution work is intertwined with several of the other teams’ goals and objectives.

The teams for these four goals have been led by members of the DWDB Strategic Plan Committee. Other board members are also participating on the goal teams, along with agency leaders and staff from each of the core and external partners (including non-profit organizations). The goal teams will report quarterly to the DWDB Executive Committee and the DWDB will continue to provide oversight for the work of these processes as objectives are achieved and initial results are obtained.