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  • 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.

    • c. State Strategy

      The Unified or Combined State Plan must include the State's strategies to achieve its strategic vision and goals. These strategies must take into account the State’s economic, workforce, and workforce development, education and training activities and analysis provided in Section (a) above. Include discussion of specific strategies to address the needs of populations provided in Section (a).

II. c. 1. Describe the Strategies the State Will Implement, Including Industry or Sector Partnerships Related to In-demand Industry Sectors and Occupations and Career Pathways, as Required by WIOA Section 101(d)(3)(b), (d). “career Pathway” is Defined at WIOA Section 3(7). “in-demand Industry Sector or Occupation” is Defined at WIOA Section 3(23).

Current Narrative:

Indiana has 1 million jobs to fill over the next decade, with 700,000 being replacements and 300,000 being new jobs. With Indiana’s unemployment being at an all-time low and with the current educational pipeline not being sufficient to fill the projected jobs, workforce development strategies will need to be focused on all segments of the populations, but with a special focus on those with barriers to employment.

The following strategies will address these needs for populations described in the economic and workforce analyses in (a) above.

GOAL 1: SYSTEM ALIGNMENT -- Create a seamless one-stop delivery system where partners provide worker-centric and student-centric integrated services.

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 workers and students engage with, and 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 students and workers are provided with opportunities to improve their education, knowledge, and skill levels.

  • STRATEGY 1.1: Develop a common understanding among partners as to what the “one stop delivery system” is in Indiana.
  • STRATEGY 1.2: Increase service integration among partner agencies within the one stop delivery system.
  • STRATEGY 1.3: Simplify the process for customers, specifically for adults with barrier to employments and for youth, in order for services to be accessible when, where and how they are needed.
  • STRATEGY 1.4: Ensure the culture of the One Stop system promotes knowledge transfer across partner programs, such that staff embraces the “no wrong door” philosophy when serving adults with barriers to employment and youth, and is capable of providing information on services across programs and making appropriate referrals.

GOAL 2: CLIENT-CENTRIC APPROACH -- Create a client-centered approach, where system partners and programs coordinate in a way that each individual worker or student 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 student or worker’s aspirations and needs and provides all students and workers 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 the workers or students 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 worker or student at the center of service delivery. In this client-centered approach, system partners and programs coordinate in a way that each individual worker or student 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.

  • STRATEGY 2.1: Create a career pathways system that provides opportunities for students and workers across the education and workforce systems to link to the labor markets within each region in Indiana, and their respective high-wage, high-demand careers.
  • STRATEGY 2.2: Ensure that students and workers at all levels throughout Indiana are provided with meaningful career counseling and career preparation, including information on Indiana’s high wage, high demand occupations.
  • STRATEGY 2.3: Elevate the importance of work-and-learn models, with particular focus on Indiana’s priority sectors identified in (a) above and a focus on youth adults. Connecting young adults to high-wage, high-demand employment opportunities through work-and-learn is essential to filling the million job openings projected to be available in Indiana between now and 2025.
  • STRATEGY 2.4: STRATEGY 2.4: Ensure that those with barriers to employment and youth have increased access to and opportunities for employment, education, training, and support services.

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.

  • STRATEGY 3.1: Identify Priority Now and Priority Future sectors and occupations in Indiana based on the criteria set out by the Indiana Career Council in a Resolution regarding priority sectors and occupations in Indiana passed at the June 15, 2015 meeting.
  • STRATEGY 3.2: Launch and/or expand sector partnerships in and across workforce development regions that complement the State’s priority industry sectors to provide a mechanism for Indiana’s education, job skills development, and career training system to collect information and respond to sector needs.

Additionally, the below sector and career pathways specific work is progressing.

  • The Indiana Plan and Launch Sector Partnership Initiative encompasses the State’s readiness, engagement of employers, as well as the vitality and future of sector strategies in Indiana. This document is an important resource to be utilized as the state strategy progresses. Priority Now Sectors were identified to align immediate occupational demands with the skills and training needed to fill those positions to readily address gaps in employment in high-demand and high wage careers. These Priority Now Sectors for the State of Indiana are Advanced Manufacturing, Agriculture, Health Sciences, Information Technology, and Transportation, Distribution and Logistics.
  • Career Pathways is an essential component to the success and strength of sector partnerships. The Indiana Pathways Innovation Network (IN-PIN) provides a framework and tools for Hoosiers to create, support, and expand career pathways statewide which is supported by multiple state agencies including IDWD. Since its creation in 2015, the network is comprised of over 150 organizations and 75 individual members which continues to grow. To date, six regional workshops and a study visit was held with over 365 participants. IN-PIN will continue to host similar events, share promising practices in Indiana, and provide examples of current career pathway systems in action to learn more and support sustainable career pathway systems. This work is continuing with Indiana University’s Center on Education and Lifelong Learning.
  • The inaugural Indiana Sectors Summit was held in October 2016 to grow and expand sector partnerships across Indiana, as well as continue to explore how we utilize sector partnerships as the vehicle to develop industry-driven career pathways in Indiana. To continue the momentum and progress generated from the summit, DWD contracted with Jobs for the Future (JFF) to provide strategic guidance, training, technical assistance and support including facilitation and planning of the 2016 Indiana Sectors Summit, mapping where sector partnerships exist and the assets that support sector partnership development, convening stakeholders for working groups and regional workshops, and organization and planning of the 2017 Indiana Sectors Summit. The second annual summit was held in November 2017 with the goal to deepen understanding and relationships between launching, advancing, and/or sustaining sector partnerships in collaboration with the Skill UP 3 grant opportunity incorporating tailored technical assistance requested from local 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