Wagner-Peyser Act

As MSFW outreach workers are merit staff for Wagner-Peyser Employment Services, they receive the regular professional development activities described in (a)(1).

The State maintains training programs for local service delivery staff, which includes MSFW outreach staff. Instruction is provided as needed. Training is also periodically open to partner agency staff as well. The Idaho Department of Labor has several major training initiatives that help to ensure continuous improvement and professional development in the quality of services delivered by staff. These initiatives include:

• Global Career Development Facilitators (GCDF) program. This program provides for professional development for Idaho Department of Labor staff with nationally recognized training as Career Development Facilitators. This multiple module training was designed for staff to acquire knowledge developed by the National Career Development Association, the professional association for career development in the United States. All Idaho Department of Labor AJC office staff participate in this training program as time allows.
• Management development has also been a focus for delivering quality customer service over the long term. Similar to many other organizations, the Department faces the prospect of large numbers of senior manager retirements over the next few years. As a proactive measure, departmental representatives participated in a state team that developed a program for Certified Public Managers. The program, operated by the state Division of Human Resources, is used extensively by the Department to support its development of a cadre of trained managers.
• Capitalizing on the Department’s technological expertise, the use of on-line learning is has grown across the agency. Given the large distances between the 25 AJCs across the state, the traditional “gather together in a central place for training” approach is a financially unsupportable model for providing the constant flow of training opportunities needed to serve the needs of new staff, programs, and technology. During the past several years, the Idaho Department of Labor has dedicated significant resources toward developing a library of on-line learning modules that are available to staff via the internet at any time. Several of the modules are targeted to new staff and sometimes serve as pre-requisite courses before attendance at planned instructor-led training. As a means to keep the training as interactive as possible, the agency has combined on-line training with instructor and/or group interaction through various web-meeting technologies. More traditional face-to-face group training is also supported through maintenance of six high tech learning labs in the largest AJCs in six service delivery areas across the state.
• A Learning Management System has been developed to help plan, coordinate and track the training experiences of staff across the Department.