Senior Community Service Employment Program

SSAI’s sub-grantees have well-established partnerships with local Chambers of Commerce. Sub-grantees often attend meetings in order to network with local business representatives. Through training provided by SSAI, sub-grantees regularly get on a Chamber’s agenda to engage employers by promoting both SCSEP and job ready participants. In PY2014, SSAI Field Support Program Officers introduced an Employer Outreach Kit to a pilot group of sub-grantees. The kit includes both three-minute and ten-minute talking points, a PowerPoint presentation, general presentation tips, suggested wording for an elevator pitch, and advice on how to handle both cold and warm calls with employers. This kit has been proven to save a great deal of preparation time and has increased sub-grantee staff confidence about engaging employers. Further improvements to the kit will be made as we expand its use in future program years.

To promote employer outreach, SSAI Program Officers also work with sub-grantees to identify other employer organizations in order to increase the visibility of SCSEP. For example, SSAI promotes sub-grantee engagement with local chapters of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), a professional association of human resources professionals from various employers. These professionals are usually involved with hiring and tend to be focused on ensuring a diverse workforce, including mature workers. In addition, many of these SHRM chapters have a committee of volunteers willing to give their time to nonprofits. They can be a great resource for educating participants about what their companies look for in a new employee, helping prepare for interviews, and writing résumés that will get read.

Other SSAI employer outreach training focuses on showing sub-grantees how to approach the hidden job market by establishing relationships with their local, county and state economic development councils and accessing their press releases of future or growing business announcements. SSAI staff trains sub-grantees to approach these employers with the goal of establishing relationships as business partners. Job Development training of sub-grantees will remain multi-focused. One area of focus will continue to promote the identification and targeting of local employers by using the internet, especially in rural areas. Another focus will be on the basics of how to conduct employer outreach. The training to be provided includes group activities, role plays, and videos about job development. Another area of focus will be to provide technical assistance geared towards developing advanced networking skills of both sub-grantees and SCSEP participants.

Furthermore, as we increase employer engagement, SSAI will also increase exploration of on-the-job-experience (OJE) as a method of expanding employer engagement. While OJE has not been widely utilized by our sub-grantees in the past, the Program Officers will actively promote OJE as a tool for sub-grantees to use in future program years to gain more unsubsidized jobs for participant job seekers.