Vermont is national leader in workforce training

As employers throughout the state confront the ongoing labor shortage, training programs are looming larger as ways of upgrading, retaining and adding skilled employees.

Fortunately, the crunch is coinciding with new efforts to coordinate the many programs that deal with employment and employee productivity, from those trying to teach basic skills on a remedial basis to in-plant workshops passing on state-ofthe-art methods of production management and quality control. The Human Resources Investment Council (HRIC) and its 12 associated Workforce Improvement Boards (WIBs) are getting good reviews for their responsiveness.

While much of the money in this area comes from the federal government, one program drawing especially high praise is state-funded. The Vermont Training Program not only creates programs at the request of businesses, it assures the participants of living wages well beyond minimum pay, and in effect reimburses the state investment because the people earning that higher pay will pay more taxes.

The process of coordination is a work in progress, and glitches have emerged from time to time. For instance, there has been some grumbling among craft unions, who have longstanding training programs of their own, that they were at first not given clear indications of how to integrate those programs into the statewide effort.

But as county-level plans for workforce education and training develop, there will be a better chance of avoiding dangerous shortfalls in personnel, such as some hospitals are warning may hit nursing stations. And there is greater hope of providing Vermonters with the "good jobs" that are essential to housing starts, family stability, consumer buying power, community volunteerism, and a host of other aspect of Vermont's vaunted quality of life.

RECEDING MEMORY

The Human Resources Investment Board and the regional Workforce Investment Boards have their roots in the recession of the early '90s. The Vermont Legislature's House Commerce Committee got things rolling in November of 1991 with its report "Toward Sustainable economic development," which recommended that the state's diverse workforce training programs be "restructured into a coherent and effective statewide program."

The Task Force on Workforce Education and Training, set up in February of 1992 by Governor Howard Dean and a joint legislative committee, made recommendations on how to do this in its November report. In March of 1993, Governor Dean followed up on their recommendation to set up the HRIC, and in May the Legislature recognized it as an executive branch council in the Economic Progress Act, with the task of developing a "coherent and effective statewide system" that would help Vermonters weather the effects of technological change, business restructuring, and intensifying global competition.

Behind this maneuvering was a growing recognition that the era of lifetime employment with a single company was fading fast. A US Department of Labor study, for instance, found that 75 percent of those laid off in 1972 did not return to their previous jobs.

The HRIC report "Advancing Vermont's Workforce" came out in December of 1994. In April of 1995, the Legislature backed its vision of the HRIC as a training council, and of a dozen regional WIBs, by passing Act 45.

By 1997, the first WIBs had been set up, and the first general fund appropriation for the HRIC came in 1998. Also in 1998, the HRIC adopted a business plan building on the 1994 report, one that aimed to integrate training services with regional development strategies.

Vermont was thus prepared for Congress's enactment of the Workforce Investment Act in 1998, which called for states to set up Workforce Investment Boards to oversee various federally funded training and education programs. The HRIC now has the role of State Workforce Investment Board (SWIB) as well.

Currently, the HRIC has a chair (Tom Leever), Executive Director (Chip Evans), one staff member (Rhonda Hopkins), 21 business/employer representatives, 10 agency and higher education members, 4 labor members, four legislators, a position for a low-income representative, and a slot for the Governor's Office.

The 1993 Economic Progress Act also set up the Vermont Partnership for Economic Progress, which was succeeded by the Economic Progress Council. In the words of the historical summary prepared by Chip Evans (the source for the foregoing account), "In simple terms, the charge to the Economic Progress Council is to create jobs in growth and emerging industries, and the charge to the HRIC is to create the high-skilled workforce to fill those jobs. ... The Governor and General Assembly have established these councils as the cornerstone of Vermont's economic development strategy.

TRAINING ON TRACK

With the county plans rapidly getting into shape (the first came in 1999 from the Connecticut River Valley WIB) and the first related training initiatives showing the potential of the new systems, participants are starting to get enthusiastic about the possibilities.

Evans, as the HRIC's executive director, has an overview perspective.

"Vermont is a great state for networking," he said. "We create solutions by talking with each other. In a large state, you just wouldn't have those opportunities."

"I know three or four people in every WIB," Evans said. He added, "Great stuff is happening that I'm not even aware of," ,at least until it gets into the system.

In the beginning, Evans said, ideas tended to flow from Montpelier. A second route was from the federal government to Montpelier to those in the trenches. Now, he said, "the WIBS are bouncing things off each other, if we can just get the momentum moving a little bit faster, we'll be in really great shape."

"The question is, how do you ramp things up so they're serving larger numbers of people?" Evans said.

Evans said some parts of Vermont are farther along in developing their systems, such as Bennington County. Lance Matteson, the executive director of the Bennington County Industrial Corporation, went further and said, "We're the best in the state. We have an extremely active Workforce Investment Board," whose "Bennington County Workforce Education and Training Plan" saw its first edition published in January.

As an example of a path-breaking program, Matteson said Burr & Burton Academy in Manchester has a problem that gets students into businesses, not just to try out jobs but also to accomplish specific learning goals. "It gives kids a chance to apply their curriculum skills, and to explore areas they are interested in," he said. Mt Anthony Union High School in Bennington is working on a similar program, he said.

"The most important thing we have done is to create a preliminary workforce training and education plan that is based on solid research in this area and has lots of statistics and information in it," Matteson said. "It's looked upon as a model."

"Bennington County is in certain senses a lot different than the rest of the state," Matteson said. "We have very specific recommendations and specific objectives."

For instance, the plan starts by observing that, "There is a wide consensus in the community that the following represent strategic sectors of our economy: manufacturing; informationbased business; hospitality and tourism; and health and human services." Education, "a strategic sector in Bennington County in its own right," was still under study and not covered in the January, 2000 plan.

One point made repeatedly by those interviewed for this article, and seconded by the findings that went into the Bennington plan, is that employers themselves are functioning as educators, offering a wide variety of programs to get new employees up to speed and to boost the skills of those already on board. Said Bennington, "Area employers invest heavily in in-house training of employees who have minimum relevant skills and knowledge, and many larger employers have flexible tuition reimbursement programs for outside coursework."

With better coordination among existing programs, and with better student knowledge of careers, that burden might be eased, the plan suggested. It noted a growing trend for entrylevel workers to lack the "soft skills" of punctuality, dependability, communication, teamwork, and so on, as well as the basics of math, English and problem-solving.

But there have been public sector and non-profit responses to these needs (not to mention the role of the schools, whose improvement efforts are beyond the scope of this story), such as the Department of Employment and Training Career Resource Center's "Ultimate Job Workshop," the Getting Ready to Work program (in Bennington County, at the Sunrise Family Resource Center), and welfare-to-work programs like Reach Up, Homeroom, and Work First.

"Area employers need to be more active in jointly articulating in coordination with area education and training providers the specific skills and knowledge needed in their respective sectors," was one of the plan's "basic conclusions." Another was that, "Specific training and education programs in this community need to improve in responsiveness to the workforce needs of area employers, who in turn should actively and constructively assist providers in accomplishing this."

Matteson said one of the clear needs is more information technology workers, both for tech industries and others. Neturion, a New York-based application service provider that has a Web development office in Bennington, said it could reach 50 jobs - "but that depends on getting people with the right skills." But beyond the information-based sector, - every sector needs IT-savvy workers, at all levels," he said.

Coordinating Bennington's workforce situation has opened up the possibility of coordinating with Berkshire County across the state line in Massachusetts, Matteson said - which is of particular relevance in the IT area. "Berkshire County has some of the same problems we have. It makes sense to work together," he said.

One of the campaign slogans that has popped up with some regularity in local school elections suggests that schools would be better if the administration ran them "like a business." Matteson said it's become clear that business and education have different cultures, and getting to know and understand each other's perspectives, style, and languages takes time.

For example, Matteson said, there was the question what to call the response team that would address short-term training problems. "The educators wanted to call it 'The Training Committee," he said. "The business people wanted to call it 'The SWAT Team."

It's been a challenge getting educators, social workers, employment and training officials, company heads, developmentminded local leaders and the proposed Youth Council to see eye-to-eye, Matteson said. But one obstacle that an outsider might expect to be a major hindrance hasn't affected matters, he said: politics.

"Active WIBs are willing to roll up their sleeves and make things happen," Matteson said. "If you come with a political agenda, you'll soon learn there isn't time for that."

"What we feet is, we're getting increasing coordination between the business community and education in this district," Matteson said. "Business and education sitting down at the same table and talking about how to improve things."

The plan states the consensus about the stakes: "The potential community, business, and career benefits of strengthening Bennington County's workforce development system are enormous."

MADE-IN-VERMONT TRAINING

According to HRIC figures, there was an estimated total of $117,551,179 in job training funding for Vermont in fiscal 2000. By far the largest share was in private or public sector employer training programs, pegged at I percent of total budgets, to arrive at an estimated $76,626,490.

In order of budget size, the others were: Aging and Disabilities, with $9.7 million; the Department of Education and Training, with $8.7 million; Social Welfare's Reach Up program, with $9.1 million; the Vermont State Colleges, with $5.4 million; the Education Department, with $4.3 million; the Corrections Department, with $2.2 million; the US Department of Labor's Vermont Associates for Training and Development (of senior workers), with $1.9 million; the Agency of Commerce and Community Development's Vermont Training Program, with $641,837; and the Vermont Student Assistance Corporation's Adult Outreach program, with $458,881.

In Franklin County, Tim Soule, the executive director of the Franklin County Industrial Corporation, is excited about the new approach the state is taking to workforce development. But his most favorable comments came in regard to the program next to last on the above list: the Vermont Training Program.

The federal money, which used to arrive via the Jobs Training Partnership Act and now is funneled through the Workforce Investment Act, comes with certain restrictions, Soule said. It's for people who are not employed, or seeking to aspire to higher skills, or moving to another part of the same company, and so on.

The Vermont money has three great advantages, Soule said: it's very responsive to particular company situations; it helps the companies with at least part of the training costs; and it assures a return on the investment in the form of higher wages once the training is completed. Actually, the investment carries over the lifetime of the worker, because the new skills will probably remain in use, he noted.

"I'm very excited about what we've been able to create, and about the Workforce Investment Act," Soule said.

Phil Fagan, who runs the Vermont Training Program, somewhat reluctantly accepts the title "director" because there are no other employees in his branch of the economic development arm of the Agency of Commerce and Community Development. Begun 20 years ago, the program has had a budget averaging about half a million dollars, he said.

In the last fiscal year, that w a s increased to $625,000, Fagan said. The requests for training would have neces tated a $2 million budget.

"We meet about a third of what we could," he said - adding that he will request a larger sum from the Legislature this year, with statistics in hand to show the boost in long-term taxes from the higher pay that higher skills justify.

The employee participants are assured pay that is double the minimum wage, once benefits are included, Fagan said. That was $8.62 an hour this past year, he said.

Some of the most successful training programs are undertaken with the help of the Vermont Manufacturing Extension Center (VMEC) at Vermont Technical College, Fagan said. ISO 9000 quality control standards workshops, for instance, have helped companies get that certification so that they can export goods more freely. While not keyed to employment in the short-term, they have long-term implications for the creation of good jobs.

The programs cost about $100 for each company's representative, Fagan said. In return, they get insights into some of the latest developments in business organization, which staff business advisers for VMEC (notably Paul Demers and Brenda Kelly) research and then present.

At times, the workshops seem to be speaking a new language and in a sense they are:

* In one program this fall, manufacturers were invited to the Clarion Hotel in Burlington for a full-day, interactive seminar on cellular/flow manufacturing.

"This hands-on course teaches how to link and balance manufacturing operations to reduce lead times, minimize work in process, optimize floor space usage, and improve productivity. Participants will learn about performance impact and manufacturing benefits, tools for cell design and Kaizen, cell design and construction, plant layout considerations, a five-step cell design process, the elements of motion analysis, and the eight wastes."

* Another recent program at the Paradise Inn in Bennington gave participants a "roadmap" and key information related to company e-business strategy. Networking, Internet access options, email and Web sites were taken up, using case studies, and there were discussions of "marketing versus sales versus customer service" and of integrating e-business technologies with business plans.

* For December, Principles of Lean Manufacturing 101, "with live simulation," will be held at the Quality Inn & Suites in Brattleboro. Concepts to be covered include "applying standardized work, workplace organization, visual controls, set-up reduction, batch size reduction, point of use storage, quality at the source, workforce practices, and pull systems... Participants will demonstrate to themselves that they can reduce manufacturing cycle time up to 90 percent, improve on -time shipments up to 90 percent, reduce work in process up to 90 percent, improve quality up to 50 percent, and reduce floor space up to 75 percent."

Said Fagan, "We're very responsive to the users. We customize all the training to the need."

BUILDING ON TRADITION

Formal apprenticeship programs have been around since the guilds of the Middle Ages, and indentured apprentices became many of early America's business leaders. Today, the concept of learning by doing, with the help of a mentor, is still relevant.

Some of the strongest apprenticeship programs are connected with unions, such as those for electricians and plumbers. Tom Belville, political director for the AFL-CIO's roughly 19,000 Vermont members, said the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 300 and Local 693 of the amalgamated union that includes plumbers, have fouryear programs.

"You are already an employee of the company," Belville said. Passing the tests for journey and master status brings increased pay. Vermont Technical College has been involved in developing programs, he said.

It's an approach that Belville believes has a good deal of potential, especially for reaching high school students. Unfortunately, the new WIBs in some cases did not do a good job at first of providing the existing apprenticeship programs with the information they needed to get integrated with the other training efforts, he said.

David Legala, who directs Vermont's apprenticeship system, said the modem-day form of apprenticeship dates to 1936 and to federal legislation passed in 1937. Vermont is one of 25 states in which apprenticeship courses are registered, using standards set by the federal govemment.

Around 300 companies are registered at any one time, with a fair amount of turnover as they move in and out of the program, Legala said. Usually about 1,100-1,200 people are involved.

The HRICIWIB process has included major efforts to integrate functional industry work standards, as represented by the apprenticeships, with the standards that schools are expected to meet. One of the studies feeding into the coordination effort, undertaken by a Technical Education Standards System Design Committee that involved the Vermont Department of Education, was the 1998 "Building An Industry Skills Standards System for Vermont."

In addition to HRIC, technical center, and higher education members, the Design Committee included personnel for Wyeth Nutritionals, Engelberth Construction, IBM, and a retired GE official. In moving toward school standards, input came from the National Coalition For Advanced Manufacturing, the National Manufacturing Linkages Consortium, the National Tooling and Machining Association, the National Institute for Metalworking Skills, the American Welding Society, and the "Wheels of Learning" national program that the Vermont Career Construction Council has been bringing to both technical centers and apprenticeship programs since 1996.

In the background of this effort are cooperative agreements that the US Department of Labor and Education entered into in 1992 and 1993 with 22 organizations representing a wide range .of industries. Appended to the Vermont study was a list of more than 100 companies and organizations that were "Vermont region participating/interested parties in skill standards and industry credential implementation."

Though coordination of workforce training helps assure that needs will be met, it should be noted that a competitive element will always remain. That's part of the motivation for companies with apprentice programs like New England Air Systems, Inc, in Williston, which, according to spokesperson Barb Trousdale, usually has about 20 to 30 apprentices among the 210 or so workers doing heating, ventilating, air conditioning, refrigeration, plumbing, custom sheet metal fabrication and design.

"New England Air Systems, Inc has been leading the industry with its own apprenticeship program," Trousdale said. "We will continue to develop instructors as well as apprentices."

"Each apprentice has a detailed career path and the opportunity to gain craft training that is nationally transferable and accredited," she said. "We will continue to encourage each employee to upgrade their skills to improve the efficiency of NEAir and at the same time their quality of life. By doing this, we are investing in the future of our employees to be the best-skilled and highest-quality workforce in the region."

NEW MILLENNIUM SOLUTION

IDX Systems Corporation of South Burlington issued one of the most-heard wake-up calls to those guiding Vermont's economy when it expanded its headquarters in the late '90s and added substantially to its employment base. Vermonters who had grumbled about there not being enough good jobs for the state's children to remain near home had to watch as outsiders moved in to take positions that IDX would have preferred to give to locals - had they possessed the necessary high-tech skills.

But when IDX's medical transcription division IDEX needed to add 125 workers this year, the outcome was much different. IDEX joined with the Department of Employment and Training, among other partners, to create a non-profit administrative organization called the Vermont Healthcare Information Technology Education Center (Vermont HITEC), which has put together the Vermont Medical Transcription Education Consortium (Vermont MTEC). That program now has a $250,000 grant from Vermont DET's Workforce Education and Training Fund and $18,000 from the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund.

The goal will be to educate about 125 Vermonters as medical transcriptionists (assistants to medical practitioners who turn voice recordings into written records) during the next two years. With Governor Dean and IDX head Rich Tarrant on hand, the first Orientation and Career Day for the program was held in Newport, where a scarcity of jobs had already helped sway residents to approve a new jail for the Corrections Department

Among the partners in this enterprise was Community College of Vermont, in whose offices in Newport's Emory Hibbard State Office Building the first classes were held. Hirees of the program would be able to work out of their homes, which Tarrant observed at the time would not only help in regions of under-employment, but also help distribute new technology to rural areas.

Just as impressive as the new ability to create decentralized, high-tech training was the kind of general support that the effort received. Governmental and educational partners included, along with CCV, Vermont Technical College, Burlington College, the North Country Career Center, Norwich University, the Agency of Commerce and Community Affairs, the Vermont Department of Economic Development, the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation, the Department of Aging and Disabilities, the Department of Social Welfare, the Greater Burlington Industrial Corporation, Vermont Associates in Training and Development, the Vermont Association for Business and Industry Rehabilitation, and the Vermont Student Assistance Corporation.

The list of community sponsors included Adelphia Business Solutions, Boise Cascade Office Products, CellularOne, the Child Travel Service, the offices of Collins, McMahon & Harris, Office Environments, the Passumpsic Savings Bank, the Shearer Auto Group, NEAV Technologies, the Health Professions Institute, Lippincott, Williams & Wilkens Publisher, Health Science Press, Prentice Hall Publishers, and Borders Books & Music.

Beyond Newport, training sessions are also scheduled for Randolph, Rutland, Springfield, Bennington, St Albans, and Morrisville. A HITEC release stated that, "Once the program is self-sustaining, it will continue to provide education and training for many years to come."

Julie Davis, the director of MTEC, emphasized in an interview that the program was not just something put together by IDEX, but rather involved many participants, all of whom were essential to it happening. "It's definitely a collaboration," she said.

NEW WAVE

In addition to the ideas and roles of the agencies, companies and programs that add up to the new workforce investment strategy, there is a positive factor that is hard to define, but in the end may be of key importance. It's the energy and enthusiasm of the participants, who sense the new electronic age is enabling all sorts of win-win solutions to the problems of maintaining business output and competitiveness.

One example would be Jim Bruce, vice president and treasurer at Geiger of Austria in Middlebury. A manufacturer of upscale, extremely high quality clothing, Geiger has against all odds avoided out-sourcing its production, in part because of a strong emphasis on continually educating and training its workers. As Bruce and other company officials tell employees, they aren't given a job, they make one every day, through their own productivity and quality control.

That corporate ethos led Bruce to become involved with Addison County's WIB, the Addison County BusinessEducation Partnership, and then to become active at the state level. He was appointed to the HRIC in July 1999.

"I think Vermont is doing very well," Bruce said of the new training initiatives. "Vermont is in the process of some of the most exciting reinventions of education that I have seen in years."

"We're only at the threshold," Bruce said. "These are truly exciting days."

Copyright Boutin-McQuiston, Inc. Dec 01, 2000
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