Tweaking Not Twerking Your Returning Customer

Workforce development is a strange business. We hover somewhere in the land of social services, government services, economic development, and business. We are neither here nor there by many standards. Our work is somewhere between all of the above mentioned and personal self-help. One of those crazy standards is how we measure success in customer service. Most business wants return customers- banks, stores, airlines, but in workforce development if we never see someone again, we think that is success.

 Recently, a woman I had worked with came back.

Three years ago, this woman was a dislocated worker, laid off from a program administration position at a utility company. She had worked there for many years and had come to seek workforce development services to help her get back to the labor market. At that point in time, there were many changes to the way people look for work since the last time she was job seeking. She needed assistance to get back to work. It took time, but she was successful. She found suitable employment in the non-profit sector.
 
It had been a couple of years, but here she was again looking for work. This time there wasn’t the big shift in job search strategies or tools to get her employed. This time the market in our area is still very similar to the one when she was job seeking three years ago. With a returning job seeker there are so many emotions.  I was friendly to her. It was nice to see her, but it wasn’t also. It would have been nice to run into her in the grocery store and exchange pleasantries about how wonderful everything was, but instead, she ended up in my office, again looking for work. It was hard to see her because I was thinking about the offerings of someone who has had the services before. It was hard to see her because I was questioning how successful I was as a workforce development professional if she comes back.

How do we help those that come back? Why did they come back and how do we help them not come back again? I have decided that gone are the days of the never come back. The economy has changed from the 20 year gig to the two to five year gig. That means that people will come back.  It means that we can no longer say, workforce development is not successful if people come back. Ultimately, it means that we need to re-think how we think about the individual strategy for employment and what we are guiding people to do.

When people come back, they already know the basics: résumé, interviewing, and job search strategy. They got that once. They got a job, what they really need is “tweaking.” Not to be confused with twerking, returning job seekers need to figure out how to incorporate the time in between experiences in the workforce development system into their job search strategy. How do they list this on their résumé? How do they explain the most recent employment in an interview?

It is extremely important for the workforce development professional to acknowledge the new knowledge and skills that the customer may have learned from the experiences had while not engaged in workforce services. From there, the decision can be made to start towards a new goal or towards tweaking the original goal.

Additionally, this is not only the responsibility of the individual workforce development professional, but the system must have options for the returning customer.  For example, there are many reasons why people return. Some people return due to lay off, others return because they are seeking better employment, and others may return because they have job retention issues.  Having options for people that return is important to really help people get back to working. For example if the average IT professional works in project based work that can last anywhere from six to 18 months,  then having options in offerings for project based customers is important. Also, updating the standard options – or tweaking them- for customers that fall in this category is important too.

So how do you work with returning customers? What are your strategies for tweaking services for returning customers? Questions, comments, and ideas on tweaking (not twerking or Miley Cyrus) are welcome below. You can also reach me by email at kcirincione@gmail.com~ Happy Tweaking Not Twerking! Karen Cirincione