Employment Plans: Tool for Success or Road Map to failure?

Employment Plan (EP), Individual Employment Plan (IEP) - whatever you call it should be eliminated from workforce development policy. Do you think that’s a bold statement? Here's why. The nature of an Employment Plan calls for a case management staff to sit down with a job seeker and tell the job seeker what he has to do to get a job. The steps are all laid out. Once a job seeker gets job, the Employment Plan is useless. Goal achieved. Another plan would have to be created for any future career goals and again, they have the start and end dates. Plan over.

So where does that leave the newly employed person? Helpless and set up for failure. Why is this? Because the nature of the employment plan does not give the person the tools to be successful on the job. It does not showcase what an employee needs to do be successful. In my one stop, many of the folks that visit the center can get a job, but how many can keep a job? How are employment plans helping people develop the skills they need for employment retention?

Let's look at this from two program perspectives. First the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) perspective. The Employment Plan contains the steps for retraining into a new career or skills enhancement training to get back into that same career with the assistance of WIA funding. Then the customer works with different levels of staff at the One Stop to obtain employment. In the perfect world, the customer got the exact job he went to training for, at full time, with an hourly wage with a substantial hourly wage. Great. Done. Exit. The customer goes on and keeps that job for at least full year and gets wage increases every 3 months or so. Right? Sounds like WIA "la- la" land. Truth is that if a person has changed careers, what steps does that person have to do to maintain that job, and what steps should that person take while employed to advance in that career?  Ultimately what does a person have to do to remain marketable? Is that an Employment Plan? No, that is a Career Development Plan. Big Difference.

In my opinion, this is where the workforce development system of one-stops needs to improve. If the support is not in place, many people will fail and will re-enter the WIA system- creating WIA recidivism- a WIA prison!

Now let’s look at the Employment Plan from TANF perspective.  The TANF employment program wants its participants to get a job. Many do get jobs and they lose them or they get jobs with little advancement opportunity, few pay raises, and never really get self-sufficient. Eventually everyone leave welfare. Not because they are self-sufficient, but rather due to their welfare clock ticking until their counter has reached the maximum allowed. So what’s missing? Career strategies to carry the person through life is the key.

Now I am realistic. I understand that workforce policy has an ingrained policy vocabulary passed down through the generations, but my radical suggestion is to eliminate the words “Employment Plan” and “Individual Employment Plan” and replace it with terminology that is more accurate to what the future economy will require of a person that wants to remain marketable in the ever changing job market.

So what can us front line “little guys” that don’t get to make workforce policy and its language do? We can re-define how we work with customers within the confines of our program language.

I suggest the following when working with each customer:

1.      Define the customer’s unique skills, abilities, and talents that should be developed and enhanced with each job within a career.

2.      Work with the customer and develop strategies to

o   Help the customer get a job

o   Help the customer keep a job

So many of the folks that frequent the one stop can’t keep a job. They can get a job, which means that they have some level of job seeking skills (as a system we are good at that), but many can’t keep a job. So what needs to be developed are the skills necessary to keep the job. For example: how to work with supervisors and coworkers; attitude; expectations of employers; when and how to make a reasonable request for accommodations. The list is endless!

3.      Define what steps the customer will need to take to either get promoted or remain marketable in that industry.

Now does any of that sound like a traditional employment plan?

As usual, I welcome questions or comments. Feel free to post comments below or send me an email at kcirincione@gmail.com

Karen Cirincione

Pondering Points

·         What do you feel is the key to a person’s success or failure at a job?

 

·         How do you think you can capture those elements in a traditional employment plan?

 

·         If you could redefine one term in workforce development what would it be and why?