Connecticut Talent Pipeline Initiative

Problem Statement:

Our focus is closing opportunity gaps caused by multi-generational poverty, racial and gender discrimination, and the lack of equitable access to educational and employment opportunities. Cultivating and investing in diverse talent can unleash innovation, economic growth and stronger families and communities. 

Proposed Solution and Impact:  

• Short term industry-designed, training programs in advanced manufacturing and health care have provided employment and career pathways for 1800 people plus a long term talent pipeline for businesses.  
• Developing these programs requires deep partnerships among employers, educators, service providers, and workforce boards. 
• Our plan is to create sustainable livelihoods for tens of thousands of people by scaling these programs and adding additional sector training programs in cybersecurity and energy efficiency. We also plan to build out our workforce board sponsored digital jobseeker portal, used by over 9,000 people in one region to cover multiple regions and job types. 

Connecticut has large economic and racial opportunity gaps. 520K households (40%) are defined as poor or working poor by the United Way.  Connecticut has one of the widest education attainment gaps in the nation.  The high school graduation rate for low income students is 66% which is 27 points lower than students not eligible for any lunch subsidies. The postsecondary credential attainment gap by race is enormous (Whites 56%, African Americans 31.3%, Latinx 24%). Yet, research shows that 70 percent of Connecticut’s working-age adults will need some form of postsecondary work credential by 2025 if we are to meet the needs of our modernizing economy and create sustainable livelihoods for families. 

While CT has a strong higher education system, poor and minority students disproportionately attend community colleges.  The three-year graduation rate for community colleges in CT is just 15%.  In contrast, the completion rates and job placement rates for short term sector based programs are over 80% with the Manufacturing Pipeline Initiative placing more than 90% of program participants.

To close these opportunity gaps, people need access to high quality education and training programs plus supportive services to develop the skills needed to thrive in a modern economy.  

The Manufacturing Pipeline Initiative is the foundation of this plan. In 2015, in response to an increased need for skilled workers in the Groton-New London area, local manufacturing employers, schools, and the workforce development board in Eastern Connecticut launched this Initiative.  The intensive,work-based classroom training programs last between 5 to 10 weeks and focus on building employer competencies for open jobs.  Workers are recruited and assessed through an innovative digital portal which over 9,000 jobseekers have utilized. Once trained, graduates get placed in jobs that offer livable wages and opportunities for career advancement. The MPI represents a big win for the trainees and provides significant benefits to employers including reducing hiring and training costs, de-risking the hiring process with competency-based hiring and training, and expanding the talent pool. Over the past three years, the MPI has become a nationally acclaimed sector-based training strategy.  A 2019 economic impact study showed that the MPI contributed $129 million of direct and indirect economic impact. Other notable accomplishments include: a) 1,500+ job placements with a 90% job placement rate; 2) 80% of job placements were people without prior manufacturing experience; and 3) involvement of 30+ community partners and 340+ employer partners.  

The Connecticut Talent Pipeline initiative targets a broad population of unemployed and underemployed people interested in pursuing livable wage careers in high demand industries.  The statewide target population of 1. 2 million unemployed and underemployed people includes racial minorities, immigrants (520K), justice involved individuals (59K), and opportunity youth (39K).  The existing proof of concept programs in advanced manufacturing and health care have successfully trained people from these populations.  Our new proposed pathways in energy efficiency (green jobs) technicians (currently 34K employed earning a starting wage of $52K) and cybersecurity will create additional demand for these various populations.

Three workforce boards have been involved in the development of these programs. As a part of the development process, there have been focus groups and jobseeker customer research to understand their needs, including barriers to employment. As a result of this, the Governor's Workforce Council (a partner in this proposal) is leading an aggressive set of initiatives to reduce employment barriers such as child care, transportation, benefit coordination (reduction of benefit cliffs) and health services. 

The CT Talent Pipeline initiative is based upon forming sector partnerships between industry, educators, workforce boards, and jobseekers.  Offering free, short term training programs with supportive services and employment commitments ensures broad access to jobseekers and motivates people to complete their training. The experience in our two sector partnerships is that we have attracted a diverse set of jobseekers from an age, gender, and racial standpoint. We are continuing to develop the job readiness skills portion of the training to address the more intensive needs of populations such as justice involved individuals and opportunity youth.

This project has a hybrid team including a nonprofit, Social Venture Partners (SVP-CT), the Connecticut Office of Workforce Strategy and Governor's Workforce Council, 5 Regional Workforce Boards, 11 Community Colleges, and more than 20 Business leaders:

SVP: 5 Full time staff, 1 Part time staff, 10+ part time volunteers

Office of Workforce Strategy/Governor's Workforce Council: 4 Full time staff, 2 contractors

Regional Workforce Boards: 10 Full time staff

Community Colleges: 3 Full time regional workforce coordinators

Business Partners: 20 Part time business leaders in Manufacturing, Health Care, Cybersecurity, Utilities

Social Venture Partners (SVP) launched its first DEI initiative in 2016. After a series of workshops led by outside facilitators, a DEI Partner team was formed that made recommendations that were adopted including:

1.     Increasing Board, staff and Partner diversity;

2.     Incorporating equity principles in our nonprofit investment and capacity building processes

3.     Providing additional training in cultural awareness and equity principles 

4.     Developing meaningful partnerships with community-rooted organizations, getting proximate, and engaging directly with communities;

n 2020,  SVP expanded its efforts through launching a broad based Race Equity Initiative to support community leaders in addressing the systemic drivers of racial inequity.  There are four key pillars of this work are: 

1) Race Equity Participatory Grant Making Fund that supports nonprofits that are directly addressing racial equity issues.  

2) Leadership and Social Capital Development: 

3) Advocacy and Support for Nonprofits addressing racial inequities

4) Training around Equity, Inclusion, and Anti-Racism. 

Industry aligned sector based training programs are not unique in the U.S.  However there are several distinguishing elements of our approach and business model:

1. Deep partnerships with businesses to co-create the curriculum, program, job specifications, and obtain hiring commitments.

2. Leveraging the expertise, recruiting platforms, and job readiness training of Workforce Investment Boards.

3. Working with educators and trainers (like Community Colleges) to accelerate, virtualize, and modify educational programs and instructional methods to incorporate work based learning and dramatically improve completion rates.

4. Developing a digital portal for recruiting, screening, and assessing candidates.  This has greatly expanded the pool of potential jobseekers. 

5. Building in coaching and supportive services to increase participation and completion rates for participants.

6. Aligning these training programs with Next Gen Regional Sector Partnerships.

7. Scaling and enhancing these programs through the leadership of the Governor's Workforce Council (State Workforce Board) and the Office of Workforce Strategy in Connecticut state government.  

8. Building partnerships with multiple stakeholders including philanthropy, community leaders, nonprofits, and political leaders.  

The business processes utilize a digital portal for recruiting, screening and assessing candidates.  

The curriculum blends online, classroom, and hands-on clinical or laboratory instruction.  For advanced manufacturing, these programs have adopted the nationally recognized 180 Skills platform. 

Manufacturing technology: the advanced manufacturing programs utilize machine shops that include the latest technologies being utilized by businesses. The equipment is varied based upon the specific training program.

Health Care technology: significant use of simulation labs and online instruction to manage the pandemic issues and increase accessibility for students.

Manufacturing online curriculum (180Skills) is one of the most widely adopted programs on a national basis.  It was pioneered in Seattle with Boeing and has achieved significant use in the aerospace and defense industries which are the dominant part of the Connecticut manufacturing landscape.

The Connecticut Talent Pipeline Initiative is a critical part of a broader education and workforce development strategy for the State of Connecticut that has been developed by the Governor's Workforce Council (GWC).  The GWC Plan has 19 strategic initiatives organized into four main categories: 

1) Business Leadership strategies are those that rely most importantly on business as the driver. Regional Sector Partnerships will serve as the anchor strategy to reinvigorate Connecticut’s demand-driven approach to workforce development. Educators and trainers will partner with business to develop strategies that fill gaps in the regional talent supply chain. Students and other jobseekers will benefit from a more clearly articulated job demand picture and improved availability of training and support. Businesses can also lead the way in adopting skills-based hiring practices that will expand opportunities for all.

2) Career Building – Educating Our Workforce strategies align training and education with occupational demand and career opportunities. The cultivation of career pathway systems and in-demand, sector-based training will serve as the anchor strategies to achieve this alignment. Career Building strategies will promote lifelong learning and modernize core skills in digital literacy, problem solving, teamwork, and communication.  

3) Equity and Access strategies seek to address persistent barriers that undermine access to sustainable work and training arrangements. The foremost barriers facing Connecticut’s lower-paid workforce include child care, transportation, benefits cliffs, and access to behavioral health services.  These plans are intended to help our workers and jobseekers while creating a positive return for the state and its taxpayers. They recognize the talent potential that can be unleashed through thoughtful, data-driven policy initiatives. 

4)Accountability and Data-Driven Management strategies use technology to increase accessibility, transparency, and accountability. They allow us to better understand program outcomes and the return on our investment in training and supportive services. Jobseekers will gain clarity on career options, pathways, and specific educational programs, leveraging a user friendly online platform. Businesses will contribute to this user platform, creating a much more useful feedback loop while gaining access to a broader talent pipeline. 

Our goals for the next year to are to scale these programs to reach several thousand people, while adding new sector programs, extending the digital recruiting portal, and enhancing the job readiness training components. 

Our desired outcomes over five years are to integrate short term, high quality training programs in high demand industries into the educational and career pathways system that we are building with our K-12, higher education and workforce systems. This will significantly increase the number and percentage of people, especially from minority and lower income backgrounds completing post-secondary credentials and obtaining living wage jobs.  

The biggest barriers are financial, cultural and leadership based.  Financially, the State of Connecticut is limited in its ability to significantly scale sector based training programs due to its budgetary challenges.   

Culturally, the biggest obstacle had been the lack of alignment among business, educators, and government agencies.  However, the year long workforce strategy process led by the Governor's Workforce Council has brought together these major stakeholders around a common set of priorities and operating methods that will accelerate progress. 

The leadership challenge is to engage business, education, government, and community leaders to make significant changes in the way that they operate educational and training programs and for businesses to act upon the equity and access challenge to redesign their hiring, employee development and support processes to focus on skills based hiring and to support quality jobs.

Financial challenges: We will need to develop multiple financing approaches including federal government support, philanthropic support, reallocation of existing workforce spending, and continuing to innovate to drive down the cost of these training programs.

Cultural challenges: We have made substantial progress in aligning cross sector stakeholders around an ambitious plan.  In the coming years, we will need to maintain and strengthen this alignment.

Leadership challenges: We plan to take a test and learn approach in moving businesses and educators forward through significant leadership from the Governor's Workforce Council, Office of Workforce Strategy, Social Venture Partners, and the Regional Workforce Boards.

Disaggregated program outcomes data by subpopulation

Measuring the value of specific program elements (professional skills, coaching, supportive services, length of training) on outcomes in order to build the most efficient and effective future program design

Longer term tracking of program participants career and earnings progress (work is being done to legislatively mandate enhanced employment record reporting)

We have a hybrid team that includes a nonprofit (Social Venture Partners-CT), state government (Office of Workforce Strategy and the Governor's Workforce Council), 5 Regional Workforce Boards, 11 Community Colleges, and leading Employers.  We are also engaging other community based nonprofits and philanthropy.

Our extended team is a partnership of a nonprofit, Social Venture Partners-CT with over 200 volunteer partners that have focused on workforce development for the past four years. Social Venture Partners led the development of the statewide health care sector training program.

The CT. Office of Workforce Strategy is led by Kellie Vallieres, a manufacturing business owner with a PHD in experiential education, who led an industry association and was the key designer of the flagship sector training program in advanced manufacturing.

The Governor's Workforce Council (the state workforce board) is led by Mark Argosh, the Executive Director of Social Venture Partners. There are 24 cross sector leaders including 12 CEOs on the Council.

The Regional Workforce Boards are partners in building and managing these training programs.

The three regional CTE leaders of the Community College system are the key educational partners for these programs.

This effort enjoys strong business leadership support from some of the largest CT employers as well as small and medium sized companies.  

We also have several local philanthropic partners who have provided initial funding to pilot these programs including the health care program.

A large number of partnerships are listed in the prior question.  In addition, we are establishing NextGen regional sector partnerships in all five workforce regions.  

Social Venture Partners-CT partners with local nonprofits across the state in education and workforce development by providing capacity building services.  It is estimated that the volunteer consulting hours would make SVP the largest nonprofit consulting firm in CT.   

These nonprofit organizations specialize in working with marginalized populations that are critical to connect to the education and workforce system.  

The SVP Board is a diverse board that includes a wide range of leaders from across the state, including grass-roots community leaders.  

SVP's impact strategy has three key pillars: 1) harnessing our human and social capital, 2) systems change, and 3) centering our work with a race equity lens.  We believe that we are building a new type of social impact organization that combines skills based volunteering, empowering community change makers, convening leaders across sectors, and influencing policies, practices, and resource allocation for the social good.  In addition to providing more than 20,000 hours of capacity building services in the past year for 15 nonprofits,  SVP served as the backbone organization for the Governor's Workforce Council and is beginning to play this role in Early Childhood Education in Connecticut. 

Our business model includes a small highly skilled professional staff that trains and supports volunteer consulting teams that includes the majority of our 200 Partners. These partners and staff deliver professional grade consulting on a probono basis and also make small grants to nonprofits raised from partner money. Currently, 75% of our $1. 2 million budget is generated internally through Partner contributions and 25% comes from philanthropy. SVP is also starting to become a volunteer engagement platform for corporations around education, workforce development, and race equity; including a new broad-based partnership with McKinsey Connecticut.  

During the past 12 months, we estimated the financial value to our nonprofits to be over $3 million, based upon direct and indirect contributions and the value of our consulting time. We are launching an effort to measure the social value of our work. 

See above for Social Venture Partners.  It is already sustainable and growing at a rate of 30% per year.

For the Connecticut Talent Pipeline Initiative, we will need to develop a broad based revenue strategy to support these training programs that includes government, philanthropy, business support, leveraging student financial aid sources, and incorporating low risk contingent student financing where there is a clear value proposition.

The training programs have been supported by a combination of state and federal grants as well as philanthropic grants.  The Regional Workforce Boards have also participated and provided direct and indirect support.  In the future we expect to make  available student financial aid for short term certificate programs, while increasing the high school dual enrollment opportunities to participate in earlier training programs.

We could train 10,000 people over the next year if we can obtain the funding.  We estimate that the cost would be $60-80 million.

Still being determined based upon availability of government funding.

We would like to obtain the $100,000 to support our objectives of adding two new sector programs, scaling existing programs, and enhancing the digital recruiting portal.

In addition, we would like to build national partnerships to support these programs.  We believe that Connecticut can be a national leader in reimagining employment pathways, given the strong support of our Governor, the Governor's Workforce Council, Regional Workforce Boards, and our Educational Systems.  In this way we can serve as a statewide laboratory for equity based education and employment strategies.  But we will need the partnership, learning, and support from national funders and organizations that are deeply knowledgeable about this work.