Workforce Partnerships

Workforce Partnerships organize key stakeholders and local resources within regional industry sectors or occupational clusters to help workers gain the skills they need and to give employers access to the skilled labor they need. At their core, workforce partnerships tend to be results-driven, entrepreneurial, and worthy of trust from both employers and workers.

The key functions of workforce partnerships are:

• Pursuing a “dual customer approach,” serving businesses looking for qualified workers and job seekers and workers looking to advance their careers;

• Organizing multiple institutions and funding streams around common goals;

• Providing or brokering services—training and supports—that help workers gain access to the initial rungs of the ladder to economic opportunity and advancement;

• Serving a variety of workers but recognizing and addressing the special needs of lower-skilled, lower-wage workers and job seekers;

• Reducing turnover and increasing economic mobility of workers;

• Testing and adapting innovative approaches to workforce problems; and

• Catalyzing improvements in public systems and business employment practices.

Workforce partnerships are supported by regional collaboratives both through direct grants and through a variety of policy advocacy, professional development and capacity building strategies.