Workforce Leaders Only Have Two Choices

Workforce Leaders Only Have Two Choices 

My usual admonishment — These thoughts are neither official policy of the Delaware Workforce Investment Board nor the Delaware Department of Labor. These are just my personal musings on the new Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act (WIOA).

The sun is creeping up and the shadows are bouncing between the buildings, creating an uneven explosion of color and shade. Some are indiscernible; other shapes are distinct and easy to recognize. 

So it seems — initially — with WIOA. Some of the shapes and tasks we’ve seen before, and are still there. There are workforce boards, plans, partners, the employers and the job seekers. Like anything else the familiar is the easy.

Below the surface — in the recesses and caverns of subparagraphs — lay hidden the shades of implied tasks that won’t become clear to workforce leaders until each of us delves into the law and figures out what our own questions are and how they fit us. 

Here is the caution — I think. Workforce professionals need to read the entire law for themselves and not let other well-meaning bodies or association do it for them. We each approach reading with our own filters and what may be important to one has no resonance with another.

So far — it seems to me — there is one thing for sure. Workforce organizations can come to the planning table kicking and muttering, attempting to recycle the same thinking into a plan that will slide by some sort of muster that checks someone else’s block; or they can embrace the new law, put the gut-wrenching hours into preparation and develop a quality plan that can be transformative for employers, job seekers, and the community at large. 

And so it goes. For me the early morning shadows are getting more distinct as the sun arcs higher in the sky.