Leaders in the workforce development space often make the righteous case to employers that they should prioritize talent acquisition from the communities they operate in.
For leaders of community-based organizations that provide job training services, the case they make is often centric to their programs and talent pipelines. But could this message be more effective if crafted with the collective in mind? Could workforce development leaders wield greater power to influence employer decision-making through stronger solidarity across agencies?
To better answer these questions, the RiseKit team traveled to Memphis to convene a group of stakeholders and facilitate this important dialogue, hosted alongside our partners at Assisi Foundation, Seeding Success, and Code for America.
Workforce development leaders have an incredibly challenging task. Especially in times of growing demand for services, meeting the needs of their team, program participants, and employer partners, is an always delicate balancing act.
These challenges were on full display at our convening, as several leaders lamented the difficulty of finding and sustaining employer partners that reliably recruit their program participants. Among other challenges, leaders shared that limited outreach capacity, low talent volume, and last-minute job orders from employers highlight the need for more proactive, inclusive, and collaborative engagement from the private sector to support the workforce development ecosystem.
Such are the pitfalls of the sector’s current mode of employer engagement, in which most organizations are building employer partnerships on their own, rather than collaboratively. One attendee at the convening said it well: “the status quo isn’t working.”
Of course, approaching employers in silos is only natural. Every organization within a local workforce development ecosystem has their own programming, talent pools, grant requirements, and outcomes to track. These are very real faultlines that have historically prevented a more collective approach to employer engagement.
In order to create the conditions for collaboration, it’s clear that all boats need to rise. To explore this school of thought, we split attendees into teams to each work on a shared “pitch” to employers that took into account the programs, services, and talent pools that each group member brought to the table.
After about an hour of breakout discussions, we reconvened and gave each team an opportunity to share their pitch with the broader group. What emerged was a more clear, decisive tone around a collaborative message to employers. Here was one team’s pitch:
“I represent a collective of local talent developers that provide an array of job training, upskilling, and career navigation services to communities across the Greater Memphis region. Our coalition works to place over 100 job-ready candidates into employment each and every month.
The organizations in our group provide programming and services designed to help Memphians become job-ready for your hard-to-fill positions. We collectively support a talent pool with dynamic skillsets. Our program graduates emerge ready to work across a variety of sectors, with skills ranging from IT troubleshooting to food preparation. We also provide candidates with opportunities to earn credentials and certifications, such as ServSafe, Forklift, and various IT certifications.
Why hire from us? Well, our participants are earning industry certifications, have shown resilience in overcoming challenges, and are coachable with a desire to grow.
Other employers in our network say they have historically struggled with finding right-fit candidates, reducing time-to-hire, and retaining talent. We can help on all fronts. With us, you’re not just getting new employees - you’re getting community partners that are committed to helping you build a stronger workforce.
As an extension of your talent acquisition team, we share your urgency to connect talented people to great jobs, fast.”
So what did we learn?
As the pitch above suggests, the collective message to employers carries considerably more weight. Each individual organization within a group might represent an ongoing talent pool of 20 (or less) individuals with specified career pathways or industry credentials. But together, their collective talent pool and array of candidate skillsets make for a much more compelling case for employer engagement.
The above pitch was one of several shared during the convening. Throughout the exercise, three key themes began to emerge:
While these discussion themes were encouraging, as described above, no one was illusioned to the difficulty of meaningful collaboration. Luckily, in Memphis, the RiseKit platform is making collaboration and collective employer engagement a bit easier.
In addition to being able to recruit and refer program participants, RiseKit enables Memphis leaders to onboard their job seekers and navigate alongside them on their journey to employment. Memphis employers are thus enabled to leverage RiseKit to hire confidently from local job training providers through a one-stop shop. Hundreds of job ready candidates, all in one place, without contending with a litany of phone calls, emails, and other fragmented forms of recruitment.
Though not a silver bullet, technology can help make collective employer engagement possible. Solidarity is won through hugs, handshakes, and conversations, surely, but it is ultimately sustained by stronger collaborative infrastructure. Together in partnership with stakeholders across the Memphis landscape, we’re excited to continue enabling collaboration and connectivity within the workforce development ecosystem, together.
“When workforce organizations come together, we shift the conversation from isolated programs to a united talent strategy. In Memphis, we’re showing that collective action isn’t just more efficient—it’s more effective. Employers don’t just want candidates; they want partners who understand their needs and can deliver talent at scale. That’s the power of working together.”
Marshall Ogier, Economic Development Policy Advisor, Seeding Success
Interested in working with us to host a workshop like the one described above?
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