<p> LEADERSHIP TEAM MEETING NOTES – February 25, 2015</p><p>In Attendance: Lewis Boren, Linda Angel, Debbie Gommert, Vivian Naramore, Jerry Haisler, Vickie Gideon, Kimberly Patterson, Gerry Fluharty, Ben Lopez, Sue Bailey, and Roy Highsmith.</p><p>Jerry showed a Ted Bloomington video featuring Shaun Achor talking about “happiness and success”. It was good information and will be provided as a “link” so that staff can access if they want to.</p><p>Last Meeting: </p><p>Social Media Policy: Policy has been published.</p><p>ITA Policy: Final revision was sent to select LT members with no further comments received. Vickie commented that it looks OK. ACTION: Roy to publish policy asap. WF Administrators and Sue will monitor and provide guidance as necessary.</p><p>Richard Rogers Monitoring Report: Jerry is reviewing the responses and will sign off if all looks good. Thanks to everyone for their work on addressing the monitor questions.</p><p>Workforce Update:</p><p>Texas Association of Business Conference, pages 5-13: Jerry discussed the conference. Good overall with no surprises. All state leaders seem to be on track with their “promises”. Tax relief, transportation, and higher education are high on everyone’s list. Many presenters covered many subjects as highlighted in the meeting book. </p><p>New Normal, Page 14-20: Horace’s notes on the Friday TWC conference call along with charts from Adam. Adam discussed what is becoming the “new normal”. It was assumed that as the economy improved, job seekers would positively impact the numbers i.e. that are “traffic” would increase. This has not been the case i.e. a consistent decrease and we appear to be headed to a new version of what is considered normal. There are several interesting demographic findings. People with degrees increased and we are serving older people. People are waiting longer to come into the workplace. Adam will continue to “drill down” in the data. This should a session at the April TWC Forum. NOTE: If we have comments about the data, get them to Adam. Jerry noted that Gerry Fluharty discussed a survey he did with 100 of our WF participants. His finding are in many ways similar to what Adam noted. </p><p>Upcoming Briefing for FT Hood new Deputy Garrison Commander, Mary Himic, pages 21- 22: Pages include the info that will be presented for WSCT. There will also be a meeting with the interim Deputy Commander, Keith Gogas and Ms. Himic after the WF Board meeting tomorrow. NOTE: Ms. Himic and Mr. Gogas were not able to attend – we will reschedule later. Lewis and Jerry recently had meetings with Martin Traylor (new director TAP) and Charlie Green (HR director) of Ft Hood concerning our services to the military community and our NEG grant. Mutually helpful info was shared i.e. they learned some things about the NEG grant and we learned some things about their processes and who is involuntarily being separated. The main focus is on referring eligible soldiers. Susan and Jerry met with met with Linda McFarland, General McFarland’s wife. We want to develop a good working relationship with her as we have in the past with others (e.g. around J4MF and Linda Odierno). Ms. McFarland was interested very interested in child care and how that affected military families. Kim Alexander provided handouts and other info we use for outreach. We did a tour of the KWFC and she was very impressed with </p><p>1 all of the services we provide. Ms. McFarland’s schedule is very busy but we made a solid connection and she was appreciative of our outreach to her. </p><p>DARS Integration with TWC, pages 23-34: Jerry reviewed the information and highlighted the 2 divisions, Rehabilitative Services (DRS) and Blind Services (DBS). DBS wants to ensure that specialized people work with their customers. The Texas Rehab Action Network (TRAN) supports the transfer of DARS to TWC. Other comments from affiliated groups such as The American Council of the Blind of Texas and The National Federation of the Blind, Texas are included on pages 32-34.We need to work on our two entities’ working relationships which is very minimal now. If the recommendation of the Sunset Commission happens it is predicted that DARS staff will be under local WF control but will remain state employees, something we are very familiar with. September is the target month to bring them on. NOTE: a meeting is set for March 19 after the LT meeting between Susan, Jerry, Wanda, WF Administrators and the local and regional DARS managers.</p><p>Leadership Training, Lewis, Ben, Linda, and Vickie: covered their attendance at this training. Good stuff. They did the Briggs-Meyers assessment as well as the 360 evaluation. The presenters were good. Some of the subjects they liked were the psychology of change and how to deal with it, self- management, how to recover from mistakes, emotional intelligence, and connecting with people. They discussed their impressions, how it helped them, and what they learned about themselves. They indicated that they were probably the only contractor staff there, most of them being board staff.</p><p>Management Development Programs, pages 45-46: Upcoming training, a series of mini sessions, 2-3 days and targeted to LT, supervisors, and key staff who could benefit. There are several sessions over the next several months in Austin and Dallas. ACTION: If you want to go, let Jerry know.</p><p>Glenn Shepard Seminar, pages 47-48: It was excellent last year. An entertaining presenter that provides sound HR and labor relations advice and insight. ACTION: If you want to go, let Jerry know and schedule through Sandra.</p><p>Strengths 2, pages 35-44: Do we want to continue to the next level? How, who and when? In the beginning it was just the LT. Trainer options are JD and Roxanne. They want to have our input as they are designing it just for us. The length of training depends on what we want. It includes a more in-depth look at each other’s strengths and how to use that information in functional teams. Comment was that we need to “yellow it up”. We could build on each other’s strengths and take this to the next level. Vivian covered how she used this to constitute her improvement team for document management. The target audience would include both LT and Board staff. There was agreement we should continue and build on the investment we have made. ACTION: Linda and Debbie to conference call TWC to develop the training outline. The timeline considering TWC preparation time and our busy schedules will be possibly May but more likely in the fall.</p><p>Visit with Julie Ebinger: Julie visited with the LT and commented on her review (audit) of the NEG’s. She is visiting each board with an NEG. She is not here to do an in-depth or formal audit. She reviewed files and shared her observations with us. In the OJT part of the NEG grant, the entire state is meeting the goal. She does not see that grant being extended. The 2-3 OJT’s should be moved to the second grant that we received from TWC. The focus of the first grant is no longer OJT but rather vocational training using ITA’s. She discussed how to roll-over into the second grant. Enrollments and expenditure levels are critical; we don’t want to give money back. Balancing our budget is dependent on success in these grants. 2 Work 2 Go, pages 56-59: East Temple Revitalization Project. Susan, Jerry and Vickie are involved and good progress is reported. Vickie has played an instrumental role in working on the screening of participants, assessment, and “soft skills” focus. Ultimately, participants will have a business mentors to coach and support them. </p><p>NCP: Additional allocation for Central Texas is still in a holding pattern. Project OAG staff says the money is available and already transferred to TWC. Jerry will follow up. If we do not get additional $$ then the program will be limited which is a real loss to the community and families. Ben reported that we have recovered $274k in child support to date.</p><p>Butler Weldments Proposal, pages 60-70: Will attend a meeting tomorrow on this. Project is to train welders. It’s being developed in conjunction with TC who has a training center in Cameron that is not being used. Ginger Watkins, Cameron Economic Development, is working with TC on this. The meeting is to get all interested parties together – to date the info has been fragmented and intent unclear. Butler’s proposal is included in the LT packet.</p><p>Greg Newton Follow-Up Actions, see Jerry’s handout: Evaluations were good. Assessment will revert to comprehensive meaning increased emphasis on it. We need a look at local policies to ensure we are keeping up with the coming changes. We need to address local decisions made on the OJT policy so that it doesn’t restrict OJT unnecessarily. Policy will require some change (see mark-up in handout). He suggested using forms in the WD Letter. WIOA expectations are high and the time frame is short. There is more focus on workforce customer preparation through assessment, career paths, and credentials. Right now career exploration is self-driven but that may change. How many customers take advantage of career development/preparation activities? We have lots of resources. The expectation is that the career center understands this? Are there dollars available for this? We don’t know where exactly this will go yet as rules are not out. See action items in the handout. </p><p>Improvement Teams:</p><p>Workshop Action Team: Lewis reported they are on hold this month due to Wendy and Tom’s schedule. Joy will get with Temple staff to work out curricula. </p><p>Leadership Communication: Jerry reported no action to date. LT suggested possible topics such as DARS relocation and what is happening in the improvement teams.</p><p>Name Tags: Mary is checking additional local resources. Swipe cards are being considered. It would allow entry into the building by swiping the card. Will evaluate based on cost. Will go with tags that can be either magnetic or lanyard. Staff tenure will be noted in 5 year increments years.</p><p>Customer Satisfaction, page 71: Vickie reported John has developed a data base. Do we capture gender, age, and vet status? Do we want an internal satisfaction survey? Yes. Can use Survey Monkey. This team will go next into customer service improvement as a follow on action.</p><p>Self Service Vs Staff Assisted: Kim reported they have scheduled Scott Eychner to visit with team next Friday. Indications are that most customers are now staff assisted.</p><p>Signage and Message Boards: Terry reported that he will talk to vendors concerning cost and other issues and will report that next month. LT suggested a visit to A&M Centex to see what they have.</p><p>3 Document Management, page 72: TWC can come to do a training session on Rapid Improvement (Albert Rodriguez). This is going to be a long-term process. Vivian is contacting other areas with document management systems as well.</p><p>Performance, Pages 74-84; Performance Dashboard shows performance overview as to how we compare with others. Page 85, Choices is strong and 10-week claimants look good. Higher than this time last year. WIA is #4 in incentive. We are trying to get staff-guided up. WIA entered employment is #1.</p><p>Picto-Chart: Vivian and Linda demonstrated a new way of presenting LMI and job outlook for our area using Picto-Chart software. This can be used for lay-off impacts and other things as well.</p><p>Next LT Meeting: March 19, Killeen, 8:30 a.m. </p><p>Meeting Evaluation: What was good? Great information sharing but missed Susan’s smut update. It’s always good to get updated each month. Good info-MAN we are busy! Missed Susan Good meeting flow. Thanks for all the food.</p><p>What Could We Improve? Missed Susan and her informative reports.</p><p>4</p>