# Career Ladders A Guidebook for Workforce Intermediaries By Heath Prince and Jack Mills, Jobs for the Future Prepared for Workforce Innovation Networks—WINs Part of a series on engaging employers in workforce development Workforce Innovation Networks—WINs DECEMBER 2003 WINs, a collaboration of Jobs for the Future, the Center for Workforce Preparation of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the Center for Workforce Success of the National Association of Manufacturers, addresses the workforce development needs of businesses and communities. Launched in 1997, WINs works with local employer organizations across the country that are on the cutting-edge of workforce develop- ment, testing the proposition that they can play a unique intermediary role in achieving a dual goal: # Improving the economic prospects of disadvantaged job-seekers and workers; and # Meeting the needs of their member firms for employees at the entry-level and above. The Role of Employers in Workforce Development A basic principle of WINs is that efforts to help individuals succeed must provide education and training that meets employer needs for knowledge and high skills. Similarly, individuals—particularly those with low education and skill levels—will not succeed in gaining family-sustaining employment unless they gain the skills nec- essary to perform in today’s complex work environment. Yet the top challenge faced by the people and organizations whose mission is to serve either constituency—job seekers or employers—is the challenge of engaging effec- tively with employers. For example, WINs asked a group of workforce development professionals, “What is the primary workforce development challenge facing your community?” Half the respondents answered, “Employers are not connected to the system.” WINs then asked, “What is the biggest challenge you face in implementing the Workforce Investment Act?” Over 40 percent of respondents said, “Engaging employers.” Jobs for the Future has prepared a series of resources on meeting the challenge of engaging employers in workforce development. These include: # Career Ladders: A Guidebook for Workforce Intermediaries # Employer-Led Organizations and Career Ladders # From Stakeholders to Partners: Organizing Community Partnerships for Workforce Development # High-Leverage Governance Strategies for Workforce Development Systems # Hiring, Retaining, and Advancing Front-Line Workers: A Guide to Successful Human Resources Practices # Mentoring # Working Together on Worker Training Career Ladders A Guidebook for Workforce Intermediaries Prepared for Workforce Innovation Networks—WINs Ta b le of Contents Introduction . 4 Using this Guide . 5 Section I: The Fundamentals of Career Ladders . 6 What Workforce Intermediaries Bring to Career Ladders . 6 Who Operates Workforce Intermediaries . 6 The Types of Career Ladder . 10 Design Principles: Characteristics for Career Ladder Leadership . 11 Section II: Stages of Program Development and Implementation. 14 Stage 1: Capacity Assessment and Planning . 15 Stage 2: Partnership Building and Program Development . 18 Stage 3: Program Operation and Expansion . 22 Section III: Examples of Career ladders . 24 Single-Firm Career Ladders . 24 Industry-Based Career Ladders . 25 Career Ladders Based in Sectoral Initiatives. 29 Cross-Industry Career Ladders. 32 Resources on the CD-ROM . 34 4 Workforce Innovation Networks INTRODUCTION mployers consistently rank recruiting and retaining skilled workers as two of their top human resources priorities. At the same time, low-wage, low-skilled individuals struggle to find avenues out of occupations Ethat offer little opportunity for advancement and into those that improve their skills, pay a family-sustain- ing wage, and offer upward mobility. Career ladders are a solution to this overlapping labor market problem: the need for better ways to recruit, retain, and advance workers. The term career ladders refers to a set of occupations that are linked together by common or complementary skills; these linkages provide workers with opportunities to advance, and they expand the recruitment opportunities for employers. Career ladders bring order to an often chaotic labor market with the strategic decision to satisfy both an employer’s need for skilled labor and a worker’s need to advance. Employers’ demand for skilled workers pulls low- workers is great, and those that are rapidly growing in income individuals up from low-wage jobs through the demand. The career ladder provides a road map for effi- pathways created by the career ladder. As a result, career cient, effective hiring by identifying the skills those jobs ladders are: require, arranging the jobs in steps up which workers • For employers, an effective source of employees; and advance, and sourcing workers to employers based on the • For workers, a vehicle to increase opportunities to skills they have learned, at least in part, in their previous advance to better jobs. jobs. Career ladders help solve recruitment problems, Career ladders group together employers whose skill reduce turnover, and increase productivity. By integrating requirements for a range of occupations can be met with “dead-end” occupations into a sequence that leads to skills that potential workers acquire in previous jobs and high-wage occupations, employers at the lower rungs of training. Career ladders can even operate within a single career ladders benefit from higher retention rates for par- firm, linking occupations based on similarities in skill ticipating workers. Because workers gain the skills requirements across different job levels. In either case, employers need, employers can capitalize on skills career ladders focus on the jobs that employers have the acquired at lower-skill levels of employment or through most trouble filling as they seek to stay competitive: jobs training that targets their requirements. with high turnover, those in which the demand for new Career ladders are not naturally occurring phenom- ena, however. They require conscious construction and competent management. Therefore, a workforce interme- diary sits at the center of many successful career ladders, directing the flow of labor demand and supply among participating firms and workers. These intermediaries, despite varying institutional origins, programmatic prior- ities, and long-term ambitions, share several important characteristics. In particular, they improve local and regional labor markets by pursuing two broad sets of functions: • Organizing and planning: Workforce intermediaries mobilize the stakeholders in the labor market— including employers, individual workers, government Workforce Innovation Networks 5 officials, and education, training, and other service the career ladder model. How readers approach the providers—to benefit employers and low-income remaining sections depends upon current organizational workers. capacity for developing, and experience with, career lad- • Providing or brokering services: Workforce intermediaries ders and similar initiatives. For example, organizations ensure that low-income job seekers, and the employers with efforts under development may find the content in who hire them, have access to job-matching, training, the Assessment and Planning stage familiar and less imme- support, and other services. diately relevant than the information contained in the Using this Guide other stages. Wherever you begin, the guide provides access to research, process-related information, and pro- Career Career Ladders: A Guidebook for Workforce Intermediaries gram development resources, as well as helpful tips, tools, ladders provides information on planning, developing, operat- and guidelines. ing, and expanding the role of these invaluable organiza- This guidebook is the result of an analysis of national help solve tions in career ladders. The guide is intended for use by best practices on career ladders, summarizing lessons recruitment program developers on the staff of workforce intermedi- learned from innovative work across the country. Of par- problems, aries leading or organizing career ladders. ticular importance were the experiences of San Francisco reduce The guidebook is designed for organizations that are Works, the Greater Cleveland Growth Association, and turnover,and new to career ladders as well as for those that have begun Workforce Connections—three test sites for the draft of developing and implementing their own initiatives. For this guidebook as part of Workforce Innovation increase organizations just beginning to consider developing Networks (WINs). Also included in the research were productivity. career ladders, the guide is a comprehensive introduc- interviews with practitioners and reports on the varied tion, as well as a stage-by-stage approach for program and growing number of models that seek to accomplish development and implementation. For organizations the fundamental objectives of career ladders: building on familiar with career ladders or other workforce develop- skills and linking them to occupations in high demand. ment programs, this guide serves as a resource on in- depth information and strategies. The guide is divided into three sections, plus a com- pendium of resources for program development and implementation. Section I, The Fundamentals of Career Ladders, defines key terms, details the value and characteristics of career ladders, and outlines the alternatives for leadership in their development. Section II, Stages of Program Development and Implementation, explains the three