Communications Initiative
on Industry-Specific Workforce Development

Research conducted by the Economic Opportunities Program shows that industry-specific workforce development initiatives have the capacity to make dramatic improvements in the job quality, earnings and employment prospects of low-wage/low-skilled workers. At the same time, these initiatives can create real value for employers and for customers who benefit directly from improvements in the quality of services that they receive from a workforce with better skills and better working conditions.

Based on the strength of the research findings from the Sectoral Employment Development Research Project, the Economic Opportunities Program undertook a special initiative aimed at increasing political and industry backing for sectoral, or industry-specific, workforce development strategies.

The key objectives of the initiative were to:

• Increase the public and political will to support workforce development policies that emphasize job quality, promote flexibility, and provide increased funding for employment-focused skills training for the disadvantaged.
• Improve the ability of industry-based workforce development programs to clearly and persuasively convey the value that their services create for both low-income workers and industry employers.
• Build employers' knowledge of industry-based workforce development initiatives, and generate interest among employers in participating in the development or expansion of such initiatives in their industry and region.

About the Communications Learning Cluster

The initiative involved a learning cluster of six industry-specific workforce programs that identified specific outreach and communications goals for the year. The participating organizations were:

• Homeboyz Interactive
• Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute
• Project QUEST
• Primavera Services
• Seattle Jobs Initiative
• WIRE-Net

For more information on the participating organizations click here.

Working together with the Institute and a team of communications experts, program leaders from these organizations were trained to use language and messages that clearly convey their value-add to key stakeholders in their communities through the media and other channels. Each program worked with communications professionals to develop additional strategies and technological capacities tailored to the needs of their program to help them achieve their specific communications objectives.

The Economic Opportunities Program (EOP) convened the group during the course of the initiative to provide training and guidance, and to document the lessons that program leaders learned as they incorporated new strategies and tools into their ongoing work.