Sector Skills Academy: Capable and creative leaders are an integral part of successful sector efforts. To support the next generation of innovative leaders in the sector field, WSI has joined forces with Public/Private Ventures to operate the Sector Skills Academy. Designed for leaders from community-based organizations, community colleges, labor-management partnerships and business associations, the Academy is a year long program involving workshops, mentoring, technical assistance, and peer support. Click here for further information about the Sector Skills Academy.

Methods to Assess the Business Value of Workforce Services: Workforce development initiatives regularly describe their benefits to workers in terms of increased wages, hours of work, access to benefits, and so on. As workforce initiatives strive to become "demand-driven," there is an increased need for methods to track and describe the benefits employers receive from workforce initiatives in terms of reduced turnover costs, efficiency gains, skills increases, reduced supervisor time, and other business-related results. WSI led nine sectoral workforce organizations and their business clients, in a structured learning environment, to develop feasible guidelines and methods for assessing results from the business perspective. This effort led to the Business Value Assessment framework and toolkit of methods (formerly known as the Documenting Demand Side Outcomes project). These materials are now available online.

Communications Initiative on Industry-Specific Workforce Development: This project was designed to provide sectoral employment development practitioners with insights on effective communication. WSI convened six accomplished sectoral employment development programs to participate in a learning group focused on building capacity to effectively use strategic communications techniques. The issues and challenges that these programs faced as they developed new and enhanced communication strategies provide the field with pragmatic lessons about how sectoral initiatives can use communications initiatives to improve the effectiveness of their work. Click here to learn more about this project.