Three years ago, I asked workforce investment board (WIB) executive directors attending a standing-room only workshop if they felt that advocacy was a responsibility of their WIB members. About a quarter of the hands were raised in agreement. Fast forward to 2011 and the response is quite different. There’s no doubt that amidst funding threats, a vast majority of WIBs are on board with educating their elected officials about their mission. The new challenge is not so much in the motivation, but the message.
I couldn’t agree more with Fawn Johnson’s article in the National Journal Daily that punches home the point that service organizations should fight budget cuts by communicating local impacts. She references the challenges of many of these organizations, including those funded by the Corporation for National and Community Service, whose efforts are key to many local school and community organizations. Specific advocacy efforts have included talking to Republican lawmakers on their home turf with the message that they have voted to cut service-group jobs. Save Service Campaign Director Ann Maura Connolly dispatched 2,600 people to 83 Senate offices and 295 House offices during a recent congressional recess. “The organizations that these leaders know as community leaders, many of them didn’t know that National [and Community] Service was part of that equation. They didn’t realize they were hurting organizations that they support,” Connolly said.
So, this leads me back to the workforce investment system and one of our core message dilemmas articulated by Jamil Dada, past chair of the National Association of Workforce Boards (NAWB), in a recent video. “Because all of our 575 workforce boards across the country have unique names for their programs, when I testify before Congressional committees or talk to members of Congress, they often have no idea that the program is linked to the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) funding,” said Dada.
Because there are so many disparate and unique brands, the workforce system does not have a collective voice which is critical for recognition and funding. That’s one of the primary reasons that the NAWB designed the Workforce Investment Works campaign—a simple storytelling website that houses thousands of success stories about WIA programs and showcases the value and impact of the system.
With so many program names, the message becomes even more important. If you are in the heat of the battle to champion WIA funding, consider these points in your advocacy efforts.
Connect the dots.
Explain that your board is associated with 575 other business-led workforce investment boards across the country funded by the WIA that are responsible for maximizing economic impact in their local district through workforce strategies and programs. Link your program name(s) back to the WIA funding source.
Communicate local impacts.
So what happens in the Congressional district when WIA funding cuts occur? You need to explain what the cuts will do in your local area. Most of the angles in the news coverage that we’ve reviewed over the last month build a case around the numbers of people that will no longer be served, but could go one step further in demonstrating local economic impact.
For example, a recent op-ed article stated “If WIA funding cuts are approved, then our organization would not be able to build strong relationships with businesses to determine their workforce needs. We could not help businesses recruit the right employees, or understand the required skill sets they need. And, we would not be able to help businesses upskill their existing staff to remain competitive in today's changing economy.”
Specific numbers would make a stronger business case. How many business customers have been served? What have been their results? What would have happened if they hadn’t received your support? What impacts did the WIA services make in the business to keep it competitive? How many new workers were they able to hire? How many workers were retained versus laid off because of WIA strategies? How many new businesses were recruited to the area because of the quality of the workforce? How many new jobs to the area did that new business bring? How has that translated to annual payroll in the Congressional district?
Some of these numbers are measures that the workforce system doesn’t monitor because the funding doesn’t require it, so it becomes difficult to get specific in developing these types of stories. But, maybe it’s time to rethink how data and metrics are collected, even if it’s not required.
If these types of collective numbers aren’t available, do you have stories that can point to these types of local impact? This leads us to the next best strategy—telling stories.
Share the stories.
Share compelling stories about the local Congressional district’s constituencies, particularly about how the WIB has focused on the market needs of business and industry to create jobs, retain workers and hire new ones through your services and innovations. Post them on your website and the national campaign site at www.WorkforceInvestmentWorks.com, and reference them in media stories.
McHenry County Workforce Network in Illinois got it so right when they submitted a simple success story to the campaign website about their work with Joule Technologies. They reported that an Incumbent Worker Training Grant allowed on-site training Lean Enterprise. The results? The grant money gave Joule Technologies the knowledge and confidence to completely restructure their production processes and philosophies. They have reduced lead times for their products by 60%, increased their on-time delivery by 94.5% and reduced customer returns by over 80%. Their workforce is confident and is now taking ownership over their products and customer relationships in a way that they could not have imagined twelve months ago. Now, those are great impacts.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy that WIBs are stepping up and motivated to get stories placed in the news media about their important mission, and are focused on educating their elected officials. The devil is in the detail, and in this case, the specifics of the message.
This current funding environment is a rallying point to think differently about how we collect data and facts, and brand our mission as a critical element to economic recovery. It’s our business case for making sure that WIBs think about strategic communications as part of their everyday operations, not just a one-time event during the development of an annual report, or in the middle of a funding crisis. If all 575 WIBs across the country adopted a proactive communications philosophy, we’d all be in better shape to leverage our successes and build a collective business case to fund our mission.
For storytelling toolkits and resources, go to www.WorkforceInvestmentWorks.com.
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