In his State of the Union address on January 27, 2010, President Barack Obama mentioned that he wants to revitalize the nation's Community College system. Job creation and getting the unemployed back to work is a priority for President Obama's administration. Community Colleges have long been working partners in community education, workforce development, and job training.
In July, 2009, I began a pilot project to administer a Workforce Training Needs Survey at the Kiswaukee Community College District in Northern Illinois. I was not affiliated with any other organization in starting this project. I earned my doctorate in adult education and human resource development from Florida International University in 1992 and have been involved in designing this type of needs survey and collecting and processing survey results for years.
I offered my services, free of charge, to several Chambers of Commerce and to city governments in the community college district and two people joined me in working on the first half of the survey. After July, 2009, I no longer had the free time to support the project. I continued to develop the survey and have now made it available for purchase on eBay.
Organizations which purchase and use the survey are entitled to preferred pricing on many of the DrM-Resources services I provide in support of this survey.
Showing posts with label community colleges. Show all posts
Showing posts with label community colleges. Show all posts
Monday, February 8, 2010
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Jobs in the New Economy--President Barack Obama's Messages
President Barack Obama, in his first State of the Union address last night made jobs a number one priority and asked the Senate for a job bill incorporating what the House has already proposed. In the details below the headlines, President Obama spoke about creating new "green" jobs and talked about lots of construction, railroad, and nuclear jobs. He did not say much about jobs for the experienced middle manager who won't have a new job to go to nor an old job to go back to. Small Business can do much to create new jobs and the proposals of the Obama administration for Small Business are no where near as clear as the ideas for construction and energy jobs.
President Obama stressed that he wanted to support Community Colleges--they will play a critical role in helping adults adjust to new jobs.
A key area for growth for small businesses is for independent consultants with change management and training backgrounds to network in order to work with emerging technologies and to create the job training new employees will need for these jobs. As they do that they can look for contracts or grants from the Federal government to provide appropriate training to help people step into these new jobs as they are created.
Steve Jobs, in promoting the new iPad, spoke about many of the innovations Apple has provided since 1976. This kind of technology could well be the baseline for new training initiatives and for education in K-12, community college, and university systems.
President Obama stressed that he wanted to support Community Colleges--they will play a critical role in helping adults adjust to new jobs.
A key area for growth for small businesses is for independent consultants with change management and training backgrounds to network in order to work with emerging technologies and to create the job training new employees will need for these jobs. As they do that they can look for contracts or grants from the Federal government to provide appropriate training to help people step into these new jobs as they are created.
Steve Jobs, in promoting the new iPad, spoke about many of the innovations Apple has provided since 1976. This kind of technology could well be the baseline for new training initiatives and for education in K-12, community college, and university systems.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Weighing Choices--Making Decisions--Assessing Results
We take these actions from earliest memory. Even babies are weighing choices--"do I do this or do that?"--making decisions--"I'll cry now because ..."--and assessing results--"I cried when I was uncomfortable (wet or hungry) and now I'm dry and full."
As we get older the weighing process becomes more complex as do the decisions and our assessment of results. Sometimes there are delays between our actions and the results we see. Have you ever decided to order something, then been disappointed in it when it arrived?
When we get much older, many of our choices and decisions and results have to do with health. My 94-year-old mother went to the eye doctor today who told her that a shot in her left eye would control the accumulation of blood caused by age-related wet macular degeneration. Mom loves to read and to use her eyes. While she knew the shot is painful (this was the sixth shot she's had over several years) she has already decided that, if something will help her preserve her sight, she'll go through the pain. She had the shot. Age-related macular degeneration doesn't get better. Treatments can at least slow down the vision loss and that was the choice she made today.
How do we weigh our daily choices. There are 168 hours in a week (24 x 7) and we get to choose how we'll use them. Most of us want to sleep some of them away. Some of us know the value of exercise in our lives and devote some of the hours to exercise. All of us want to eat some of the time, so we take time for that as well. Many of us work several hours a day. We want time for recreation--perhaps with our families. Whatever the choices, those are the hours we have to work with in any given week.
We make decisions, then assess the results--are we getting what we want? In some of my eating choices, I have chosen to eat (what or when or how much I eat) that caused me to gain three pounds this week. If I want to get that off, I have to change my eating and exercise choices this week and can check on the results a week from now.
Yesterday I read a newsletter article that talked about looking for work AGR ("after the great recession in 2007"). The author (at http://www.higheredjobs.com) said that we have to have a different approach to looking for work AGR. What we used to do no longer produces the same results that it did before AGR. (See the post about Spenser Johnson's Who Moved My Cheese.)
If you go to http://joelmonty.wikispaces.com/file/view/Meta-Learning-Affect+Models.PDF and go to slide 2, Shame-Affect-Decisions Model. It will give you a picture of some of what I am talking about here.
Social networking sites abound with the hope that people will connect with the right jobs (or dates or spouses or . . .) through their social networks. Some do and some don't.
All of us need to rethink our choices and decisions, the results I am assessing tell me that times have, indeed, changed and I (along with millions of others) need to change to keep up with the change.
As we get older the weighing process becomes more complex as do the decisions and our assessment of results. Sometimes there are delays between our actions and the results we see. Have you ever decided to order something, then been disappointed in it when it arrived?
When we get much older, many of our choices and decisions and results have to do with health. My 94-year-old mother went to the eye doctor today who told her that a shot in her left eye would control the accumulation of blood caused by age-related wet macular degeneration. Mom loves to read and to use her eyes. While she knew the shot is painful (this was the sixth shot she's had over several years) she has already decided that, if something will help her preserve her sight, she'll go through the pain. She had the shot. Age-related macular degeneration doesn't get better. Treatments can at least slow down the vision loss and that was the choice she made today.
How do we weigh our daily choices. There are 168 hours in a week (24 x 7) and we get to choose how we'll use them. Most of us want to sleep some of them away. Some of us know the value of exercise in our lives and devote some of the hours to exercise. All of us want to eat some of the time, so we take time for that as well. Many of us work several hours a day. We want time for recreation--perhaps with our families. Whatever the choices, those are the hours we have to work with in any given week.
We make decisions, then assess the results--are we getting what we want? In some of my eating choices, I have chosen to eat (what or when or how much I eat) that caused me to gain three pounds this week. If I want to get that off, I have to change my eating and exercise choices this week and can check on the results a week from now.
Yesterday I read a newsletter article that talked about looking for work AGR ("after the great recession in 2007"). The author (at http://www.higheredjobs.com) said that we have to have a different approach to looking for work AGR. What we used to do no longer produces the same results that it did before AGR. (See the post about Spenser Johnson's Who Moved My Cheese.)
If you go to http://joelmonty.wikispaces.com/file/view/Meta-Learning-Affect+Models.PDF and go to slide 2, Shame-Affect-Decisions Model. It will give you a picture of some of what I am talking about here.
Social networking sites abound with the hope that people will connect with the right jobs (or dates or spouses or . . .) through their social networks. Some do and some don't.
All of us need to rethink our choices and decisions, the results I am assessing tell me that times have, indeed, changed and I (along with millions of others) need to change to keep up with the change.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Workplace Training in a Challenged Economy--Community Needs Analysis
Many organizations cut their investment in workplace learning when their budgets shrink. This is especially hard when employees entering the workforce after high school may be reading several grades below grade-level.
Some organizations use technology to compensate for low employee skills--pictures on keys so that employees can enter orders in fast food restaurants, for example.
I've begun working this summer on some questionnaires to be used to explore current trends and needs in workforce training and continuing education--based on targeting geographic areas based on community college districts set by states. I have proposed a pilot project --see http://drm-resources.wikispaces.com/projects .
The idea is to work with local Chambers of Commerce and other stakeholders to gather a true "community needs assessment" that can then be shared with providers of training based on documented needs of employees and their employers.
The follow-up steps and who would be involved are in another stage of the process. Informal observation says that this is an idea coming at a good time. Who will pay for the needs assessment and/or the training--that is still something to be developed.
Some of the issues identified may well fall into the arena of public education and others into areas for community development. It is critical to realize that the responsibility for assisting the employees to have the needed skills are not exclusively the responsibility of any one stakeholder--the employee, the employer, government agencies, or private trainers.
I see a community needs assessment as having several phases--data collection will include surveys, then, based on the surveys, focus groups or (even better if people are committed to follow-up action, action-learning groups). This will allow the data to be organized and processed so that recommendations for action (including training, collaboration, mentoring, community college, K-12 education, etc.) can be proposed. There is a need for phases--and there is a tie-in with community development and economic development departments in city and county governments--and even states.
In my work with organizations, I talk about three components that are required for change--Awareness, Acceptance, and Action. The Community Needs Assessment is part of the awareness component--acceptance is often a problem--people are "in denial" about reading levels. Recent research I have been doing and reading about confirms Jean's comment about high school graduates reading at a 3rd to 6th grade level in English. Because newer jobs will require more understanding on the part of many workers--even at entry level--we need more self-develop opportunities for high school graduates so that they can bring their own reading abilities up to a level that will allow them to contribute more in the workplace.
I have observed clearly--since 2000--that human resource development (a more generic term for training and professional development) takes a hit when the economy slows. Many companies regard this as a luxury. Others try to out-source areas of competence that they do not have--and do not want to build or pay for--in house. I have also observed that some organizations and leaders have habits of mistrust that can slow or stop efforts to collect information that could lead to positive change.
Trust is a significant factor required from the onset--even to do an accurate, reality-based community needs analysis. That issue has been seen to scrap many good projects and ideas in their infancy.
In the limited work I have had with MBA classes I have not seen a clear focus on building trust--it's critical for success and is hard to measure. Often people make decisions regarding cash flow that have little to do with human-to-human trust and more to do with trusting the balance sheet.
Dialogue is part of building awareness. Change is more possible when organizations accept that they need to change and what they need to change to. Action comes after acceptance when the change is planned and well organized.
Another road-block to organizational change and learning is when executive decisions are made to "scrap the project" or to change directions mid-stream--making everyone think that the training is "just another fad." This ties to my blog post on Organizational DNA.
Some organizations use technology to compensate for low employee skills--pictures on keys so that employees can enter orders in fast food restaurants, for example.
I've begun working this summer on some questionnaires to be used to explore current trends and needs in workforce training and continuing education--based on targeting geographic areas based on community college districts set by states. I have proposed a pilot project --see http://drm-resources.wikispaces.com/projects .
The idea is to work with local Chambers of Commerce and other stakeholders to gather a true "community needs assessment" that can then be shared with providers of training based on documented needs of employees and their employers.
The follow-up steps and who would be involved are in another stage of the process. Informal observation says that this is an idea coming at a good time. Who will pay for the needs assessment and/or the training--that is still something to be developed.
Some of the issues identified may well fall into the arena of public education and others into areas for community development. It is critical to realize that the responsibility for assisting the employees to have the needed skills are not exclusively the responsibility of any one stakeholder--the employee, the employer, government agencies, or private trainers.
I see a community needs assessment as having several phases--data collection will include surveys, then, based on the surveys, focus groups or (even better if people are committed to follow-up action, action-learning groups). This will allow the data to be organized and processed so that recommendations for action (including training, collaboration, mentoring, community college, K-12 education, etc.) can be proposed. There is a need for phases--and there is a tie-in with community development and economic development departments in city and county governments--and even states.
In my work with organizations, I talk about three components that are required for change--Awareness, Acceptance, and Action. The Community Needs Assessment is part of the awareness component--acceptance is often a problem--people are "in denial" about reading levels. Recent research I have been doing and reading about confirms Jean's comment about high school graduates reading at a 3rd to 6th grade level in English. Because newer jobs will require more understanding on the part of many workers--even at entry level--we need more self-develop opportunities for high school graduates so that they can bring their own reading abilities up to a level that will allow them to contribute more in the workplace.
I have observed clearly--since 2000--that human resource development (a more generic term for training and professional development) takes a hit when the economy slows. Many companies regard this as a luxury. Others try to out-source areas of competence that they do not have--and do not want to build or pay for--in house. I have also observed that some organizations and leaders have habits of mistrust that can slow or stop efforts to collect information that could lead to positive change.
Trust is a significant factor required from the onset--even to do an accurate, reality-based community needs analysis. That issue has been seen to scrap many good projects and ideas in their infancy.
In the limited work I have had with MBA classes I have not seen a clear focus on building trust--it's critical for success and is hard to measure. Often people make decisions regarding cash flow that have little to do with human-to-human trust and more to do with trusting the balance sheet.
Dialogue is part of building awareness. Change is more possible when organizations accept that they need to change and what they need to change to. Action comes after acceptance when the change is planned and well organized.
Another road-block to organizational change and learning is when executive decisions are made to "scrap the project" or to change directions mid-stream--making everyone think that the training is "just another fad." This ties to my blog post on Organizational DNA.
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