Grow your business by investing in employee training – with help from Workforce grants

from February 2023 Business Connection

by Kelso-Longview Chamber of Commerce

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If you are looking for a way to grow your business, boost your company’s leadership and develop your team, invest in training your existing employees.

Ensuring employees have the skills to support and help your business grow is vital for a company’s competitiveness. Proactively investing in training saves you money by retaining a valued employee, improves our community’s long-term growth and competitiveness, and helps workers gain skills to keep or advance in a job, while building goodwill for your organization and improving productivity.

While training can be costly, Workforce Southwest Washington (WSW) can help.

We have grants available to help offset the cost of training your team members. Applications are due by March 31. Please review the application instructions, especially employer and employee eligibility. Then contact WSW’s business services team with questions and to request an application.

• Manufacturing – Alyssa Joyner, senior project manager –manufacturing, 503-410-0408, ajoyner@workforcesw.org

• Healthcare, Technology, Professional Services – Sean Moore, senior project manager – healthcare and technology, 360-762-8569, smoore@workforcesw.org

• Construction and Other Industries – Darcy Hoffman, director of business services, 360-608-4949, dhoffman@ workforcesw.org

The grants should be used to implement a career path and training strategy that supports the retention and advancement of your existing workers. Applications that support training, promotions and pay raises for women, people of color and individuals from historically excluded communities are required.

WSW funds a variety of trainings. For example, WSW employee training funds were recently used by Koelsch Senior Communities to provide 22 of its employees with specialized dementia care training to improve communication between people with dementia and their caregivers. Employees completing the training will receive a wage increase and title change. Read more about the training in The Daily News article, “Longview caregivers learn to build trust with dementia patients.”

Perhaps your company needs to train one individual or only a few. WSW can help. You determine the training and vendor. Another project WSW is funding is for a certificate in Organization Management geared toward the development of executive level leaders in the nonprofit industry. WSW is funding approximately $5,000 to train an individual.

Funds are available to manufacturing, healthcare, construction, technology, and professional, scientific and technical service companies. Funds should be used to enhance worker skills in high-demand jobs, as defined by WSW. If your company is not in one of these sectors, and the positions you wish to train fall into a high-demand occupation, you may be eligible.

Grant amounts will depend on the type of training, size of your company, availability of funds, and quality of training proposed including training outcomes (pay increases and advancement opportunities).

Grant funding will be awarded on a first-come, first-served basis, so submit your application soon.

Workforce Southwest Washington (WSW) is the Local Workforce Development Board (LWDB) designated by federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) legislation to oversee the public workforce system in Cowlitz, Wahkiakum and Clark counties. WSW is a nonprofit organization and funds services that help individuals gain skills to obtain good-paying jobs or advance in their careers and help companies recruit, train and retain workers.

Since 2003, WSW has invested more than $120 million in southwest Washington. Learn more at www.workforcesw.org

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