EMPOWERING EMPLOYMENT SOLUTIONS IN YOCO

HEAR THEIR NEEDS AND ADAPT: How Crispus Attucks seeks solutions for the workforce challenges in YoCo

A Q&A with Mike Jefferson, Director of the Crispus Attucks Center for Employment and Training

STORY BY KATIE MAHONEY

VICE PRESIDENT, MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS YORK COUNTY ECONOMIC ALLIANCE

PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF CRISPUS ATTUCKS

Q: Can you tell us a bit about your role and focus at Crispus Attucks?

A: The Center for Employment and Training opened in 1986, and the workforce has changed dramatically over the past 30 years. We serve all of York County for those with barriers, usually economic or social.

Our major funder is SCPA Works (South Central Workforce Investment Board). We serve specific populations: • 14 to 18 years of age: Preparing in-school youth for career exploration or to find employment. This summer, our Youth

Employment Academy showed kids all over York County what it means to work: how to take direction, show up on time, have a positive attitude, and so on. • 18 to 24 years of age: Utilizing our Work Experience Program to place individuals with companies that are willing to hire them full time. We pay their salaries for up to three months so the company can see if they are a great fit. • 25 to 54 years of age: We partner with CareerLink, which we offer as a location on George Street in the city. There is a funding gap for this age group, so we rely heavily on the partnerships we make. • 55 years and older: We offer the Senior Employment Program. The workforce has changed. Folks don’t retire at 60 or 65 anymore, and, fortunately, businesses have been open to hire this generation.

Q: What do you see as barriers for employment in YoCo?

A: For youth, the academic skills and educational barriers like reading, writing, and math skills are an obstacle. Also, the social barriers: There’s the lack of familial support or not having working parents to demonstrate the work ethic early on is a concern. Students countywide experience social and economic challenges.

There is a York County Re-Entry Coalition that assists those with a criminal background in finding employment and social connections back to the community. We’ve begun working with HACC, Central Pennsylvania’s Community College and MANTEC on a S.T.E.P. program to assist those with criminal backgrounds, or those in the 25 to 54 age range, who may need employability training and remediation.

Q: What do you see in workforce development as the biggest change over these 30-plus years?

A: Right now in YoCo this is one of first times since the recessions of the ’90s and 2008 that we have more jobs and more employers seeking employees than I do workers. It’s very frustrating. On a daily basis, I get calls for welders, forklift operators, linemen, and I am still working to prepare people for these jobs. We can’t keep up with the demand.

Also, the difference now is that companies are willing to hire younger, older (55 years of age and older), and minorities to combat the low unemployment rate.

Q: What solutions have you created to manage this demand?

A: You can’t do workforce development in a vacuum: We are big on partnerships. YCEA has been a big player with The Yorktowne Hotel project for training in customer service skills that could lead to work in hospitality or entertainment environments.

In workforce, going back to the early ’80s and into now, you try different approaches. You survey the job market and listen to employers, which is critical. Hear their needs and then you adapt. It wasn’t always that way. The difference now is YCEA is very big on listening to the employer. Then you wrap your program around that, and that will lead to solutions. You take the advice.

Q: What is the top improvement or change you’d like to see one year from now, either in the community as a whole, or at CA?

A: At the Center for Employment and Training, we are trying to bridge the funding gap for that 24 to 54 age group. We’ve been building stronger apprenticeship relationships to do this. We’ve been talking to folks in Hanover, York, and the IBEWs (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers) of the world. We’re really trying to place individuals in those fields, and we’re praying we can break into that area.

Q: How can the business community make this work happen?

A: Employers can keep partnering with YCEA. This is why we partner with YCEA so closely, so that we can listen to the businesses about what they need and share our programming. Crispus Attucks has our own internal business advisory board of major companies in York (Harley-Davidson, Kinsley, Starbucks, York Water Company, Wells Fargo, and Lowes). We also have an education advisory board (YCP, HACC, Penn State York, and York Tech).

Hoping business and industry will take part in the stuff YCEA is doing, and other workforce initiatives, helps us develop our programming to what they are looking for.

There are some great things employers are already doing, such as being more receptive to individuals who, traditionally, they might not have considered. Some of that is dictated by the need for employees, but also they are willing to hire someone with a flawed background when possible (we understand it’s not always possible).

The healthcare field has been very receptive as well with us assisting in a Certified Nursing Assistant program with HACC, now expanding to RNs, LPNs, and other healthcarerelated fields.

We encourage more and more employers to be open to nontraditional opportunities for women as well and hire more minorities. Maybe your workforce didn’t look this way in the past, but now being open to hire those minority populations—whether female, African-American, or Latino— would assist in the employment gap.

Crispus Attucks Center for Employment and Training 605 S. Duke Street, Second Floor, York, PA 17401 | 717.848.3610

/CrispusAttucks crispusattucks.org DID YOU KNOW? Crispus Attucks provides diversity and culture awareness sensitivity training to help companies be sensitive to cultural nuances as a business solution.