Workforce Innovations

Feature

Workforce Development:
What It Is and Why You Should Care

As representatives of the federal workforce investment system, NOVA staff often take for granted the concept of workforce development, its potential, and its effect on the local community. Much has been written in these pages about the various aspects of working in Santa Clara County, from both the job seeker and the business perspective. Without a more comprehensive understanding of the benefits and responsibilities ascribed to “workforce development,” however, we fear that much of what we share with our Workforce Innovations audience will remain out of context.

We therefore dedicate this issue’s feature article to a primer on a general understanding of workforce development and the role regional workforce investment boards play in shaping the current and future workforce.

A Definition

The term workforce development can be defined in a number of different ways. From a company perspective, it is the investment in the acquisition and upgrade of workplace skills to maintain an optimal level of employee efficiency and productivity. To current or future members of the labor force, it is the ability to develop key skills that will ensure competitiveness for employment opportunities, movement up the career ladder, and the ability to transition successfully into other careers and/or industries, if needed.
Although both definitions are valid, neither reflects how both parties—companies and the workforce—influence and drive one another. For example, companies dictate the type of job opportunities available to job seekers, whereas the skill levels of available workers influence a company’s ability to function successfully. Also, the impact of other community institutions (e.g., education, government) on a community’s ability to grow and sustain a large pool of skilled workers is missing from this definition. A complete definition of workforce development, therefore, is one that focuses on the collaborative, shared effort on the part of all community members to create and maintain a local, sustainable, and adaptive structure in which to grow, attract, and develop skilled workers at all stages of their employment life-cycle.

Why It’s Important

With a number of recent and radical changes to the economy and the dynamic, global nature of today’s business, workforce development is an increasingly crucial element to a fully functioning community. For example, the anticipated exodus of workers from the baby boom generation, coupled with a projected shortfall of skilled replacement workers, has many companies scrambling to find people who can step in and keep companies functioning. So too, new and growing industries are having a challenging time finding workers who have the most current skills to help nurture and grow these pioneering and potentially lucrative endeavors. When one factors in the high cost of living in Silicon Valley, the impact of increasing gas prices, and other problematic factors, it quickly becomes apparent how all these issues influence and are influenced by a community’s ability to work together and thrive in even the most challenging of times.

Recent efforts involving regional workforce investment boards and other workforce development stakeholders demonstrate how even the most disparate community members can collaborate to foster positive change. The California EDGE Campaign is an effort on the part of the statewide workforce development system—business, government, and education—to ensure that workforce development effectively supports communities’ efforts to adapt to the ever-changing needs of local industry. NOVA has been instrumental in implementing the goals of this statewide campaign at the regional level and was successful in obtaining a $250,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Labor to further this initiative within Silicon Valley. (Additional information on this grant and the region’s efforts can be found in this issue’s NOVA Service article.)

A concrete example of what this streamlined workforce development system can do is the ongoing campaign to establish Silicon Valley as a global center of clean technologies. In order to ensure that this developing industry has an opportunity to grow and thrive locally, these same workforce development stakeholders have come together to support the SolarTech initiative. This collaboration is dedicated to creating a “Silicon Valley Solar Center of Excellence” for stakeholders to work together to ensure that processes and procedures are standardized across the region and that the region has access to an adequate pool of skilled talent.

Workforce development is a key element in Silicon Valley’s global competitiveness and its economic sustainability, and is essential to the success of the community—the companies and industries that drive the Valley and the workers who are the means of its success.

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