State and Regional Roles for Public Partners

The Roles of State Level Public Partners

Once state leadership establishes a policy framework and core principles for a state sector strategy, policy makers and senior managers from public partner agencies play a number of critical roles in working with regions to implement the framework. Roles include:

Fleshing out the policy framework

Once the leadership team establishes the vision, core principles and sector framework, a team of cross-agency management staff will need to flesh out the framework into a strategic action plan - with action steps, persons responsible, resources needed, timelines, etc. This step involves management staff, allows them to coalesce around the core principles, and acts as a reality check on how policies will realistically be implemented.

Identifying promising practices

Successful regional sector initiatives exist around the nation. State staff can provide valuable support to their regional initiatives by identifying promising sector initiatives within their own state, in other states, and even globally. Although “one size does not fit all,” promising practices can be modified to meet the unique needs of the regions in your state. A number of states have excellent websites that provide promising practices and links to a variety of resources.

Getting cross-system management “on the same page”

Partner management staff play a crucial role in communicating (and communicating again and again) the common vision and strategic framework to mid-level supervisors, support and field staff. Colorado provided special training to its workforce technical assistance staff in order to communicate their sector vision and plan to regions. They also engaged state level partners in their Colorado SECTORS Academy, two-day sector training for cross-system regional teams.

Providing technical assistance and mentors to regions

State partner staff can provide key technical assistance to their regions. This can take the form of sector academies, one-on-one technical assistance, webinars, or resources provided on websites, among other forms. State staff can also help to make connections for mentor relationships - pairing up the staff of successful regional sector initiatives with newly evolving partnerships.

Funding regional sector initiatives

One of the important roles for senior level management is to decide how state level (including federal discretionary) funds will be distributed to regions to support sector partnerships. Funding models vary. Some states offer planning and implementation grants to regional partnerships; others offer just small start-up grants or just implementation grants. Some states identify a list of priority industry sectors at the state level, while others give flexibility to the regions to make these decisions based on labor market information. Most states require a diverse partnership of public and private stakeholders at the regional level, and some require upfront financial matches. Additionally, some states provide grants to each interested region, while others have a competitive RFP process.

Staffing sector steering committees at the state level

When states have state level sector initiatives in sectors that are important statewide (such as Health Care and Aerospace in Oklahoma), senior management staff often provide staff support or act as intermediaries to these state level partnerships. Although the partnership is generally led by an industry representative, the state staff can provide important research, coordination and support functions to the partnership.

The Roles of Regional Public Partners

At the regional level, the public partners are the core of the partnership that responds to the needs of the target industry. They will likely include senior management staff from workforce, economic development and education, as well as members of regional political leadership (such as legislators, city council members or others). Depending on the needs of the industry, established relationships, and regional characteristics, the partnership may also include Labor, community-based organizations, human service agencies, and others. Collectively, their early roles may include:

• Compiling and analyzing workforce intelligence data
• Identifying target sectors and labor market regions: not geo-political regions, but regions defined by the target industry’s labor market (such as labor sheds, commuting patterns, available training institutions, supply chain regions, etc.)
• Identifying partners (public and private sector) to design and implement the sector initiative
• Fully engaging in the regional sector initiative in support of the industry leaders in the partnership
• Serving as the intermediary or convener for the regional sector initiative
• Identifying, recruiting and engaging industry partners and champions
• Finding funding sources (reallocating existing sources and finding new sources) to ensure the initiative is sustainable
• Helping to design evaluation frameworks and collect relevant data
• Communicating and promoting sector initiatives to the region’s industries, jobseekers and other public/private stakeholders

Consider that multiple sector initiatives may exist in one region, just as multiple industry sectors exist in one region. For example, one region may use the sector partnership model to support each of its top five priority industries. Each may be convened by a different intermediary; or one intermediary may have the experience and capacity to convene more than one. Public partners may participate in more than one of these partnerships.