Nancy Laprade

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Nancy Laprade gave this presentation at The
Oklahoma Career Ready Credential Workshop on
March 21, 2006

• Nancy Laprade
• The Pawleys Group
• Lexington, KY
• lapradepg_at_alltel.net
• [phone] (cell)
• [phone] (office)

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The Value of the Oklahoma Career Ready
Certificate and WorkKeys to Oklahomas Economic
Future

• How to Sell Business on WorkKeys Oklahoma City
• March 21, 2006
• Nancy Laprade
• The Pawleys Group

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Three Key Questions

• Why is the Oklahoma Career Ready Certificate
  important for Oklahomas economic future?
• How can the public partners help business to see
  the value in the OCRC and the WorkKeys system?
• How can the public sector and partners talk to
  business and sell the OCRC and WorkKeys ?

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Key Question 1

• Why is the Oklahoma Career Ready Certificate
  important for Oklahomas economic future?

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Why are manufacturers rejecting job applicants?

• Inadequate basic employability skills 69
• Inadequate reading/writing skills 32
• Inadequate math skills 21
• Inadequate oral communications skills- 17.5

Source National Association of Manufacturers
The skills gap 2001
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Most Serious Skill Deficiencies Current Employees

• Poor basic employability skills 59
• Poor reading/writing skills 32
• Inadequate math skills 26
• Inability to communicate verbally- 25

Source National Association of Manufacturers
The skills gap 2001
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American Diploma Project (2004)

• ADP benchmarks concretely define the English and
  math that HS graduates must master to succeed in
  credit-bearing college courses and
  high-performance, high-growth jobs.
• Key findings
• Employers' and colleges' academic demands for
  high school graduates have converged.
• Yet states' current high-school exit expectations
  fall well short of those demands.

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Soon to be released ACT study

• Levels of readiness in reading and mathematics
  required for entry into college and workforce
  training are comparable
• First large-scale empirical study to address
  college and workforce training readiness
• Analyzes WorkKeys and ACT data

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• If only you would send me applicants that have
  good math and communication skills, the ability
  to learn, and a good work ethic, Ill train them

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The Status Quo

• 1 Limited ability to compare the skill levels
  of students/workers across the state
• HS Diploma from school A does not a HS Diploma
  from school B
• Algebra II does not Algebra II
• Even more difficult for incumbent workers/adults

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The Status Quo

• 2 Business and education talk past each other
• 3 Disconnect between supply side and demand
  side standards

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The Status Quo

• 4 Disconnect between the views of stakeholders
  as to the extent and nature of the problem
• 5 Limited ability to aggregate and measure the
  skill levels of the workforce pool

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So why the OCRC?

• Create a
• Common metric/standards and unified assessment
  system (competency based)
• Common language
• Unified systemic approach that leaves no
  potential worker behind
• Pool of workers certified in foundation skills

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Value to Oklahoma

• Tool for the economic development community to
  certify and sell the foundational skill level
  of its citizens
• Business retention, expansion and location
• Remain competitive - Numerous other states with
  similar initiatives

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Value to Oklahoma

• Provides a systemic approach for Oklahoma to
  grow their own workforce
• Systemic pipeline high school graduates,
  one-stop customers, adult ed students
• Assesses gaps/weaknesses
• Provides instructional support to fill the gaps

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Value to Businesses/Employers

• Provided with applicants with certified
  foundational skills
• Better able to make the right job match
• Reduce turnover
• Increase productivity and morale
• Reduce employee training time and improve the
  effectiveness of training dollars

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Key Question 2

• How can the public partners help business to see
  the value in the OCRC and the WorkKeys system?

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Setting the Stage

• Develop partnerships with critical
  influencers/impression makers on the demand side
• State and local Chambers of Commerce
• Society for Human Resource Managers (SHRM)
• Other business associations or sector
  organizations (health care, manufacturing, etc.)

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Setting the Stage

• Develop and nurture long term relationships with
  businesses and sector partners
• Partnership rather than vendor or customer
  relationship

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Setting the Stage

• Public partners must collaboratecollaborate
  collaborate
• There is no room for turf battles among public
  partners
• Present a united front to business
• Identify strengths of each partner and play to
  those strengths

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Setting the Stage

• Identify business champions
• Facilitate business to business exchanges
• Utilize ACT case studies and write case studies
  for Oklahoma businesses (ROI)
• http//www.act.org/workkeys/case/index.html
• Analyze and communicate outcome data on success
  stories

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Key Question 3

• How can the public sector and partners talk to
  business and sell the OCRC and WorkKeys ?

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• You are not selling WorkKeys or the OCRC

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• You are selling solutions
• to workforce challenges

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Conduct a needs analysis

• What are the challenges or problems the business
  faces? (The business will not always be able to
  articulate initially)
• High turnover ?
• Poor morale ?
• Inadequate skills sets of applicants or incumbent
  workers ?
• Low productivity ?
• High training costs ?
• Loss of competitiveness ?

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In selling the solution

• You must talk the language of business (ROI,
  increased productivity, etc.)
• You must fully understand the WorkKeys system
  so that you can articulate how it can provide a
  solution (receive additional training if
  necessary)

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The WorkKeys System

• The WorkKeys System
• Assessment
• Job profiling
• Targeted Instruction
• Credential (Career Ready Certificate)

OCRC is a foundational element to document basic
skills in math, reading and locating
information. The WorkKeys system can do much
more!
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WorkKeys
5
Bridging the Gap between Employer Needs and
Individual Skills

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Employer Areas of Need- Job profile
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4
4
3
3
Assess Individual Skills
Reading for Information
Locating Information
Applied Mathematics
Comparison shows where additional training is
needed
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Business solutions

• Cut the cost of recruiting and selection and make
  better skills matches
• Target your training investments to your unique
  business challenges
• Ensure cost-effective and successful career
  transitions such as promotion
• Identify performance gaps and learning
  prescriptions to prepare your workforce for the
  future

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Business solutions

• Improve workforce productivity
• Decrease operational expenses such as turnover,
  training time, overtime, and downtime
• Increase employee morale and job satisfaction
• Improve teamwork

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WorkKeys Strengths

• Workplace contexted assessments
• Complies with EEOC content validity standards for
  hiring
• National recognition
• Developed by business and educators
• More than an assessment or a curriculum guideit
  is a system
• It makes sense!

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Sample test question

• Level 5 Applied Mathematics
• Quik Call charges 18 per minute for
  long-distance calls. Econo Phone totals your
  phone usage each month and rounds the number of
  minutes up to the nearest 15 minutes. It then
  charges 7.90 per hour of phone usage, dividing
  this charge into 15-minute segments if you used
  less than a full hour. If your office makes 5
  hours 3 minutes worth of calls this month using
  the company with the lower price, how much will
  these calls cost?
• 39.50
• 41.48
• 41.87
• 54.00
• 54.54

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• Annual turnover rate of 33
• Skyrocketing overtime
• High scrap expenditures
• High recruiting costs

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• Training time fell from six to two months
• Turnover fell from 33 to 2
• Scrap expenditures fell 65
• Overtime hours fell 95

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Northrop Grunman Ship System A Case study

• The Challenge
• Assessing and developing employee foundational
  skills
• The Solution
• Using WorkKeys job profiling, assessment, and
  training to assess and boost the skills of
  incumbent employees

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Northrop Grunman Ship System A Case study

• Results
• Turnover in Hull Department decreased by 20
• Supervisors say the quality of work has increased
  dramatically
• Employee job satisfaction has increased, with
  more employees applying for promotions

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The sales process in summary

• Needs analysis
• Listen
• Ask good questions
• Discussion of challenges
• Discussion of how WorkKeys and/or another
  service/product could address their challenge

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The sales process in summary

• Inform the business you will put together a brief
  written proposal on how you can provide a
  solution to their problems
• Take action Arrange a follow-up meeting date or
  phone call
• Engage partners as necessary to provide the
  solution

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The sales process in summary

• Follow-up with the business in writing and
  verbally
• Be flexible and responsive to your customer
• Remember you are selling workforce solutions, not
  WorkKeys

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• Knowledge has become the only source of long-run
  sustainable advantage, but knowledge can only be
  employed through the skills of individuals.
• Lester C. Thurow The Picture of Capitalism