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State Legislatures Magazine: December 1999

Editor's Note: This article appeared in the December 1999 issue of NCSL's magazine, State Legislatures. To order copies or to subscribe, contact the marketing department at (303) 364-7700.

One-Stop Career Centers Are Open for Business

Creating a Showcase
Employers Involved
Sharing Space and Responsibility
End to Paperwork

Workforce Investment Act: Challenge and Opportunity

At the South Minneapolis WorkForce Center in an inner city neighborhood, the most important employee may be the receptionist. It is she, or he, who makes that crucial first impression and performs initial screening of the center's "customers," who run the gamut from the recently laid off to the disabled to the corporate recruiter to the middle-class careerist seeking new directions.

Though customers may not know it, there is advantage to the fact that the receptionist does not represent a particular state program or office. The center is what is known informally as a "one-stop," one of 53 now open under the auspices of Minnesota's Department of Economic Security. Under a single roof at each one-stop are representatives from state and local agencies that handle unemployment insurance benefits (Minnesotans call it "re-employment insurance"), vocational rehabilitation, services for the blind, veterans' benefits, employment services, income maintenance, employment training and more.

No longer must citizens navigate a labyrinth of unfamiliar agency names and programs to find public employment and training services. They can walk in and explore a host of computerized job listings, training videos, counseling services and resumé-writing tutorials. They can even use telephones and fax machines to pursue job leads.

CREATING A SHOWCASE
Because Minnesota's system is among the nation's most advanced, it is being showcased to visiting officials from around the country. All 50 states are now revamping employment and training programs as a result of last year's landmark federal Workforce Investment Act. That law calls for a workforce development system built around the needs, not of separate program bureaucracies, but of individual citizens negotiating today's changing economy.

"It's a huge shift," says visitor John Dorrer of the new law. He is deputy director of Workforce Development Programs at the Washington, D.C.-based National Center on Education and the Economy. "The new centers will offer re-employment services to all American workers and give them more job training choices."

Dorrer says most states have a "good head start" in getting ready to implement the federal law by the July 2000 deadline.

But it won't be easy. Problems facing one-stops include complex funding streams, "turf wars" among agencies and levels of government, and pressure to track results to justify future funding. (Nearly 1,100 have sprung up nationally since 1994, according to the Labor Department, but not all will survive a coming review by state and local officials intended to ascertain fidelity to the definition of one-stops in the Workforce Investment Act.)

Minnesota has some special problems. The state enjoys a remarkably low unemployment rate of just 2.2 percent and is projected to gain a healthy 416,000 jobs by the year 2006. As Earl Wilson, commissioner of Minnesota's Department of Economic Security, points out, "So many of these programs are set up to find people jobs, but we can't find people to fill the jobs we already have."

EMPLOYERS INVOLVED
The need to match workers' skills with the increasingly technical needs of Minnesota employers (such giants as 3M, Northwest Airlines, Honeywell and General Mills) is a big reason that multi-agency one-stops attract white-collar suburbanites, as well as the chronically unemployed. "There's a lot less stigma attached to using them since we moved under one roof," says Bob Hand, a regional manager who helped set up the South Minneapolis facility. "In fact, some one-stops also house the Department of Motor Vehicles."

What's more, planners are careful to emphasize the demand side of the job market services. Employers are given equal billing in the one-stops' building directories, and companies are attracted by state-generated labor market information available from their local workforce centers.

The main goal in choosing a location, however, is inexpensive office space on a site that offers parking and bus service in areas that jobless people frequent. The South Minneapolis one-stop, for example, was built from scratch on the former site of an adult movie theater. It's situated in the middle of both an enterprise zone and an empowerment zone. It has been virtually free of vandalism and loitering and is now regarded as an asset by those in the neighborhood.

SHARING SPACE AND RESPONSIBILITY
What distinguishes one-stops from the common practice of "co-location" is that agencies share planning and management responsibilities along with office space and supplies. And because staff members get to know one another, there is reduced suspicion and rivalry. People who work in vocational rehabilitation, which serves only customers who are severely disabled, are particularly "concerned about confidentiality of data and at first were nervous about having many agencies working from the same computer server," says Joanne Ciccarelli, rehabilitation area manager at a one-stop in nearby St. Paul. "But now that people have been working together in the same office, they feel reassured that abuses are unlikely."

As Hand puts it: "All of them know that there are more customers than any one agency can serve, so there's no point in not cooperating."

An example of joint decision making, says Howard Glad, the Minnesota Department of Economic Security's assistant commissioner in charge of one-stops, was the selection of the distinctive (and trademarked) burgundy and gray logo that appears on all buildings and publications of the Minnesota WorkForce Center system. Though some agency workers get nervous not seeing their own program logo on stationery ("their identities are often wrapped up in the names," Dorrer notes), the umbrella logo assures users of needed services without requiring them to learn myriad names and programs. "It's a franchise approach and, like a shopping mall that houses many stores, it can be successful only if its partners are," says Glad. "The key is leveraging resources to help partners help each other's clients."

The most important new ingredient-the one advocates believe will make one-stops true 21st century career centers-is a starring role for the Internet. Besides offering an opportunity to learn new computer skills, the on-line terminals at one-stops allow any customer to search or upload a personal resumé onto such databases as America's Talent Bank and America's Job Bank.

This fits perfectly with the one-stop's goal of encouraging self-sufficiency. "Only 10 percent of customers need staff input, and most can print directly from the computer and go," says Hand. They don't even have to register by name.

END TO PAPERWORK
Indeed, an end to redundant paperwork is a central advantage of one-stops in a state where registering to collect re-employment insurance checks can now be done by telephone. "We don't want customers to have to enter the same personal data twice," says Wilson, "The reduced data entry also allows counselors to be more self-directed."

The price of quick and self-directed access, however, is new difficulty in tracking results. "We have only an approximation of how many of our customers get jobs," says Sandy Froiland, planning coordinator at Minnesota's Anoka County WorkForce Center, which sees as many as 2,000 customers monthly. "It's tough to get a six-month followup."

Clear evidence of short- and long-term results is what Congress will want in a few years when it considers continuing the Workforce Investment Act. Minnesota is currently working with officials from New Jersey and Utah on a new computerized tracking system that relies on some demographic data from clients to help one-stops allocate resources and report which services are most successful.

Glad is eager to see his state commit to continued funding of the one-stop initiative, especially since the three-year federal grant his state had won ran out in mid-1998. In the past few years, the Legislature has given the Department of Economic Security some $3 million for hardware and software development that has enabled the one-stop system to set up its statewide computer communications. Without a state commitment, cities and counties will have trouble sustaining systems. "We also need other states in with us to build a strong national system," says Kathy Sweeney, the Department of Economic Security's assistant commissioner for workforce preparation.

Visitors quiz the one-stop managers about whether building layouts are efficient, whether enough funds are devoted to staff training and whether federal regulators are aware of the local need for replenishment funds to offset depreciation of one-stop assets. When the new law's "universal" funds and individual training accounts are implemented, customers will demand more "big picture" data on career trends, says Dorrer.

"But all in all, the entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well at the line level," Dorrer says of his visit. "And that's how change gets orchestrated."

The 1998 Workforce Investment Act, which consolidates dozens of programs to create "one-stop" training and job referral services, creates a series of challenges and opportunities that professionals are only starting to tackle. Some key elements:

• Business-led boards: State and local workforce investment boards must include a majority of business representatives and be chaired by a business representative.
• One-stop systems: One-stop career centers in local communities will improve access to employment and training services. Certain types of basic services, such as information about the labor market and job search assistance, will now be available to all adults. Intensive services and training will be available to customers who qualify.
• Skill grants for training: Individual training accounts will generally be used to provide training to adults and laid-off workers. These accounts will enable customers to choose the training that best meets their needs.
• Consumer report cards: Trainers must submit performance information on their programs. These evaluations will be available to all customers through one-stop career centers.
• Accountability: Proof of how well training programs are working must be gathered at the state as well as local levels. The secretary of Labor will work with each state to set up criteria for determining the success of its programs, and each state will in turn work with local areas to decide how to judge local programs. Incentive grants will be awarded based on performance, and sanctions are also tied to state performance.
• Improved youth programs and new out of school youth funds: Traditional employment and training services will be augmented by an array of youth development activities. Programs will provide a strong connection between academic and occupational learning. The law authorizes up to $250 million in grants for young adults in high poverty areas.

©1999, National Conference of State Legislatures. All rights reserved.

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