Latest News
The Workforce Development Committee is committed to providing a tangible benefit to the citizens of Dothan. In this light, the Committee has designed a customer Service seminar called Customer Service: The Dothan Standard.
The seminar will take place at the Dothan Opera House on Thursday, August 2, 2012. There will be two, identical sessions that will be offered so that a person may chose which one would best fit their schedule. The first session will be held from 10:00 a.m. until noon while the second session will be held from 1:00 p.m. until 3:00 p.m.
During the first hour of each session, Gary Weaver with AIDT will give the audience a primer on customer service and why it is important for all of us in the community. During the second hour, there will be a panel discussion with business and community leaders that will explore the topic of customer service in regard to what businesses expect and what customers deserve.
Registration forms have been designed and will be available at the Dothan Area Career Center, the Alfred Saliba Family Services Center, and the Dothan Chamber of Commerce. Registrations will also be available online through Troy-Dothan’s website.
The Mayor along with Matt Parker and Mark Culver have agreed to appear in PSAs to publicize the event. A script has been written and is in the process of being revised. An evaluation instrument has also been designed to gauge the effectiveness of the seminar.
The Committee work has been strong with the following people significantly contributing to the effort: Tracy Brooks, Ellen Williams, Robin Bynum, Carl White, Patrick Mallory, Lawrence Keener, Terry Stansell, Richard Devore, and Vincent Vincent.
The Workforce Development Group is moving forward to offer a citywide Customer Service Seminar. Possible dates in June have been established. Progress is being made toward developing the seminar agenda and program. In addition they also plan to consolidate pertinent workforce development resources by using an established website and marketing the information to entrepreneurs and established businesses.
Workforce Dev. 6 month Synopsis
Click the link above. This gives a detailed report of this group’s work. Come See!!!
You are invited to attend a 2nd presentation of
ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITIES
THURSDAY, MARCH 17, 2011
Dothan Goes Green on St. Patrick’s Day with
Green Jobs in Green Buildings
Beginning at 9AM
Wiregrass Rehabilitation Center
Lions’ Hall
795 Ross Clark Circle, Dothan
Hosted by the Workforce Development Task Force
Created by the Dothan Economic Summit on Jobs
Energy conservation is a new and exciting field full of
potential for many professions, trades, crafts, lenders, and vendors.
There are almost endless possibilities for efficiencies and savings.
The energy services sector has shown growth even in our recent downturn, and future costs will bring an expansion of opportunities.
We have discovered even more funding programs offering
significant savings and business opportunities
through existing state and federal programs for:
Owners and Tenants of commercial, industrial, public, and institutional buildings
-
- General Contractors and Homebuilders
- Electrical, HVAC, Plumbing, and Insulation Contractors
- Architects, Designers, and Consulting Engineers
- Energy Auditors and Managers
- Facilities Managers
- Bankers, Accountants, and Tax Attorneys
- Large energy users
- Anyone interested in energy-efficiency and cost savings
Advance registration required; $10 fee; lunch provided.
Call 699-6453
Workforce Development- First Quarter of Project-
We took that first month to hold some work and training sessions, lay out our primary objectives, identify the type of tasks we would need to do to meet those objectives, and determine how to structure teams to further define and accomplish those tasks. We included everyone in all of the communication during those initial weeks of work. By the end of that first month, everyone who had expressed an interest in the work of this group since September 1 knew what we would be doing and how, and each had enough information to decide what role he or she might want to play in that work, so we were ready to staff the teams and assign specific responsibilities.
During October, the co-leaders of the group both traveled a great deal, but the objective was to finalize the structure by the end of the month, so they continued to contact all original group members who had not indicated whether or not they wanted to actively participate on a specific team. In that process, about half of the original 40+ people moved to the “inactive” list, but some new active members were recruited. Meanwhile, the teams selected their leads, and began to explore their individual areas of responsibility.
By November, some teams had identified helpful external resources, and even invited experts to attend team meetings. There they discussed programs and activities that have worked (and not worked) elsewhere, when others have tried to accomplish what we expect to do. Team members also asked about things that hadn’t been tried, and asked for ideas, from those with experience, about what they might have done differently, what they wish they had done, and what they think can be done here.
The co-leaders (separately or together) attend team meetings. Team leads sometimes attend each others’ team meetings, and the interaction seemed helpful in keeping different groups moving toward the same goals, and occasionally in preventing a duplication of efforts. We formed a steering committee, composed of the two co-leaders and all of the team leads.
Team members are divided into the following groups.
a). Researching the needs of local businesses in this area, identifying which you might want to participate, and finding, training programs already available, which we might utilize.
b). Developing the curriculum for the program.
c). Identifying an appropriate “laboratory” site, and securing the participation of it’s owner.
d). Identifying opportunities for marketing, imaging., and branding”. (This could be an area where such issues as a “career fair”, and what we called a problem of “perception” could be addressed.)
e). Identifying sources of available funds, and their application processes, and preparing grant applications. We have a lot of material for this team, and we are discovering more sources all the time.)And, we are adding another:
f). Identifying, researching, developing, recommending, and resolving issues of policy related to our plans.
Workforce Development Goal: Promoting Career and Technical Education in Primary and Secondary Education Systems.
Plan
- Inventory of skilled labor opportunities and needs (current & future)
- Contact with Local School boards
- Mentorship/Apprenticeship Programs
- Marketing/Imaging/Branding Plan a. (Professional Help) b. (Incorporate Post Secondary (& Dothan Technology Center ) with message
- Contact Region 10 for Support
- Inventory of Available Workforce Development Resources
- Career Fair
- Develop Cooperative Relationship between industry & community partners
Businesspeople in our area tell us that they are unable to find employees with a some very specific skills, especially among traditional trades. Some programs originally designed to train workers in such skills are no longer available. At the same time, we are all concerned about a broad range of workforce issues, among them an unacceptably low high school graduation rate, the loss of students educated here to jobs elsewhere, and a lack among some young people of a basic knowledge of the world of work. But, we also learned that there are many programs, projects, and people already taking action toward these issues. Therefore we decided that there are logical initial tasks of identifying both the specific skills that we need to develop (current and future), and all of the projects, programs, activities, and resources currently available.
Beyond that, we see the need to create specific opportunities, to match the need for skilled workers, with those who want to learn the skills to fill those needs. Possibilities mentioned included apprenticeships, mentoring, and alternative educational tracks, both within our existing schools (at all age levels) and beyond those, such as the development of some sort of new certification program.
We also identified an issue we chose to call “perception”, and agreed that we will need to actually change the way many people view training for the very skills we most need. On our flip chart we associated this need with the words “marketing, imaging, and branding.”
As our scribe, Mr. Vincent also captured the names of some of the specific resources we want to involve in our work: local school boards, post-secondary schools, Dothan Technology Center, and Region 10. He also noted two of the specific ideas suggested for action: ”Develop cooperative relationships between industry and community partners”, and ”Career fair”. The idea of the Fair was to create an event which would introduce a broad range of career opportunities, and available training for them, in the same way that colleges introduce themselves to students at specific school-sponsored events.
We had a strong, diverse, enthusiastic group, and discussed many more specific ideas and opportunities. The next step is to transform those into what we can specifically accomplish within one year, and how we will do that.