Narrative: III. a. 2. D.

Missouri uses an integrated approach to service delivery for business customers. An emphasis is placed on products and services that assess candidate skills and provide for skills enhancement, resulting in better candidates for the business customer. Missouri has multiple initiatives to assess candidates, upgrade workplace skills, and connect businesses with jobseekers.

Each local region has a business services team plan that guides outreach and services to businesses. Business services teams are made up of staff whose mission is to connect employers to a skilled workforce. To ensure an integrated service model, teams include business representatives from MVR, along with other core and combined state plan partners who connect with businesses. At a minimum, the members of the teams include business representatives and other job center staff assigned to business services, LVERs, and MVR Business Outreach Specialists. The design and makeup of each team varies slightly from region to region and may include a variety of other partners who work with businesses, such as local economic developers, educational agencies, United Migrant Opportunity Services, RSB Job Development Specialists, and DSS, Office of Workforce and Community Initiatives Employer and Community Engagement Specialists.

Business services teams meet on a regular basis to discuss, coordinate, and develop strategies to meet the specific needs of businesses in their local workforce region. These include the use of labor market information, involvement and coordination with local chambers of commerce, local educational agencies, local and state economic developers, regional planning commissions, human resource groups, and other business organizations. Each workforce region engages in sector planning to better address skills gaps and create career pathways.

Business services teams strive to accommodate employer requests or provide referrals to resources that can meet their needs. This message is conveyed to all staff through the local WDB directors, business services team leaders, job center leadership, and WIOA partner staff. Business services drive the products and services offered in the workforce system. Teams are aware of the business climate and current workforce needs of businesses in their regions. This allows the system to offer the appropriate products and services that will prepare jobseekers to meet current demands. 

Each region’s employer outreach goals and procedures, as well as each partner’s specific procedures, are outlined in their respective business services plans. These plans are shared and coordinated with business services team staff and partner agencies. Missouri encourages a single point of contact system. Each regional team has developed protocols and procedures necessary to avoid duplication of efforts, which are outlined in their regional business outreach plans. OWD’s case management system, MoJobs, is available to workforce system staff to document employer contacts and services provided.  

Through cross training and collaborative Nexus meetings with outreach staff from all partners, the business services teams understand each agency’s business-focused programs and services. This allows staff to provide information on all relevant programs to business customers and to integrate and coordinate services among agencies. In addition, teams have identified common programs and services, such as on-the-job training, which can be marketed to employers.

OWD surveys employer customers, assesses the effectiveness of services provided to businesses, and provides feedback to workforce directors, business services teams, job center staff, and partner agencies. This information can be utilized by all workforce system partners to identify issues and to better coordinate meeting businesses’ needs.

The Missouri Office of Apprenticeship and Work-Based Learning formed the Missouri Apprenticeship Team (MAT). MAT team members are individuals who can dedicate their time to expanding the Registered Apprenticeship (RA) program in Missouri.

Team members consist of the following agencies and/or representatives:

• U.S. Department of Labor Office of Apprenticeship Staff
• Apprenticeship Missouri Staff

• Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) - Registered Youth Apprenticeship Representative          
• Missouri Vocational Rehabilitation    
• Adult Education and Literacy (AEL)
• Urban League Workforce Development & Strategic Partnership               
• Community Colleges RA Specialists & Apprenticeship Outreach Directors              
• Local WDB RA Sponsors      
• Local Veterans’ Employment Representatives               
• Department of Corrections (DOC)
• DSS Office of Workforce and Community Initiatives
• Department of Transportation

Members of MAT are committed to tracking leads together, converting unregistered apprenticeships to registered, and identifying new RA opportunities and occupations. The team meets six times a year virtually. This ensures efforts to develop talent pipelines through RA are not carried out in isolation, thereby increasing efficiency, eliminating duplication, and reducing employer fatigue.

The Office of Apprenticeships and Work-Based Learning has formed an interagency council consisting of partners from DHEWD, DED, DOC, MVR, DSS, and DESE. The purpose of the council is to collaborate as stakeholders in the talent development of Missourians. The council collaborates to coordinate apprenticeship expansion strategy and streamline services and policy in order to ensure optimal stewardship of resources. The council has developed the Apprenticeship Missouri five-year plan, which focuses on dedicated outreach staff for registered apprenticeships with employers, creation and improvement or updating of outreach materials, and pursuit of funding opportunities to promote registered apprenticeships and work-based learning. This five-year plan was shared with other stakeholders to ensure strategic alignment across the public workforce system. 

AEL initiates MPWS partnership projects through targeted goal alignment meetings connecting local AEL service providers with important workforce development stakeholders. To promote referrals between AEL local service providers and job center services, AEL facilitated one-on-one sessions between local WDBs, contracted providers, OWD, and local AEL staff. These meetings successfully ensured proper communication and procedures for referrals within the MPWS. AEL will continue these efforts to support service braiding for Missouri’s adult students. The MPWS initiated relationships between AEL local service providers and employers, building workplace AEL and English acquisition classrooms as a foundation for IET programs. AEL programs developed services with Mercy Hospitals, Amazon, Hitachi, The Sewing Labs, and WEG Transformers.

To promote employment retention, the MPWS positions local AEL services to reach employed students and incumbent workers through their employers. Local AEL program staff help employers meet current employees' education and training needs to benefit the student and the employer. Workplace literacy education encourages employment retention, and incumbent worker classrooms create promotional opportunities.

The Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) program helps meet the needs of employers through Community Action Agencies (CAA). CAAs are local private and public nonprofit organizations that carry out the Community Action Program (CAP), which was founded by the 1964 Economic Opportunity Act to fight poverty by empowering the poor as part of the War on Poverty. CAAs regularly host job fairs and resource events to connect employers with a potential workforce. In addition, CAAs meet employers’ needs by skilling up participants through job readiness activities, supportive services, life skills training, and leadership classes. All activities of the CAAs are based on a community needs assessment, which is conducted every three years. Employers and community-based organizations are engaged in this process through surveys and focus groups.

The MWA partners with employers by providing subsidized employment opportunities in which the MWA contractor pays the participant’s wages for OJT, which may lead to employment of a Temporary Assistance (TA) participant. These programs allow the MWA contractor to act as the liaison between the participant and the employer and keep the participant’s Individual Employment Plan (IEP) at the forefront. Subsidized employment allows the employer to train and determine if the participant meets their needs for the actual job. Feedback from the employer to the MWA contractors allows areas of needed improvement for the participant to be identified and conquered. OJT allows the employer to provide the hands-on-training needed for their business, making the program a win-win for all involved.

In addition, as MWA moves forward in aligning TANF with WIOA, MWA contractors are required to use labor analysis reports to analyze workforce, labor supply and demand, and the regional occupational outlook of their assigned region(s) to ensure they are meeting the economic and employer demands of their region. MWA contractors are encouraged to use career pathways and to create and maintain partnerships with local employers to learn the in-demand jobs and skills needed for the current market. The TANF program encourages MWA contractors in these avenues by emphasizing a contractor's achievements based on quality of service and performance measures similar to WIOA. Examples of such measures include participants becoming employed with a defined career pathway and participants in OJT training or an apprenticeship.

SkillUP partners with the Missouri Community Action Network, Missouri Community College Association, and OWD to provide industry aligned training that will lead to family supported employment and sustainability by offering short-term skills training or education. SkillUP serves the needs of employers with a skilled workforce for a multitude of industries through its partnerships.

The Shared Work Unemployment Compensation Program is an alternative to layoffs for employers faced with a reduction in available work. It allows an employer to divide the available work among a specified group of affected employees instead of a layoff. These employees receive a portion of their unemployment benefits while working reduced hours. The Shared Work Unemployment Compensation Program can be particularly beneficial in returning employees to work during an uncertain time as it allows employers the flexibility to scale up or scale down the workforce based on changing business needs.