What We Do

Our primary goal is to position companies for growth by helping our community build a high-performing talent supply chain that fills open positions and cultivates a pipeline with relevant skills. The key to success is supporting companies to collaborate with educators, workforce programs, economic development, and community organizations to implement an aligned set of activities.

Lead and Facilitate

We provide leadership, expertise, and facilitation to help our community understand, improve, and navigate the talent ecosystem. We help shape pilot initiatives to innovate solutions, but we don’t run programs. Instead, we:

• Generate and share Ohio labor market information that can be used to inform decisions
• Mobilize stakeholders to respond with action to generate system improvements
• Develop customized solutions for individual companies by leveraging and coordinating the right mix of assets
• Facilitate alignment and measure our progress as a community

Talent Ecosystem

We build the capacity and improve the performance of the talent ecosystem by partnering with companies to identify the skills they need and supporting them to work with educators, workforce programs, the public sector, economic and community organizations to generate positive outcomes.

• Awareness—introduce individuals to various industries and available jobs
• Exploration—expose individuals to occupations and skills that are in demand
• Development—educate and train individuals to be competitive in the workforce
• Connection—recruit and hire talented individuals to work for a company
• Upskill—promote and retain existing employees by teaching them new skills

Industry Sector Focus

We see an opportunity to focus on three of our region’s most important economic drivers to make progress together. Each industry sector provides high-demand, high-wage jobs and offers economic development opportunities for our region.

Doing the Work

Industry Sector Partnerships focus on various aspects of the workforce, including but not limited to:

• Defining Demand: Review local/regional labor market data, design and implement surveys, identify workforce trends, and engage businesses to review and confirm
• Developing Strategies to Meet Demand: Identify innovative solutions to address workforce issues including the development of career pathways and schematics that include skills and local wage data
• Implementing Strategies: Support action to address barriers, solve problems, build capacity, and improve the performance of the talent supply chain
• Embedding Equity & Inclusion: Ensure our community’s minority populations are supported and positioned to share in the benefits of regional growth and prosperity
• Tracking System Outcomes: Develop and monitor key industry performance indicators to ensure sustained success

Who Should Participate?

Industry Sector Partnerships focus on various aspects of the workforce, including but not limited to:

• Business: C-suite leadership, Recruiting/hiring managers, and directors
• Workforce: Public and community-based program directors and supervisors
• Education & Training: Secondary curriculum directors, career tech education, higher education deans/program directors, and post-secondary accelerated training academic directors
• Economic Development: Economic development officers from chambers and/or government
• Community: Organization that serve residents (e.g., community development corporations, faith communities)