Production and distribution of City Club forums and ideastream Public media are made possible by PNC and the United Black Fund of Greater Cleveland, Inc.. Good afternoon and welcome to the City Club of Cleveland, where we're devoted to creating conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive.

Today is Friday, January 24th.

And I'm Lissy Rand, executive director of Workforce Partnerships for Magnet.

Today, I am pleased to introduce today's forum, which is presented in partnership with the Deaconess Foundation, the Cuyahoga County Workforce Funders Group, and the Northeast.

Ohio Regional Sewer District.

At Magnet, we know from experience that successful companies innovate every day to create products and value for their customers.

We also know that they can't do that without the right workforce in place, that attracting and retaining the right people is essential to carry them into the future.

So we're lucky that in Cuyahoga County, manufacturing leaders have come together to build the right workforce that's going to help them carry the industry into the future.

These manufacturing leaders brought their creativity together to recognize and solve for the common labor needs that have been such challenges for them.

They knew that they couldn't go it alone.

So they came together under the umbrella of the Workforce Connect Manufacturing Sector Partnership with Magnet as its backbone to innovate, to test and to scale new ways of solving their talent needs.

They came together to take advantage of their own forward thinking of magnets.

Now, 40 years of experience, of deep industry knowledge and of the creativity and the resilience of our workforce development ecosystem.

Today, Magnet sector Partnership brings all of these entities together to drive new manufacturing workers to the industry by engaging students and understanding the opportunities that manufacturing careers offer to them.

Training and supporting adults.

Entering and advancing into manufacturing careers and working together to support the myriad of strong workforce partners, many of whom are here in this room today as they help job seekers make the right choices about careers for themselves and their families.

So we're proud to feature some of these really forward thinking manufacturing leaders today who've collaborated through the sector partnership and worked internally in their companies to welcome new workers and help them use their unique talents to help the companies grow.

These companies and the Workforce Development Ecosphere item that supports them are producing results.

While the members of our community are earning the kind of money that they need in order to support their families.

They'll talk today about some of the workforce strategies underway that could help to remove some of the barriers to employment that people experience through outreach, through coaching, training and the necessary supports for workers of all kinds.

We understand that there are challenges that keep people from fully being able to take advantage of the opportunities offered through the workforce.

And we know that these challenges are myriad and complex.

They include the social determinants of work, some of which are transportation, child care, access to justice, health care and sustained education.

Today's panelists are notable because they've worked together through magnet, through their own organizations and companies, and made use wise use of community resources to bring their best thinking to bear on mitigating these challenges.

Each of these companies has a different approach.

They're all taking actions that boost inclusion and consider the needs of workers with regard to company culture, wraparound supports, training and more.

So I'm really pleased to thank and welcome and introduce Peter Accorti president of Talon Products, with a passion for building effective teams.

Pete has cultivated a deep appreciation for process improvement, cost management and the role of culture in business success, some of which we're going to hear more about today.

I'm also really proud to introduce Geoff Lipnecivius.

Geoff is the senior manager of workforce development at the Lincoln Electric Company, which has piloted and now committed to a retention program for new production workers.

That starts with training during onboarding and includes ongoing coaching to make sure that those workers succeed.

And we're also pleased to introduce Dalithia Smith Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer, officer at O.D.

Company, a global manufacturing leader in the residential and commercial plumbing industry.

O.D.

has trained supervisors and managers and empathetic leadership and has a diverse workforce, including English language learners from a variety of language communities.

And finally, so happy to introduce Staci Wampler, the Chief Business Solution officers at Tour Officer at Towards Employment, a leading workforce development provider that runs access to manufacturing.

The onboarding program that I mentioned at Lincoln Electric and other job readiness programs in the community towards employment also leads the Northeast Ohio Employer Resource Network, the ER N, which supports smaller and mid-sized companies to make on the job success coaches available to remove barriers to success at work.

And finally, moderating the panel today is Glenn Forbes, host and producer at Ideastream Public Media.

If you have questions for our speakers, you can text them to the number 3305415794.

And the City club staff will try to work it into the Q&A portion of the program.

Now, members and friends of the City Club of Cleveland please join me in welcoming our guests today.

Glenn, Well, thank you so much for that great introduction.

Certainly makes my job much easier.

We'll just jump right into it here.

There was a consensus among the manufacturers and the recruiters that business as usual was not working.

That's a comment that I heard.

So how did you come to that realization?

Right?

What were the causes of that and how have you tried to fix that since?

Well, that's easy.

I mean, I can get it started.

I think I think if if business as usual wasn't working, it really had to do with lack of workforce.

I mean, there just wasn't available people.

Right.

I mean, that's the thing I think that really crunched us all properly in the, you know, at this, you know, before the pandemic and through the pandemic.

So I think that's really where this work began, you know, this collaborative work, you know, around the sector partnership.

Yeah, I think we're all facing the same challenges in terms of the demographics.

So there's a lot of individuals that are retiring or approaching retirement age and the labor pool is very tight.

So the unemployment rate is close to 3%.

We're all competing for some of the same talent.

And so we needed to think out of the box in terms of how do we approach adding more talent to the labor pool versus competing with each other, trying to add additional incentive after incentive, going after the same small labor pool.

So looking at innovative attraction strategies and then of course, once those employees wind up in the door, we can't afford to have leaks in the pipeline.

So looking at why are we having those leaks in the pipeline and how do we resolve resolve them?

And a lot of times those leaks in the pipeline are the result of maybe some personal challenges on the front end that can benefit on the back end with with the addition of some support services that we're all taking advantage of.

And I would just add with respect to we can't just look at business as usual.

Things are changing.

So whether it's automation or technology within business, the Canada poll may have different perspectives.

With covert, we saw a shift in focusing on wellness and personal lives.

And it's not just always about work.

So employers have to adapt to the pipeline, the talent pipeline, to meet the candidates where they are, but then also ensuring that we're finding candidates to meet the business needs that we have, whether it's, again, automation, upskilling, the technology that's needed so we can do things the same way that we use to all of you individually in your companies have been a part of the Northeast Employer Resource Network.

Tell me a little bit about that, how it kind of came together and how that's been a success.

Okay.

So the we're we're all part of integrating with a convener, which is magnet in Cuyahoga County.

That's the location of what's called a sector partnership, and that's collaboration between manufacturers, educators, trainers and then service providers.

And so we we all work together.

This this is the format specific to Cuyahoga County.

I work together towards what we can all agree on our common strategies.

And this sector partnership is, like I say, specific to Cuyahoga County.

There's another sector partnership for the western suburbs, another for the eastern suburbs.

In all, there's 19 sector partnerships across Ohio that the parent organization, Ohio Manufacturers Association provides leadership on encouraging collaboration and strengthening collaboration among the sector partnerships.

So so what we do is our focus group within the Cuyahoga County area is we say, okay, where can we focus from an attraction strategy standpoint?

So we've we've determined that maybe there's some untapped talent communities or under tap talent communities.

And as a group we've said, you know, there's there's certain groups that we can't get to everyone altogether.

But if we work together, we can pool our resources and focus on, you know, youth exposure to manufacturing, recruiting, actively recruiting veterans, individuals that typically have prior law enforcement backgrounds, returning citizens, oftentimes those individuals have higher unemployment rates.

So what can we do to map the that population to the employers, the willing to hire that population?

Those with disabilities tends to have a higher unemployment rate.

So what can our strategies be to work together to toward employing more individuals with disabilities?

And then I would say the last is specifically on the east side of Cleveland.

There are some areas that are on average a household income is about $30,000.

And so we know that if we can bring the jobs to those individuals, bring the messaging to those individuals and connect them to transportation and child care resources, it's going to solve some of our problems, but it's also going to elevate the community.

Just to jump in on some of the things that Jeff was saying, all of the employers up here participate in the sector partnership in some way, especially with the access to manufacturing program.

But the northeast Ohio, Erin, is a on site.

It is ability for any employer, no matter the size, to connect excuse me, to have an onsite success coach is what we call them at the business.

And this usually means that about 4 hours a day you have an in-person coach talking to your front line staff or any staff that you prefer.

Each one is designed differently, but the traditional way that it works and it's helping with retention.

And I think that while these employers are looking for things on the front end, they've all agreed that retention is important on the back end.

So excited to hear some of the things we're doing to address that to.

Okay, very good.

Tell me about the process to you know, there's a diversity, of course, in manufacturing like different types of manufacture, hiring.

Is there a process to identify skill sets, right, of certain workers and suggest to them certain types of manufacturing, since there is that wide range of possibilities?

I mean, if if we're again, sticking with some of the work that goes on in recruiting through the through the access program, for instance, I think what we're doing there is just getting people that are interested in manufacturing and getting them, you know, through through this course work that they do for five weeks.

I'm looking at you down to three, three and actually be expedited.

Used to be five weeks anyway.

And I think I think really there it's really just, you know, doing some groundwork.

It's really just getting them prepared to go to work.

And I would guess in in our business is that really a lot of the training has to happen after that, you know, subsequent to it, you know, once you once you get in the building, then you can be trained specifically for whatever job you're doing, including, you know, potential apprentice apprenticeship programs, which, you know, a real opportunity for you.

Yeah.

The beauty of the access program is that it dabbles a little bit.

It teaches you a little bit of blueprint, a little bit of measurement, some of the basics, so that when you go into any of the companies, of course, they're going to train you on the machines that they have there.

But it gives you some knowledge that maybe somebody's walking in the front door may not have it gives you some insight in what your career path may be and the other beautiful thing about the partnership in the employers is the employers are part of the workshop.

And when I say that to employers, when we talked to the other 18 industry partnerships in Ohio, their mind is a little bit blown by that.

And so what we have is all the employers come in and they do an employer showcase.

They're part of the process.

They get to meet our graduates before it's that like stuffy interview where you're nervous on the job.

And also our our graduates are champions on the inside.

Get to meet employers and try to make a fit.

You know, it's leveling the playing field in some way, and not all employers are willing to do that.

So it's this kind of some of the successes as well.

We talked a little bit about kind of this marriage of for profit and nonprofit organizations and was there some maybe hesitation Isn't the right word, but hesitation, hurdles, apprehension, kind of.

How did you work through that?

I would say now for for us, there's no hesitation or no issue or concern because it is all about collaboration with community partners, with different organizations, and we're all working towards the same goal as far as having business needs met and serving the community by providing very viable job opportunities and hopefully making a dent in that 110,000 population that is in poverty.

We want to employ the workforce.

So it's a matter of understanding what the nonprofits, what the organizations are offering and ensuring that we communicate in a very clear way.

We're partnering and these are what our needs are.

So they know, okay, how can we have that really successful partnership?

They're giving us what we need as far as the services that they offer or the trainings that they're offering to potential candidates.

So it's all about that communication and it's it can be a really beautiful relationship and rewarding relationship on both sides.

Yeah, I mean, I would say I think at the beginning of the sector partnership, there was there was a lot of, you know, I mean, the manufacturing leadership team, I think was 11 companies at the time and represented, I think 20% of the 80,000, you know, 11 companies, 20% of the 80,000 person workforce in the region.

And then we had all these nonprofits that were at that were coming together also.

So the you know, the manufacturing leadership team and other volunteers on the manufacturing side, I mean, I didn't feel that there was going to be any kind of an issue, but there was some thought that there was going to be tension that ended up there wasn't any tension.

I mean, it just came together.

And as you said, it just came together in four beautifully.

I mean, I think it's been it's been a great partnership.

And it it seems to me that from an outcome perspective, you can't have a successful outcome unless everybody is moving in the same direction.

So, for example, you know, you could have a generic training program, but there's only so much to to what degree is that effective if you don't know the environment that the individual is going to be training for?

And so having alignment and having discussions on who are the hiring employers at that moment, what are the standards for training and the rigor level of training that's expected.

And then when you know what the those environments are, then you can provide those services that are best fit for those future employees in those environments.

And so it was a natural that, you know, all of those parties are working together to drive to, you know, a better outcome.

Well, let's hear about some of those success stories.

Do you have a favorite one or I guess what has been some of the most successful parts of this?

If you could get specific?

Well, I'll mention that we've we've transitioned our training program, onboarding and training program from a very short duration to a much longer duration between when somebody arrives and when they transfer onto the production floor.

And one of the things that we were seeing early in our transition of that training program was our exposure to some of the challenges that employees would have as they come in the door to continue to get into the door in terms of punctuality and attendance, transportation requirements, you know, childcare challenges and so on.

So we've integrated the resources of the access team, the towards employment team in the first three days of our training program and our new employees become very candid in sharing some of their personal challenges with that team, knowing that that team has the resources to provide mentoring and coaching support and pinpoint the most effective resources that that employee needs to help to overcome the barriers prior to them transferring to the production floor.

That's been very valuable.

So I can't tell you enough about every two weeks we have a new cohort of new employees and there's always a percentage of those that have some type of personal challenges in one respect or another.

It's very turbulent in the first month when you're a new employee to assimilate to a new environment with a new schedule compared to maybe what you had prior.

And so that team has been very effective in driving a significant improvement in retention.

We used to see in the first month, one out of every four individuals would be out the door in the first month for personal reasons or others.

And now that retention percentage is probably closer to about, we see maybe 6% instead of 25%.

That that you know, our are leaving as opposed to the prior larger number.

So it's been a significant improvement in retention, particularly in the first month.

And then that extended coaching that goes on for the next year has been very effective in driving our retention results for between ten and 20% improvement in certain areas in our in our operation, just just from having access to those resources on a routine basis.

It's great.

And anyone else want to share any success?

I can tell like a very specific story that I always like this story.

So we've always been in the neighborhoods in Cleveland.

We're in our third location.

We started in Cannes, and we've always been not only in the city but in the neighborhoods.

We just so happens we started in Cambs.

We went to Detroit sure way, and now we're in what I like to call South Collinwood.

But what Michael Polansky will tell you is the Nottingham neighborhood is where we're located.

Now, you pointed that out to me.

But anyway, so we're in this neighborhood, but we have someone that came out of the access program.

And this woman, she was I think she had to take two busses to get to work.

She had a6am start and she was you know, she was grinding that out.

Six months later, she rented an apartment in the neighborhood, in our neighborhood.

And and, you know, it's a duplex and a year after that, she bought a house.

Right.

So so we look at this as, you know, this is you know, we're like an urban economic development engine.

I mean, and I'm not I'm just saying that those kind of stories are what really inspire us.

And, you know, we weren't doing her a favor.

And if anything, she's doing us if she's fantastic, you know, But I just like those stories.

I mean, it's it's it's kind of a way that, you know, you feel you can you know, you can do good.

You can, you know, we can we can we can accomplish two things at once, right?

There are more than two things at once.

I think multiple things.

I think when the relationships aren't transactional.

So what you're hearing, you know, the relationships that we've all built is very transformational for the employee and the employer.

And so when you're looking at pure customized programing, so not, you know, anything that is customized with an employer at 90 days, we're at 83% retention.

So if there's any other employers in the room, think for a second about your 90 day retention.

And I have five bucks that it's not at 83%.

Right.

And we're in almost 45% of people who go through a relationship like this and are working somewhere where there's a career pathway and have employers who care.

We have almost 45% of the people advanced to almost an advanced wage of $23.

Now, we want that a little higher, but we're working on that, right?

So when you are able to have these transformational, everybody's a little bit vulnerable, everybody's at the table, transparent partnerships, and we all of you in the room, we have a lot of relationships with you as well.

You're working with employers as well.

That's where the numbers start to change and people advance.

And you can tell stories about I know exactly what you're talking about.

And I think one one last thing.

So there's the financial aspect of it, of people working themselves out of a situation.

I think there's also the exposure that I'm able to see, you know, and the company communication, internet, if you will, where you see some of the employees that you knew had some significant personal challenges.

And now they're working their way up into becoming group leaders or trainers or working their way up to upskill and take on, you know, additional responsive ability and in job titles, those that's very gratifying daily for you.

You talked about empathetic leadership and how that was a game changer.

So it may seem somewhat self-explanatory, empathetic leadership, but kind of what does that mean to you?

What does that mean to to own a company?

And how has that kind of changed the game?

Yeah, empathetic leadership.

Just really putting yourself in someone else's shoes are trying to understand what is going on for anyone on your team, a peer, a colleague, even upstream management.

It was a game changer for us.

One key activity that we did that was at the basis of empathetic leadership is getting rid of our attendance points system for our operations associates.

So those near and dear to manufacturing, typically you're late a minute or two, you get a point.

That point can add up to separation from the organization.

If you get too many points.

And it didn't take into consideration real life, Hey, my child is sick.

I had a flat tire.

It gave no consideration to that.

And that wasn't leading with empathy, that wasn't understanding people's lived experiences.

So we said, Hey, we're going to do away with that and we're going to lead from a place of understanding each team member and knowing what's going on in their lives.

We got rid of the program.

It was not easy, but we did it.

But it was a game changer because people said, You see me, you understand?

It helps our retention, It helps from a sense of productivity and engagement because it shows that we care.

It's not just you're a person clocking in just to get on your line or do the work.

It, it c it shows our associates that we care about you, what's going on in your life, and we're going to work with you as long as you communicate with us and have that bi directional communication.

So empathetic leadership is just at the core of what we do.

Have a conversation.

Get to know your team members, understand what's going on, and we can leverage some of the services and wraparound services if we need to.

You spoke about, you know, personal situations going on.

We all can experience something and as an employer, we want to help our associates.

You know, thrive.

And many times you can't separate work and personal life.

There is that overlap.

So just taking a time, have a conversation, lead with empathy, empathy, treat people how they want to be treated.

So that platinum rule instead of the golden rule, treat people how you want to be treated.

Well, I may not want to be treated how you want to be treated.

So just talk and understand, you know, what people need and what they want.

So that's how it's been a game changer to us, you know, and obviously for the corporations, that certainly has to help retention.

Right.

If you if you employ that philosophy, it does.

And I would say historically, many years ago, we were probably more on the rigid side in terms of the way that we schedule our employees.

And I think one one benefit of COVID, if there were any benefits, was forced us to take a look at our policies and procedures and in particular, take a look at the way we we extend shift scheduling opportunities and that opens up doors to the labor pool, frankly.

But but what we find is that where we used to have an entire department come in at the same time, all the time, we could afford the opportunity.

There are certain areas where people are not working as teams and people can come in independently in their own in work centers.

And so we afforded the opportunity for individuals to come in at different times based on what their personal schedule is.

And as long as there's good communication, then that also drives retention because people can work around shared vehicles and child care situations to get to work, and that can be very significant.

I'm going to start the audience Q&A in just a moment.

But I do have another question for De Lithia.

You work with communities of non-native English speakers, the immigrant community with the new administration in Washington, even though no one knows exactly what is going to happen, what's going to play out, how has that affected your preparation and and how has it affected your clients?

It hasn't affected us at this point.

We're going to treat our all of our associate population the way we treat them today, showing that we care we have and inviting and embracing environment, having everybody know that they belong and are valued.

So what we will ensure that we're doing again from a place of empathy, We do have, as you mentioned, a large immigrant population.

We have many refugees and right now there is a lot of fear in the community and some concern and some anxiety.

So we're going to be there for them and listen to the concerns that they have.

Provide services, whether it's mental health services, to help talk through some of the concerns that are fears that they have because of the unknown.

But we will still value our our population, embrace the culture that they bring into our organization and show them that we're here for you.

It's it's no different than what's happening today.

Now it's a wait and see as far as if there's anything from a legal standpoint that's going to happen, we will always comply with the law.

But our immigrants and our refugee associates are part of the family and we're going to treat them as such.

So we're just trying to calm the nerves.

Things are happening.

We care, but we're going to be there for them and we will continue to recruit every population that we can.

It's not just about immigrants.

It's not just about refugees, but it's everyone in this community that can have a viable career with us.

We're going to partner as much as we can with.

Thank you very much.

We're about to begin the audience Q&A for our live stream and radio audience.

I'm Glenn Forbes, host and producer at Ideastream Public Media and moderator for today's conversation.

Today, we are talking about innovations and workforce development.

Joining me on stage, Pete Accardi, president of Talon Products, Jeff Lippe.

Novartis, close right now, Novartis.

I got senior manager of workforce development at the Lincoln Electric Company, de Lithia Smith, who you just heard senior vice president and chief human of Human Resources, Chief Human Resources Officer at o.D Company.

And Stacy Wampler, Chief Business Solutions Officer at Towards Employment.

We welcome questions from everyone city club members, guests, as well as those joining via our live stream at City Club dot or or our live radio broadcast at 89 seven Ideastream Public Media.

If you'd like to text a question for our speakers, please text it to 3305415794.

That's 3305415794.

City Club staff will try to work it into the program and we have the first question, please.

Hello.

There was a excellent forum.

I enjoyed the conversation.

I hired a welding firm to do a job for a client and and the owner of the firm also is a teacher.

And he told me incredible stories about recruitment and how he saw teaching welding as teaching life because a lot of young people don't get those life skills.

And so he incorporates that.

We meet, they go for hikes in the park and things like that, and they talk and it's camaraderie.

So can we talk more about that camaraderie and that connection with history?

I think he mentioned a recreated Garrett Morgan's traffic light as a fun historical connect with the students welding.

So yeah, it's that camaraderie, that connection, the history, the life skills.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Just from an education standpoint, I think there was a time really over the last 20 or 30 years where the pendulum has swung from exclusively a college focus and now we're working our way back into, you know, direct employment or taking advantage of career career tech opportunities, skilled trades and so on.

So so I think that pendulum swing is heading in the right direction.

What we try to do is we've tried to improve our collaboration with the educators.

So there's there's still a number of career tech locations in the Cuyahoga County area.

So we've got Polaris and Cuyahoga Valley Career Center that are teaching welding and career center on the East Side.

Likewise, the community colleges often have welding programs or skilled trades programs.

So so taking the time to strengthen those to map out exactly which programs that they're offering to the open positions at the manufacturing locations is beneficial, not just from the student view of knowing who the employers are that are hiring them, but it also provides an upskilling path for employees who are existing within the workforce to go get additional education for a career path advancement.

So so that collaboration and and having deep, deeper conversations with the educators and the level of rigor that's expected of the individuals coming out of these programs to be the most effective as is, is where our focus is and other thoughts on camaraderie and just kind of that idea.

I don't really know where to go with that.

I'm sorry.

We have a lot of camaraderie in our in our in our Yeah, I mean, I think I think internally if I was if I was to talk about camaraderie at all, I would just be, you know, we are in us, you know, a talent product.

So there's a lot of camaraderie in our building, you know, among a lot of not just in departments, but just basically shop wide.

I mean, there's it's actually it can be really funny.

There are a lot to, you know, considering how loud it is.

That's that's impressive.

But but I don't know exactly beyond beyond you know, sort of, you know, the things that are required around collaboration.

You know, it sounds a little bit like what you know, what Jeff was talking about.

And I say that we've been really intentional with, for example, we have a front line leadership development program.

We're intentional with social activities that build camaraderie, because when you're outside of the work space is sometimes a different conversation.

You lose.

You get to know more about the personal lives and that camaraderie is built because when you leave those social events, when you go back to the office now you have a new friend that you can call.

Hey, are you experienced in this or how can I learn this?

Or just give me some ideas or someone just to vent to if you're having a bad day.

So we build that into our programs and to our development on an intentional basis with social activities.

So yes, we have fun with it.

There's food, there is laughter, there's bowling, there's painting or whatever it is that we do.

But it's all with a purpose to build those relationships so each person can grow.

Next question.

All right.

Hello, everyone.

We have a text question.

So a three?

We have three.

I'm sorry.

You three represent just three employers.

Give us a sense of how large your workforces are and how long.

How?

I'm having a hard time today.

Forgive me.

And how large they could grow and what it would take for the sector to scale up to meaningfully change the employment rate and poverty rate in this region.

Wants to reveal that first year.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So we employ 3000 people in the Cleveland area, Our production associates that are in excess of 1000 people.

I think we're seeing, you know, first off, there's there's an in shoring move.

And so we're we're seeing the use of automation bringing a lot of jobs back to the United States.

And so for us to sustain, we've got to continue hiring at a pretty rapid rate and for us to grow, I mean, so a thousand workforce, I think, you know, we're we depending on to what degree we insource, I'm sure that the rate would be 10% per year or something along those lines.

And if you take a look at the pipelines of talent currently that are providing the talent, that that takes up a lot of.

The pipeline just with some of the larger employers in the area.

So we've got a lot of work to do.

So we're globally about 1700 associates in the Cleveland area, a little bit over 500 associates.

And from a growth perspective, you know, we it depends it depends on market conditions.

It depends on a whole host of factors.

But I will say that when we do hire, we make sure we're hiring the right volume of associates, because the last thing we want to do is hire and then we're in the news that we're letting 100 associates go.

So we don't want to affect lives in that way.

So we're very intentional.

You keep using that word with our workforce.

What our needs are marrying those needs to training to the number of people we bring in to the activity.

So you can stay with us for a long time and not have to worry about losing your job.

If we brought you in and then there's a blip and oh my God, now I have to lose.

So don't know specific numbers, but it really depends.

Yeah.

So we're 110 employees and all in Cleveland could easily be, say, 150, I would say in the next three years, something like that.

The most important thing and we can we feel pretty confident in workforce in our ability to get people in the challenge for us is, you know, is going to be in the skilled trades for sure.

And I think this is true with a lot of smaller companies, at least the work that I was initially doing or I did some work manufacturing works as the apprenticeship consortium.

So a lot of smaller companies, you know, trying to get apprentices into programs.

And the problem with smaller companies is like right now we have open apprenticeships for electrician and tools.

And I and you know, we, we try to we want to recruit internally and we don't have any candidates, you know, so so it's you know, we can't get our our we can't get candidates internally.

So the challenge for us is going to be, I think on the skilled trades side, I feel like we can get engineering talent.

We are getting inherent talent, but really what we need is on the skilled trades and that's going to be the challenge for us to go from where we are now at 110 to 150 for next couple years.

Okay, Very good.

Next question.

Hi.

Thank you for taking my question.

I'm wondering how you make connections, especially with lower income groups in Cleveland, who might not know that they have these opportunities.

I'm thinking specifically of the tri CE access centers and libraries that have job help and things like that.

That's a really great question.

And there's a lot of community partners in the room I see my friends at the food bank in the back who are connecting to Cleveland residents and to Cuyahoga County residents.

I think each organization is probably set up a little differently.

I can speak on mine.

We have a whole outreach and community engagement team that is really entrenched and connected to the communities and having a strong alumni base as well.

So we've placed close to 300 people in 2024 and those are now our alumni who are reaching out to family members and their neighborhoods.

And so I think the important thing is, you know, when people walk through our front door, the relationship is long term.

And so kind of using those networks and being visible in the community, and I think that's one of the benefits of Magnet located on East 63rd, is that is in a central area that is advantaged by having those resources where they're located.

I think there's the other the other thing that magnet does is they facilitate a school exposure program for some of the CMS students.

And of course, they're coming from a variety of different areas.

But we've got a partnership with Academy and Garrett Morgan and John Marshall and Shaw High School.

And so planting those seeds for those students.

And then there's, you know, unexpected benefits from them becoming ambassadors for employment opportunities in the manufacturing sector.

I think it can be very beneficial.

And a big part of recruitment is awareness, right?

They have to know what's out there before you can kind of bring them into the bring them into the fold.

Next question, please.

Hello, Brenda Brown, Community engagement and outreach towards employment.

But I have a question for the group.

Are you guys able to speak to the importance of how organizations or initiatives like this one can prioritize not only employer needs but candidate or employee career interests?

For example, some individuals may be comfortable starting as a simple gym general laborer or piece worker, but may have further aspirations.

How is that considered or weighed in initiatives like this one?

So, so from part of our four week training program, the entry level employees are getting exposure to some career path discussions.

So we've we've been focused on providing documented common career paths within the organization.

So there's better mapping that the employees can see and they're exposed to the individual stories of our number of our employees and what their journeys have been for the first ten years of their careers.

So so we're providing that level of exposure, but there's also no shortage of learning opportunities beyond that four week training program.

So we're encouraging people to explore additional internal learning, external learning.

We're providing visibility to what the career paths are to get to positions that they aspire to be.

And we're trying to help to connect those individuals as it's timely for them to to support their journey and get that additional education and opportunity that feels like it's a come.

Did you want to go ahead?

Yeah, I feel like it's a it's a company by company.

I think that's that answer is going to come differently from from different companies.

I don't know that that there's any one set formula for us.

I mean, there's just a normal progression of general labor to this sort of position, to this position also in, you know, in manufacturing specific roles.

But, you know, right now, for instance, two of our access grads are production leads.

So they've gone, you know, from from entry level.

So you might be doing packaging for instance, an entry level position to, you know, one of them actually went into the quality department and then from the quality department into a production lead role.

So I mean, there's there's always opportunities and we're always trying to or looking to promote from within as much as we possibly can.

We've had people come from entry level roles into customer service, you know, to enter into purchasing.

So it's, you know, the door is always open, Everybody's got a story.

There's a lot of different backgrounds, you know, And I would echo what my colleagues are saying here.

We also try to look at what the interests are of the associates who come in.

And so if someone has that passion and drive and they want to do more, we're going to support them in that, whether it's in-house training or if they are leveraging our tuition reimbursement program or if there is some other external community organization partnership that we can leverage the support or the training there.

So it's going to be dependent upon that individual also.

And we really have the opportunity for our associates who may start in the hourly position if they have the desire to get into more of an administrative role, salary role.

We support and encourage that too.

So I want to say the sky's the limit based on the desire of that individual person.

thank you all.

Pete, I've had an opportunity to hear from you as I'm in Leadership Cleveland this year.

So thank you again for sharing your insight.

I just wanted to better understand in terms of your individual companies, if you have done bridges out of poverty trainings for your team, looking at you to lethe in terms of being h.r.

Involved and also for those hiring managers.

You know, when you talk about empathetic leadership.

Yes, it is putting yourself in someone's shoes.

But if you don't have that lived experience, that's really a wash.

So I'd caution us to make sure we have such a diverse pool of staff so that when life happens to staff, you can identify with those scenarios.

You can maybe get some other insight.

So I don't know if that's a question or thought.

I I'm just keep going because I'm up here.

I'm on a roll.

So bridges out of poverty.

That's just Ruby Payne has done some phenomenal work.

There's opportunity, Liz, for training, you know, for your staff so that you can truly, truly continue to move the needle.

But one I also just an observation and I don't know if you've done this in terms of how do you get your residents or those recipients that you're really trying to recruit to be a part of the decision making.

I know that's scary, but if you have not thought about opportunities in approaches like that, I just want to encourage you to do so.

I've had the pleasure of serving as our executive director, where we brought 16 nonprofits together, many workforce partners in the room.

And unfortunately out of this, over 50,000 people re reached in the first year, only 16% accessed on site services, but only 4% workforce in college.

Career readiness.

I must say that number again, out of the 50,000 over 50,000 slightly neighbors in a year timeframe, 16% had the empowerment, the courage and also knowledge base, right folks that know that resources were available.

But once we pulled and start planning that seed, the conversations and learnings were really based around why would I trade my benefits, the whole national benefits cliff discussion, Why would I give up my health insurance, my food stamps, potentially TANF for a job that it might in the federal Bank of Reserve has said is not within a wage that's going to allow for sustainability.

Is it a lot that I've just heard so I could continue, but I'll just leave those guys and if there's ever an opportunity for me to be a part of something, to just share what we've learned as an organization, because all of you are our friends, but we have some work to do because there's many of our neighbors that don't even think that what we're talking about is even possible if there's a world where you meet above 200% of the federal poverty guideline.

You mean there is such a thing when that's all they've been exposed to for not just the 30 or 40 years of their life, they're their mother, they're generational.

So back they.

So one of the things that I do want to say that is so critical and I love your passion, we would have a field day having a conversation.

But one of the things that has been a difference maker for us when we look at our front line supervisors and we talk about empathetic leadership, putting yourself in someone else's shoes, some of our supervisors grew up in the organization and they look like the workforce.

So we have immigrants as supervisors.

We have a whole slew of diversity in our supervisor base.

So some of them have gone through some of the same experiences.

So it's not just about talking about it, but I can personally share with someone and this comes to the conversation.

I've been there, this is how I navigated this, and it's that level of vulnerability to say, I hear you, I understand I've experienced something too.

And if I didn't, just listening.

So I'm 100% there with you that you just it's not just about the words.

You truly have to put yourself as much as you can, because sometimes you can't.

You just you can't fathom what someone is going through.

But if you listen and try to understand and come from a place, I'm going to help as much as I can, or if you just need me to listen or can I connect you with resources, that's what we want to do.

It's that long term partnership and relationship.

And the associate is not just the number.

So love, the passion.

Yeah.

Okay.

Next question.

Hi, my name is Matthew Carey, and I'm coming from the Cuyahoga County Department of Development, specifically their economic development team.

And I'd love to hear some of the panel's perspectives from the private nonprofit sectors of what more the public sector could do.

Specifically thinking about local government to support workforce development efforts.

I want to start with that one.

Right.

You look like you're right there.

Go for it.

Yeah, I again, I'm not exactly sure.

I mean, what what occurs to me, I suppose, is education.

You know, I, I think really what we need to make sure that, you know, that that that there's there's that education in the city of Cleveland for for all of us.

I mean, really in the city of Cleveland that we're turning out candidates you know and again, I don't think that's the question that you ask, but that in terms of that's that's what comes to mind for me.

And, you know, I don't know that there's I mean, I continue to support these programs.

You know, I mean, I think I think specifically the question was what could local or but could government do?

Yeah.

Specific.

That's your question, right?

Yeah.

So, so I mean, to the extent the government gets involved in supporting programs that work Goran Dillard from the Urban League at Greater Cleveland.

I'm a big fan of the topic here and what's being said, what this is really from the lens of employers.

And I'd like to ask the panel how they feel about skills based employment practices and building muscle around looking at competencies versus just college degrees.

Since we have a population in Cleveland, in the greater Cleveland area that where 56% has not gone to college.

How do you feel about promoting skills based employment practices in the adoption and changing that mindset to look even at the talent that you have differently for retention and advancement?

Just share that for me, please.

I have exposure.

In the last year, State of Ohio has developed something called an Ohio competency model that's applied for education purposes.

So it's the collective input from a number of manufacturers and it identify these specific categories, whether it's entry level or technician or technologist level.

What are the expected level of knowledge, skills and abilities is at various levels through the organization.

And so we're using that as a tool to calibrate the educators and the trainers in the area.

But I think it's also been a valuable tool because we can cross-check that model to our own job descriptions and revise our job descriptions to what that Ohio competency model would suggest is the best written method for communicating what the expectations are for those jobs.

Yeah, and I would say we so we haven't gone as far to look at an external competency model.

But in our internal review, we've already gone down the path of eliminating a required college degree.

If there is equivalent experience there, depending on what type of role, how the level of the role, its equivalent experience in our operations and our manufacturing sites.

It's from a high school diploma, GED.

We look at just basic skills to be able to come in and do the job, basic reading skills, so you can understand from a safety perspective what the requirements are.

But we have gone from hands down without any understanding of the skills or other things that you bring to the table.

A requirement of a college degree.

And when we look at the statistics, statistics for college degree attainment and the population, we want to make sure we're giving opportunities to everyone.

So there's an opportunity to come in, even if you don't have a degree, to still learn the job that you're coming in to expand the skills and knowledge.

And maybe at some point someone wants to go later to get a degree.

We're going to support you on that, too.

So we are, I would say, evolving in that space.

But we started the journey.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much to Pete, Jeff, they Lisa and Stacey for joining us at the City Club.

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City Club would like to welcome guests at the tables hosted by Cleveland Neighborhood Progress, Cuyahoga Community College, Cuyahoga County Workforce Funders Group.

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Thank you all so much for being here.

On Tuesday, January 28, the City Club will welcome Cleveland Guardians Manager and the 2024 MLB American League Manager of the Year Stephen Vogt will be in conversation with Guardians Play by play announcer Matt Underwood on Perseverance, A New Era of Leadership and What it Means to Be a Cleveland Guardian.

On Friday, January 31st, we'll hear from Juan Williams, Fox News political analyst and author of his latest book, New Prize for These Eyes The Rise of America's Second Civil Rights Movement.

William Turner Jr. President of the NAACP.

Cleveland branch moderates you can learn more about these forums and others at City Club dot org.

That brings us to the end of today's forum.

I'm Glenn Forbes.

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