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Best Practices in One Stop Career Centers
Two Case Studies
Introduction
Mandated by the Workforce Investment Act of 1998, states have
been developing One Stop systems for several years now; however, those systems
are widely viewed as not fully formed in many areas.
To better understand how One Stop Career Centers might continue
to serve customers more successfully, the AFL-CIO Working for America Institute’s
Public Sector Labor Management Committee studied One Stop sites around the country
to identify best practices in the integration of employment service personnel
into One Stop operations.
Recognizing that there is wide diversity among One Stop Career
Centers, the PSLMC staff approached its Steering Committee member organizations
knowledgeable in the operation of One Stops. As a result, the American Federation
of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and Service Employees International
Union (SEIU), as well as the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the National Association
of Counties (NACO), agreed to assist the committee in helping to identify top
performing One Stops.
Interviews of labor and management representatives were conducted
by phone primarily during the last two weeks of February 2002. Two sites were
identified as having the best practices of integrating employment service personnel
and other public employees into their One Stop operations—Kenosha County
Job Center, Kenosha, Wisconsin with AFSCME Local 990 and the Berks County Pennsylvania
Career Link with AFSCME local 462 and Pennsylvania Social Services Union (SEIU,
local 668).
In addition to preparing this report, information gathered from
the interview process and discussions with SEIU and AFSCME staff were used to
develop the One Stop Workshop at the Working for America Institute training
session for labor Workforce Investment Board members delivered in each of the
four AFL-CIO regions this spring. Over one hundred people participated in these
workshops, held this spring in Atlanta, Philadelphia, St. Louis and Las Vegas.
Approach
The Public Sector Labor Management Committee (PLSMC) is comprised
of 29 national organizations representing labor unions at the national level
and national organizations representing elected officials and management practioners.
Its purpose is to support and to enhance joint labor management cooperative
efforts to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of public services. In its
work, PSLMC has observed that many of the organizational shifts that are occurring
in the public sector are similar to trends and practices in the private sector.
Just as private sector actors pursuing high performance examine organizational
systems and strategic partners and focus on results over the preservation of
process; so do public sector high performers. According to Eliot Sclar, You
Don’t Always Get What You Pay For, improving the performance of public
agencies is a collective endeavor focused on systems more than on individual
motivation.
In our search for best practices in One Stops, we looked for
managers at the local centers who with their union counterparts focused on improving
systems rather than changing people, faced issues with a problem-solving approach
and were focused on results for jobseekers and employers over the preservation
of process.
Integration of employment service personnel, as well as others,
into the One Stop operation is fundamentally a change process. Consequently,
following the basic principles of managing change can be a key to the success
of any One Stop. Geary Rummler and Alan Brache, Improving Performance,
argue that one of the main obstacles to successful process improvement is the
failure to consider how change processes will affect the people who will the
work in the new process.
Communication—and plenty of it—is critical to organizational
success. In our search, we looked for managers and union partners who had many
vehicles to communicate and problem-solve individual and collective concerns
with the way work was to be done under the One Stop system at a particular site.
Because of our focus on quality services and because universal
performance measurements are still at a rudimentary stage, we chose to interview
labor and management representatives from One Stops that were viewed by important
stakeholders as delivering high quality services.
Advisors to this process were Gary Storrs, AFSCME; Joan Crigger,
U.S. Conference of Mayors; Mira Weinstein, SEIU; Gary Gortenburg,
NACO; and Teri Bergman, Working for America Institute. They recommended
a list of sites known to be good performers and suggested a set
of interview questions (see
attachments for list of sites and list of questions).
We also met with William Tracy, Executive Director of the John
J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University for additional
site suggestions and for a perspective on best practices in integrating front
line workers into One Stop operations. The Heldrich Center recently prepared
a study, “Promising Practices” that cited one of the One Stops recognized
in this report for its implementation practices.
Telephone interviews were conducted primarily in the last two
weeks of February.
Two Case Studies
Kenosha
County Job Center
Union Involved: AFSCME Local 990
Those interviewed included John Milisaukaus, Manager, Pat Doud, AFSCME steward,
and Dawn Miller, of the Labor Education and Training Center.
Kenosha County Job Center serves people in southeastern Wisconsin.
The One Stop is a mixed model of public, private and non-profit agencies, including
services for dislocated workers run by the Wisconsin AFL-CIO Labor Education
and Training Center. It has been recognized by the Department of Health and
Human Services and by the Heldrich Center in its study, “Promising Practices”
for its excellent practices. A review of the 2000 state of Wisconsin report
on the Workforce Investment Act indicates a high level of achievement in terms
of training and retention rate of program participants. The US Department of
Human Services reported that is probably one of the most integrated One Stop
models in the country.
It is important to note that the move to One Stop operations
in Kenosha began in the late 1980s, driven by a downturn in the auto industry.
It is likely that one reason Kenosha stands out among its peers is that it has
been delivering services through a One Stop model longer than many other sites
around the country. (It is also interesting to note that not unlike other organizations
leading change, innovations now are harder to come by because there were so
many innovations in the beginning of the process). But there are clearly other
factors contributing to Kenosha’s success. From the beginning, there was
strong executive leadership that forced department heads to resolve turf issues
among themselves. In addition, they implemented integration of services by starting
with pilots. Employees were asked to volunteer for the pilots. Once the pilots
were completed, integration of all services ensued. To assure that partners’
employees understood each other’s systems, the center ran training programs
to explain how all programs and services function. And now there is a flat organization,
with work organized by function instead of by the organization(s) delivering
services.
One of the critical elements of success was the early involvement
of union leadership in the process by making them a part of the initial improvement
team. There was in-service training and listening sessions so concerns could
be dealt with. In the beginning, there were weekly labor-management meetings
with the top leadership of the local union and management. Currently, there
are monthly labor-management meetings. Furthermore, no union jobs have been
lost in the process of integration; in fact a few new positions have been added
to the bargaining unit recently. This has given union bargaining unit employees
proof of management’s good faith and resulted in the bargaining unit employees’
willingness to change work processes. Both management and union representatives
interviewed showed much pride in the excellent services of the Center.
Berks County Pennsylvania
Career Link
Unions Involved:
Professional Social Services Union (SEIU668) and AFSCME 462
Those interviewed included Patricia Adamczyk, Manager Sheila Fick, AFSCME,
and Jean Qualigia, SEIU
Berks County Pennsylvania
Career Link, located in Reading, Pennsylvania, serves the population in southeastern
Pennsylvania. This One Stop is a coordinated effort among public, private and
non-profit agencies. The only data on service provided was customer service
surveys. Annual customer service surveys indicated satisfaction with services
provided.
Berks County has integrated
providers in the One Stop through a three-tier system of “affiliate”
partners who refer clients to the One Stop; “contributors” who are
in the physical space of the One Stop but maintain their own identity; and “investors”
who provide staff to the One Stop. None of these integrated providers markets
themselves separately from Berks County. The unionized workforce is employed
by “investor” partners. Work is organized by function and seamless
system has been achieved.
The transition to a One
Stop system was difficult in Berks County; but the process of integration was
greatly improved by labor and management discussions at the state and local
level. In addition, Berks County Career Link convened weekly staff meetings
so concerns could be aired. Management and union representatives both indicated
that frontline supervisors had the biggest difficulty with the transition, but
utilizing various avenues for problem resolution made it possible to effectively
deal with concerns. Now, process and problem solving discussions take place
by work function. Berks County Career Link assisted in the transition by providing
customer service, process mapping and other specialized training to employees.
Finally, management and union leaders have worked together to improve working
conditions for all staff delivering coordinated services through affiliate,
contributor, and investor partners.
Conclusion of Findings
These two case studies suggest
that Kenosha and Berks County have been successful in their integration of services
because:
- They worked with labor
unions and bargaining unit employees. In comparison to other sites, there
was less resistance to change because employees and their unions were engaged
in early part of the implementation process.
- Training and vehicles
for problem solving were put in place and actually used.
- Turnover was reduced.
While there was some turnover at the height of the transition process among
all the sites surveyed; public employees have been less likely to leave One
Stops. This is significant because high turnover rates intensify staff costs
and make it more difficult for One Stops to develop and maintain relationships
with the employer community and other One Stop stakeholders.
Additional Findings
While not the focus of our
inquiry, some additional practices are worth mentioning:
Statewide Labor-Management
Committees: (Iowa, California, Ohio) According to SEIU and AFSCME representatives,
statewide labor management committees between respective state departments of
labor and union leadership have provided an avenue for problem-solving in the
implementation of One Stop systems. Ultimately, this has made implementation
more effective. In addition, recently the state of Ohio with AFSCME Local 11
have developed a joint labor and management problem-solving process to complete
the full implementation of WIA in Ohio. The process is in the beginning stages,
but the process is promising.
Labor One Stops:
(Texas, Wisconsin and New York) In various parts of the country, labor has developed
areas of expertise, usually a byproduct of dealing with dislocated workers.
In Texas, a program grew out of working with dislocated steelworkers and has
now resulted in a labor-run One-Stop Center in Houston. In Wisconsin, labor
does special work with dislocated workers and is a partner in the Kenosha and
Racine Wisconsin sites. And in New York City, the One Stop Center in Queens
is operated by the labor-led Consortium on Worker Education (CWE). Additional
projects are being developed for labor-led satellite centers in areas such as
the District of Columbia and Las Vegas, and have the advantage of adding a strong
labor component to the One-Stop system without displacing current publicly-run
operations.
Seamless Delivery
Service: (Salt Lake City, Utah) There were three important tools that
the manager used to implement a seamless system: providing training, using a
single computer software for all processes, and blending of wages so the similarly
situated employees receive a good wage. There was extensive training during
the transition from JTPA to WIA, including training on how to cope with change
and there is a new employee orientation program. The use of a single software
system helps people report information and reinforces the fact that all employees
are a part of one system. There is no union representing people in this agency;
however all belong to an employee association that lobbies for wages at the
state legislature.
Workshop on One
Stops: Workforce Investment Board Training
A number of trends emerged
through this survey of public, private and mixed providers of services who have
reputations as quality providers. These trends, combined with discussions with
our labor partners, SEIU and AFSCME, formed the basis of a workshop for labor
representatives serving on state and local WIB Boards across the country. The
criteria taken together indicate that publicly run One Stops, as well as One
Stops that had public services as a principal provider, are the most effective.
For example, some sites provide good placement but they were able to achieve
that in part by only accepting clients who meet certain standards. So while
the site may have good placement rates; they do not meet the criteria of fair
and equal treatment of all customers who may come to a One Stop. The criteria
developed from the lessons learned in this survey are:
- Good Placement:
Public employment service is more likely to support placement in higher wage
jobs that lead to self-sufficiency. For-profit firms have a disincentive to
support living wage jobs because potential placement and training may be more
costly.
- Emphasis on
Training:
Lack of profit motive means the public employment service is less likely to
adopt a “work first, train later approach.”
- Fair and Equal
Treatment:
Public service unlike private must serve all participants equally.
- Quality Customized
Assistance: The
public service by law must provide quality assistance along multiple tiers
from self-help service to fully staff-assisted service.
- Lower Staff
Turnover:
Public service employees in general have lower turnover, in part because of
better wages, benefits and a voice in the workplace.
- Ease of Access:
Public agencies require that the location is easy to get to and physical structure
facilitates people with disabilities.
- Accountability:
Public services are open to all. Records, finances and the like are transparent
by law. A for-profit vendor is ultimately accountable to its directors and/or
shareholders, and accountability may be realized only by contract cancellation.
In addition to these criteria,
PLSMC has identified tools that are helpful in ensuring good service from One
Stops, and they are:
- Mission Statement:
Providing a vision so staff, employers, community members understand the purpose
of the One Stop and work towards that vision.
- Performance
Standards:
Setting standards that measure the quality of pay and benefits so staff have
an incentive to place customers in employment that provides for a decent standard
of living.
- Memorandum of
Understanding: Spelling out financial arrangements, services provided,
and accountability measures.
- Marketing Strategies:
Overcoming the lack understanding among job seekers and employers
in a in their communities about the services a One Stop can provide.
In the workshop we used
exercises and discussion to review these points. Participants shared
their personal experiences with One Stops, which supported the collaborative
over the competitive model.
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