WDBSCW and partners amongst winners of Department of Labor grant; announce $6M Skills Wisconsin initiative

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

JUNE 19, 2012

Workforce Development Board of South Central Wisconsin with the Wisconsin Workforce Development Association amongst winners of U.S. Department of Labor grant; announce $6 million Skills Wisconsin initiative

MADISON—Fifteen Wisconsin workforce and economic development agencies including the Workforce Development Board of South Central Wisconsin (WDBSCW) will collaborate as partners on a $6 million, three-year Workforce Innovation Fund grant.

The U.S. Department of Labor's Education and Training Agency awarded the grant to the WDBSCW. The WDBSCW will serve as the administrator and collaborator with the Wisconsin Workforce Development Association to launch Skills Wisconsin. Specifically, the grant will be used to enhance partnerships with specific employers or industry sectors to develop programs that reflect current and future workforce skill needs.

"This partnership will help us to build on our relationships with these workforce and economic development agencies and communicate customer data in a real-time environment," said Pat Schramm, Executive Director for the Workforce Development Board of South Central Wisconsin. "It’s an opportunity for us to streamline efforts to better assist firms and industries seeking workforce services and resources."

The grant will aim to accomplish three major goals: 1) Fulfill an immediate need to increase placement outcomes and move large numbers of job-seekers on the caseloads of our workforce development system to gainful, employment leading to self-sufficiency; 2) Better match training offerings with business hiring needs; and, 3) Improve tracking of service delivery metrics and management of business customer information in real-time, to more effectively serve individual firms and industry cluster partnerships.

Skills Wisconsin will place an emphasis on fulfilling these goals using web-based, networking and customer relationship management tools. The technology will help to facilitate gathering of real-time, instantaneous labor market information on Wisconsin firms, coordinate management of relationships with those firms, track a broad array of activities, services and contacts (job profiles, hiring and training needs, broaden economic development and industry information) in order to gain service efficiencies and develop service strategies customized to the needs of firms and industry clusters.

The WDBSCW and the other 10 Workforce Development Board partners comprising of the Wisconsin Workforce Development Association, Wisconsin Workforce Development Association, the newly created Wisconsin Economic Development Council, Wisconsin Technical College System, and the Wisconsin Economic Development Association to provide support to statewide workforce development initiatives through Skills Wisconsin.

Find more about the WDBSCW and its work at www.wdbscw.org. To learn more about the Department of Labor’s Workforce Innovation Fund grant, visit http://www.doleta.gov/workforce_innovation/. 

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CONTACTS: Jackie Rinzel, Workforce Development Board of South Central Wisconsin
Tel: (608) 249-9001
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