SKILL PANEL REPORT California's Water Industry - Cuyamaca ...

SKILL PANEL REPORT California’s Water IndustryThe State of Massachusetts launched the first skill panel in the country in 1981.Twenty five states were operating or implementing skill panels in 2010. Whilemanaging these partnerships is a considerable challenge, McKinsey’s 2012study of education to employment initiatives in the U.S. and eight other countriesshowed that skill panels are an effective recruiting strategy worth the effort. 944%of the employersnever interacted witheducation25%of them were findingthe talent they need31%of employers consideredinteracting with educationvery important69%of them reported no challenges inrecruiting the talent they needMcKinseyEducation to EmploymentStudyPanelist Don Jones, who helped develop Cuyamaca Colleges’s water technologyprogram, noted that, “Water utilities spend millions on long term capitalimprovement programs, CIPs, but very little on people improvement programs,PIPs.” The following examples show the additional incentives behindcollaborative skill panels and building people pipelines -- lower costs and higherproductivity.Georgia Power is one of 50utilities in a collaborative programwith four technical colleges forrecruiting and training electricalline workers. The collaborationreduced the number of initialcandidates for openings byalmost 90% and Georgia Powerreduced its own recruiting andtraining costs by 31%. The icing?Georgia Power’s employeeretention rate rose to 93%.(Harvard Business Review)UPS almost moved its hub out ofKentucky in 1996 because of ashortage of skilled workers.Instead, the State of Kentucky,Jefferson Community Collegeand UPS opened MetropolitanCollege. Students work part timewith full benefits on the UPS nightshift and attend college during theday. UPS and government spliteach student’s tuition costs andUPS pays for textbooks. Now,45% of UPS workers havepostsecondary degrees, andannual employee turnover isdown 80%.(Center for American Progress)When the wind energy industrydiscovered Oregon’s windy andsparsely populated ColumbiaRiver Gorge, Columbia GorgeCommunity College partneredwith Acciona Energy NorthAmerica, Black & Veatch andIntel to develop a regionalworkforce. One- and two-yearprograms now produce skilledworkers for wind energy,hydropower, automatedmanufacturing and engineeringtechnician positions, and Accionahas the service workers it needs.The placement rate for graduatesin wind energy is 80%.(Center for American Progress)10