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Workforce Collaboratives

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The workforce collaboratives were conceptualized through the Industry Leadership Councils of Phoenix Forward >>, the Greater Phoenix Chamber’s economic development initiative. The work of the collaboratives is executed through the Greater Phoenix Chamber Foundation. Download the Workforce Collaboratives Overview.

WORKFORCE COLLABORATIVES
Construction
Cybersecurity
Financial Services
Health Care: Hospitals

WHY: BUSINESSES NEED TALENT
The demand for industry-specific training has outpaced the Phoenix Forward sectors. The Greater Phoenix Chamber Foundation oversees four workforce collaboratives that better align employer needs with education and training provider outcomes. The collaboratives work together to address talent shortages in the Valley and develop action plans to address these issues.

THE HOW:
The workforce collaboratives accomplish their goals by conducting demand analysis (includes the identification of related core competencies); identifying supply trends; conducting provider assessments; connecting industry and training providers and promoting high-quality career pathways.

RESULTS:
Jobs. Growth. Opportunity.

Construction hatConstruction
The lack of a skilled-labor workforce in the Greater Phoenix region is not only slowing the pace of growth for our construction companies, it is also hindering regional economic growth as projects continue to see delays. The construction collaborative developed a career pathway and identified pain points at the pre-specialty and supervisory levels, identifying a need to provide training through micro-credentialing. Contractors and subcontractors, both commercial and residential, developed a cohesive plan of action that includes attracting more talent into the skilled trades.

The collaborative has partnered with the Arizona Builder’s Alliance (ABA), the American Subcontractors Association of Arizona (ASA) and other community organizations to develop a cohesive plan of action to attract more talent into these skilled-trades and excellent career options. The collaborative is working side-by-side with the Construction Advisory Council to develop a marketing and branding campaign to attract students into these careers.

Strategic objectives:
• Identify gaps in the training process and other challenges contributing to the lack of talent
• Utilize the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s (USCCF) Talent Pipeline Management framework to better align educational outcomes with employer demands
• Launch a unified marketing and branding campaign to highlight skilled trades and grow the talent pool in Arizona

Interested in engaging? We are looking for construction owners, hiring managers and HR representatives that are ready to work together to build a more robust talent pool.

Cyber SecurityCybersecurity
Arizona has a booming technology sector, leading to a rapidly growing need for a more robust IT workforce and thousands of open cybersecurity positions across the state. Meanwhile, there is a strong and growing cybersecurity ecosystem in Arizona with nationally recognized education programs, two state-of-the-art cyberwarfare ranges and one-of-a-kind partnerships working to defend against cyber attacks. The collaborative is made up of a wide variety of companies that have cybersecurity as a component of their business, but not as their core business function. The group consists of industry professionals, educators and training partners working to address talent shortages for security analysts at the junior, mid and senior levels.

Security clearances for these types of roles make it difficult for employers to offer workplace experiences to job seekers, limiting the amount of exposure these companies are able to provide to job seekers. The Cybersecurity Workforce Collaborative has partnered with members of the Arizona Technology Council (AZTC) to develop a continuum of workplace experiences and share best practices to expand these opportunities. The collaborative is currently leading the charge on a curriculum review of a local cybersecurity program that is national certified as a Center of Academic Excellence (CAE) to ensure it is producing talent that meets industry needs with hopes to expand this program across the region.

Strategic objectives:
• Increase the number of workplace and work-like experiences in Arizona through intensive bootcamps, internships and apprenticeships
• Drive career awareness of AZCyberTalent.com and execute a collaborative marketing strategy
• Align and expand education and training to meet industry needs

Interested in engaging? We are looking for employers, education and training providers and others who are interested in promoting Arizona as the place for cybersecurity talent.

Financial servicesFinancial Services
Arizona is a financial services center with a growing number of positions, especially entry-level financial advisors and investment professionals. As the number of jobs continues to grow, companies are struggling to find the talent they need to grow their operations. Several companies, who are typically fierce competitors for clients and talent, now pursue a
collaborative approach to meet the increasing workforce demand.

This collaborative was launched to address critical shortages for entry level financial advisors and financial analysts. One of the opportunities identified during the preliminary assessment is to better prepare individuals to pass the necessary exams and provide screenings to individuals to assess their skills at the front end.

In partnership with Arizona@Work and the City of Phoenix, the Financial Services Workforce Collaborative launched a successful training program in November 2017 that utilized Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) funding to prepare individuals to pass the Series 7
license exam. This program assists employers by training job seekers before employment.

Strategic objectives:
• Scale the Series 7 license pilot program to grow the financial services talent pool in Arizona
• Expand WIOA funded training to an additional license (e.g. Series 6 or Series 66)
• Explore opportunities to improve exam pass rates through training programs with existing providers

Interested in engaging? We are looking for companies that are hiring individuals requiring financial services licenses (i.e. Series 6, 7 and 66).

Health CareHospitals
A Becker’s Hospital Review 2017 study states “Arizona will have the largest nurse shortage, with 28,100 fewer registered nurses than necessary” by 2025. The Hospital Workforce Collaborative is currently focusing on addressing workforce shortages for our regional hospital systems; with hopes to expand our efforts to help the many different other aspects of the health care industry in the future. Health care has been a driving factor for Greater Phoenix job growth in recent years, and the region has the potential to become a national health care hub. Workforce shortages in health care need to be addressed to make this happen.

HR representatives and talent acquisition managers of the region’s largest hospital systems identified challenges filling specialty nursing positions, which ultimately impacts their ability to hire new nursing graduates, further compounding the nursing shortage. The collaborative
is identifying ways to address this gap by recruiting from other markets, and upskilling and backfilling from the industry’s existing talent pool.

Strategic objectives:
• Launch a marketing and branding campaign to promote Arizona’s collective health care assets and aid in the recruitment of specialty nurses to the region
• Develop and reinvent a transition to practice simulation center model to increase the number of nurses and surgical technicians with specialty training experiences
• Identify new opportunities to expand workplace experiences, including development of an apprenticeship for specialty nurses

Interested in engaging? We are looking for HR representatives from hospitals in the Greater Phoenix region who are willing to work together to solve this growing challenge.

Have questions or would like to get involved in one of the Chamber’s Workforce Collaboratives?

Contact a workforce development coordinator:

602.495.2195 | workforce@phoenixchamber.com

Successful Collaborative Results:

Compliance Risk ManagementCompliance and Risk Management
Arizona’s growing economy combined with the constant flow of new and updated regulations has set the stage for exponential growth in the compliance and risk management profession.

These cross-industry positions are in high demand across the region. This employer-led collaborative consisted of professionals in health care, banking, finance, insurance and other industries who are working with education providers to enhance the talent pipeline for compliance and risk management careers. The collaborative worked to make Arizona a premier education destination for compliance and risk management programs in the West. The team has identified key entry points into the profession, those just entering the workforce at the junior or associate level and industry professionals who are transitioning from practice into compliance or risk.

The collaborative identified the lack of awareness job seekers have for these great careers. There was a need to develop a cohesive website to highlight careers, educational opportunities and job postings in compliance and risk management. With the help of the Arizona Ethics and Compliance Council (AECC) and Arizona Insurance Institute (AII), the collaborative developed AZComplianceRiskTalent.com to serve as a hub for this information to attract more job seekers into these careers.

Results:
• Developed local education programs at the two-year, four-year and graduate levels to better prepare a pipeline of talent
• Created a standardized apprenticeship program that can be replicated across employers
• Launched a marketing and branding campaign to highlight AZComplianceRiskTalent.com