If you’ve been to any of CTmrg’s workforce webinars, you know that we speak about Collective Impact a lot. Collective Impact is defined as “the commitment of a group of actors from different sectors to a common agenda for solving a specific social problem, using a structured form of collaboration.” The problem we’re looking to solve is the workforce shortage now faced by Connecticut’s manufacturers. We focus on this because we believe that a challenge this great can only be conquered if everyone works together.
One example of Collective Impact is the Governor’s Workforce Council. They have taken the lead in the state to resolve this challenge. Tasked with setting strategy and policy for the state’s Pre-K through retirement workforce pipeline, the council serves as the prime coordinator for businesses, educators, trainers, state agencies, state workforce boards, non-profits, and others. Although they work with other industries, manufacturing is a key sector that they are focused on.
One Collective Impact initiative was to get multiple resources from each workforce region to collaborate. These Regional Sector Partnerships included the Workforce Boards, Chambers of Commerce and Community Colleges, among others.
As you can see from the image above, each region was tasked with determining their number 1 and 2 industries. Four out of the five chose Manufacturing. In fact, the only reason the North Central team didn’t choose manufacturing was because they are already heavily involved in the industry due in large part to the great work being done at Capital Workforce Partners and Asnuntuck Community College.
A representative from the Workforce Council will be presenting at the next Workforce Summit. In addition, CTmrg will be connecting with the Council on a regular basis to learn what we can do to assist. We will keep our manufacturers appraised on what’s happening and as always, please let us know if there’s anything specific you’d like to know or if you’d like to participate in some way.