News

Washington County community organizations are helping expand the ACT Work Ready Communities program to help more residents and businesses benefit.

The Work Ready program, which was launched by Washington County Economic Alliance in January 2016, is designed to increase the county’s attractiveness to industries, increase the number of local jobs and streamline hiring processes by testing and certifying residents’ job skills.

Up until now, WCEA was the only community organization in Washington County working to test residents and create job profiles. However, that changed Monday with the start of the school year.

Kansas is joining other states in paying for high school students to take the ACT test or the WorkKeys assessment in their junior year.
One helps them get into college but the other puts them on a fast track to paying jobs.

Buchanan County has received re-certification as a Missouri Certified Work Ready Community for an additional two years.

Officials with the Buchanan County Workforce Development Task Force said they recently received word of the re-certification. Work Ready is a collaborative effort among the St. Joseph Chamber of Commerce, Heartland Foundation, St. Joseph School District (including Hillyard Technical Center), the Northwest Missouri Workforce Investment Board and other community organizations and business partners.

To regain the status, Janice Spearman and Laura Brewer of the Missouri Career Center tested more than 2,000 current and transitioning Buchanan County workers.

Knox County was inducted as a Work Ready Community at the Knox County High School Gymnasium on Wednesday, June 13, 2018. Watch the video of the ceremony below link.  ACT Work Ready Communities (WRC) empowers states, regions and counties with data, processes and tools that drive economic growth. Participants are leveraging the ACT® WorkKeys® National Career Readiness Certificate® (NCRC®) to measure and close the skills gap — and building common frameworks that link, align and match their workforce development efforts.

A northeast Missouri community works to keep its residents and attract new ones.  Knox County, Missouri hopes to spark new economic development through a group called Grow Knox County.  And now that organization has a new distinction to help make that possible.  The nonprofit organization meets regularly to think of ways to attract more people and business to the area.  Wednesday night's meeting was especially important--the county received a 'work ready community' distinction.

This four-page printer-friendly brochure (PDF) makes it easier to share an overview of Work Ready Communities, as referenced in the Ready for Work podcast.

At the post-secondary level, the First Tennessee Development District is working to see all eight counties in Northeast Tennessee certified as ACT Work Ready Communities, a credential job seekers can use to prove their skills and companies can leverage to know they’re hiring qualified employees, while Northeast State Community College and the regional Tennessee Colleges of Applied Technology continue to provide opportunities for education and certification.

We offer #ActJobProfiling to companies in #WashCoMS at no cost. Profiling allows HR to use the #ActWorkKeys at a hiring tool.

Workforce, workforce, workforce. Society’s migraine? Workforce. Where can we find people, good people, qualified people, reliable people for our jobs? Unfortunately, as a country, our workforce issues have been nearly forty years in the making. From a community perspective, to think that this matter can be resolved within ninety days is simply not rational. But, I do believe it can be addressed and show substantial progress within the next three years. To do this, we have to think differently. As I am quick to tell people, “Our processes are not organic. Getting the right people, with the right skills and education, in the right jobs, is strategic, not organic.”

Video tells about WRC success in Washington County MS.