May 31, 2022 | Issue 11

As the school year comes to a close and institutions across the state celebrate the accomplishment of their graduates, we should all take a moment to reflect on all that has been accomplished. At GOWINN, we are celebrating the launch of Nepris for Nevada - the National platform designed to bring industry professionals into classrooms virtually. We are also celebrating the re-launch of the state's Industry Sector Councils, new Governor's Workforce Development Board members, working groups under the National Governor's Association Workforce Innovation Network and National Skills Coalition, and a first-of-its-kind partnership with Amazon Web Services. 

Looking ahead to exciting summer activity, we are in the midst of matching more High School Teacher Externs for their summer job shadowing than we have in the history of this program. We have seen Project SANDI program development and enrollments take off over the past few months and cannot wait for the outreach activity to start in earnest next month. The Intermediary Contracting is in the final stages for Project ANAA, the 3.9M apprenticeship development grant, and we should see activity being under that funding by the end of August. Finally, we're eager to introduce new GOWINN team members very shortly.

We know all of you have much to reflect on and much to look forward to as well. Please share your successes and upcoming opportunities with our team so we can help get the word out and support a stronger Nevada workforce network.

Isla and the GOWINN team

The Children’s Cabinet survey to analyze current employer trends for family-friendly benefits in Nevada is still open. The more companies that respond, the better the benchmarking will be, enabling better-targeted resources.

We’d appreciate your sharing this with your employer networks and any others you think may further spread the word. 

The 6-question survey can be completed in less than 2 minutes. All data will be kept confidential and used to benchmark businesses by industry. Submitters can remain anonymous if desired.

Contact Kimberly Cullen at the Children's Cabinet with any questions about the survey or related activity.

We appreciate your support!

The Health Care Workforce Workgroup Advisory Committee would like help distributing a  Nevada Health Care Workforce Pipeline Development Survey.

Please complete the survey if you are engaged in any workforce/pipeline development work related to public health, behavioral health, or primary care, and distribute it to any stakeholders engaged in these efforts.

For this survey, the term “workforce development” includes initiatives that help create, sustain, and retain a highly qualified workforce. It includes education and training—as well as social services and community supports—that:

• Enable individuals to be successful in, or advance through, the workforce;
• Provide potential and existing workers required skills and expertise, as well as opportunities to up-skill; or
• Help meet the current and future needs of business and industry.

Responses will be used to develop asset maps of statewide workforce pipeline initiatives to support and enhance public health, behavioral health, and primary care workforce infrastructure and needs.

Asset maps and related analyses will be shared with survey respondents to improve the pipeline.

The survey should take about 15 minutes to complete. 

During the past school year - year one of Nepris for Nevada - 88 Nevada Industry Professionals have signed up to engage with classrooms virtually. They've presented 37 sessions, engaging 5,363 students across 226 classrooms!

The 7,941 Nevada educators that have signed up engaged their classrooms in 70 live sessions and viewed 758 videos!

Inspire your networks to engage! Get tips for sharing your session and promoting engagement on the platform!

Sign up now to engage with Nevada classrooms in Fall 2022! Presentations on any topic are welcome and supported events include:

• Teach Nevada (September)
• Education Pathways
• Supporting Roles
• Arts Education National
• Manufacturing Month (October)
• Nevada STEMWorks Event (November)

Contact Amy Fleming at afleming@gov.nv.gov for more information.

The U.S. Department of Labor today issued a funding opportunity announcement of $3.4 million for up to nine grants to attract and keep women in Registered Apprenticeship Programs and industries where they are underrepresented such as manufacturing, infrastructure, cybersecurity and healthcare.

To learn more:

• WANTO grant program and 2021 grant recipients
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Press Release
• Apply for the 2022 WANTO grant at grants.gov by June 20, 2022

In honor of Second Chance Month, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) announced an initiative aimed at helping incarcerated individuals access educational programs. The initiative was launched by the Obama-Biden Administration to expand access to Federal Pell Grants for incarcerated individuals enrolled in postsecondary education programs. With 73 colleges and universities being invited to participate in the third round, the total number of schools participating in the Second Chance Pell Experiment is now 200.

Thousands of incarcerated students, across the nation, will be enrolled in education and training programs throughout public two- and public four-year institutions. Twenty-four of the educational institutions are HBCUs and minority-serving. Schools may begin accessing Pell Grants as early as July 1, 2022.

Changes to policies include helping incarcerated individuals with defaulted loans by returning borrowers with defaulted loans to repayment in good standing and allowing incarcerated individuals to consolidate their loans to help them exit default in the long term. “Access to high-quality postsecondary education is essential to incarcerated individuals, but for far too long, people in prison were left out,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. “The expansion of Second Chance Pell and these new pathways out of default are critical steps for incarcerated individuals to be able to access educational opportunities that will provide second chances to build a future.”

July 1, 2023, will mark the start of the broader implementation of reinstatement of access to Pell Grants for incarcerated students. The US Department of Education anticipates fully implementing the legislative changes to allow eligible students in college-in-prison programs to access Federal Pell Grants beginning on July 1, 2023.

Resource: Press Release | Contact: Tim Carlton (tcarlton@nga.org; 202-624-5341)

The CCSD Stay In School Mentoring Project is recruiting mentors for the upcoming school year. If you or anyone you know is interested in being a positive role model in a student's life please attend/share the upcoming Mentor Information Session information. 

Informational sessions will be held to provide details about the program and answer any questions.  

• June 1st 2022 at 10am PST or 3pm PST

REGISTRATION HERE: https://forms.gle/UJaGLTdjFQCNLsrG7

Please share this information with your company, organization, social media and/or anyone that you think might be interested. 

Summary reports for each of the initial Sector Council meetings have been published. The common thread across all sectors in the previous round of meetings was the overwhelming demand for skilled and entry-level talent. The next round of meetings will feature representatives from the Nevada Governor’s Office of New Americans, the Nevada Department of Corrections, and the Nevada Department of Veterans Services to briefly share details about their programs and discuss opportunities to leverage the populations they serve.

As was modeled in the first meeting, employers should be prepared to make an introduction and share the following:

• Top In-Demand/Hard-To-Fill/Urgent-To-Fill Role(s) – the more specific you can be, the more the system can engage to meet the needs more broadly
• Acute challenges/barriers to attracting or retaining talent
• Notable changes over the past 3 months
• Summary of talent attraction resources/practices that have been particularly fruitful and those that you would like to work to expand

Non-voting employers and partners that work closely with employers are encouraged to attend and share any portion of the above on behalf of their employer stakeholders.

Partners should be prepared to make an introduction and share the following:

• Specific population(s) served & resources to ease the transition to employment
• Metrics regarding the number of clients/participants looking for work and timeline for engagement
• Upcoming events or other opportunities to engage

You are encouraged to share this information with any individual or network that might find it valuable to participate.  

• June 6 @ 11:00: Logistics (Attach Agenda)
• June 27 @ 2:00: Technology
• July 18 @ 2:00: Manufacturing
• August 8 @ 2:00: Health Care

Download the full reports and mark your calendar for the next round of quarterly meetings.

Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak announced the creation of the Workforce Development subcabinet, and the appointment of all six members. In 2021, Nevada received the National Governors Association Innovation Network grant to study Nevada’s workforce development needs and make recommendations on ways to help more Nevadans find the work they want or the workers they need. The creation of a subcabinet dedicated to workforce development is critical to the State’s efforts.

The subcabinet is made up of six current cabinet officers and agency leaders, all of whom play a major role in Nevada’s workforce development. They are tasked with reviewing and recommending evidence-based best practices, consolidating and coordinating state services to maximize efficiencies and reduce red-tape and unnecessary duplications of services, and gathering and publishing relevant, real-time data measuring Nevada’s workforce needs and successes.

The National Association of Workforce Development Professionals (NAWDP) is proud to announce that Workforce Connections' Employ NV Business Hubs has been named the 2022 Program of the Year. The Employ NV Business Hubs program was recognized at the NAWDP’s 38th Annual Conference, May 16-18, 2022 in Las Vegas, NV.

“The Workforce Program of the Year award recognizes innovative workforce programs that implement a new system and create a new way of delivering services,” said Melissa Robbins, NAWDP CEO. “Employ NV Business Hubs offer a unique approach by providing WIOA Title I and Title III staff to assist employers in locations businesses are visiting for other needs. Through this program, they’ve built and expanded partnerships that truly have a positive impact on their local employers.”  

Andres Feijoo, Policy Analyst at GOWINN, attended the National Governors Association's Economic Mobility Summit in St. Louis, MO on May 24th and 25th.

Along with 16 other states and territories, participants attended plenary sessions and action planning workshops centered around strengthening safety net programs to enhance social mobility, reducing barriers for individuals to participate in work and the economy, and ensuring equal access to essential services for economic mobility. 

A regional partnership led by the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance (LVGEA) is releasing today the updated 2022 Workforce Blueprint, identifying the top in-demand jobs in Southern Nevada. This is the first Blueprint produced for Southern Nevada since the start of the pandemic. Among the top in-demand jobs are software developers, engineers, managers, and nurse practitioners. View the full list here.

The 2022 Workforce Blueprint was created in collaboration with Workforce Connections, Nevada Governor’s Office of Economic Development, Vegas Chamber, Henderson Chamber of Commerce, Urban Chamber of Commerce, and Latin Chamber of Commerce.

The Nevada Governor’s Office of Economic Development Board approved a $400,000 grant from the Workforce Innovations for the New Nevada (WINN) fund to grow a Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) Training Program at Western Nevada College (WNC).

“Our In-Demand Occupation analysis shows that Nevada is 4,509 jobs below the national average in licensed commercial drivers,” said Stacey Bostwick, GOED Director of Workforce Development. “This program in Carson City will create 100 training slots for jobs with an average starting wage of $24 per hour and begin to address the deficit in an area of critical workforce development need.”

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) has published two new reports, The Rise of Alternative Credentials in Hiring, and Making Alternative Credentials Work: A New Strategy for HR Professionals. According to the reports, nearly half of U.S. workers (45%) say they have some form of an alternative credential. Among those who don't, about half (49%) have considered earning one.

Other key findings include:

• Alternative credentials are popular with workers: Nearly three-quarters of U.S. workers (72 percent) agree they are an affordable way to gain the skills or experience necessary to enter a new job, and 77 percent agree that having a job-relevant alternative credential increases or would increase their chances of being hired for a job.
• People who hold alternative credentials bring value to the workplace, according to executives (87 percent), supervisors (81 percent) and especially HR professionals (90 percent).
• During a time of skills shortages, alternative credentials can uncover untapped talent. When employers recognize alternative credentials, it becomes easier for diverse candidates to obtain employment, according to 81 percent of executives, 71 percent of supervisors and 59 percent of HR professionals.
• Adjusting applicant tracking systems could help increase awareness of alternative credentials. Nearly half of HR professionals surveyed (45 percent) say their organization uses automated prescreening to review job applicant resumes, but only one-third of those (32 percent) say their automated system recognizes alternative credentials.