Newsletter Vol. 4
October 2016
In This Issue
Hot Topic - Fostering Diversity in Transportation
TOPUpcoming Training Opportunities

Webinar: Diversity in the Transportation Industry: Attracting and Engaging Diverse Groups
Date: Thursday, October 13, 2016
Time: 12:00 pm to 1:30 pm Mountain Time

Diversity of people, minds and thought unlocks great potential for the transportation industry. Breaking down barriers, diversity creates an environment of inclusion and ceaseless knowledge sharing among communities, organizations, and individuals. The objective of this session is to explore and celebrate diversity through its many forms, voices, and audiences. We will begin to examine diversity as a significant cultural value, rather than a set of baseline numbers. Our conversations and stories expand the definition of diversity as we look into a range of topics, including careers and opportunities, serving underrepresented populations, and organizational transformations. 

 

Webinar: Professional Development Resources on Accessible Transportation Services
Date: Thursday, October 27, 2016
Time: 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm Mountain Time

The West Region Transportation Workforce Center is pleased to partner with Easter Seals Project Action to sponsor a webinar on available training resources related to creating an accessible and barrier-free mobility environment. Workforce development training is essential to building a competent labor pool in the transportation industry. Such training is provided by multiple sources including university programs, national training and technical assistance programs, consultants, state, regional and national conferences, and directly by transportation agencies. Join us for this free webinar to learn more about the availability of training, the various programs available, and the areas of emphasis for each. Attendees will have the opportunity to ask questions and offer additional information about their own training programs.

The webinar will be held Thursday, October 27 at 2 pm Eastern/12 pm Mountain time. 



Has your organization implemented successful strategies to foster a diverse workplace?

The WRTWC would like to act as a hub for collecting and sharing successful strategies that have been implemented in transportation organizations related to creating a diverse, skilled, and right-sized workforce.  Consider sharing with your peers your organization's successes to create a learning and collaboration community for workforce development in our region.

To share a success story, click here.

Did You Miss It?
The Center has co-organized, participated in, or sponsored a number of webinars over the past few months on a range of workforce development topics. Don't worry if you missed them.  You can still access this relevant and useful information at the links provided.

September 14: WRTWC Webinar: Transfer the Knowledge Before it Walks out the Door!
 
As workforce members continue to depart organizations, with them goes a significant amount of critical knowledge. Various types of knowledge retention strategies can be utilized so that critical organizational knowledge does not "walk out the door." 

Learn more about these strategies. The webinar recording can be found  here.

   

August 18: TRB Webinar: The Evolving Surface Transportation Operations and Maintenance Workforce: Challenges and Opportunities

This webinar featured presenters from FHWA Regional Workforce Centers and industry, and explored challenges and opportunities in attracting and retaining potential workers in specific demographic or experience groups, namely: millennials, women, non-native English speakers, and veterans.  

The presentation slides and additional information can be found  here.



 
June 9: WRTWC Webinar: The Coming Retirement Tsunami: Why Transit Agencies and the Public Sector can no longer Ignore Succession Planning
 
This webinar provided results from a Workforce Development Survey of 160 small urban and rural transit agencies across 40 different states, strategies to secure commitment for succession planning, as well as five-phase approach to succession planning.

The recording and additional resources on this topic can be found  here.

 
July 20: NNTW and the TRB Committee on Education and Training Webinar: Transportation: A natural vehicle for integrated STEM learning

This webinar explored STEM learning in programs using a transportation lens through informal educational settings. 

Webinar recording and additional resources can be accessed  here.

Center Activities
Phase 2 Job Needs and Priorities Report 

The West Region Transportation Workforce Center is pleased to release its Phase 2 Job Needs and Priorities Report. The Phase 2 report identifies four strategic action plans to address workforce priorities based on the specific regional characteristics and labor market shortfalls identified in the Phase 1 report. The plans were established in consultation with the Center's Stakeholder Engagement Group as well as through additional resource gathering, stakeholder outreach, and analysis of funding availability. The plans are in keeping with the Center's established national focus areas (i.e. rural, safety, mobility, and livability). Based on these parameters, the report details strategic action plans moving forward. Please feel free to provide your comments, suggestions, and feedback on the report or proposed strategic action plans.  The report can be located here.  
The NNTW Wins $1.25 Million Workforce Development Grant 

The National Network for the Transportation Workforce (NNTW), made up of the five regional workforce centers, made a successful bid to win a $1.25 million Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) grant titled the "Transportation Workforce Strategic Initiative" (TWSI).  In accordance with FHWA guidelines for the grant, the NNTW team will develop and then launch a series of career pathway demonstration programs at technical schools, community colleges, and universities around the United States. The demonstrations will leverage insights from employers to empower students to first learn about critical transportation occupations and then develop the skills to meet the related workforce challenges. The demonstrations will directly address critical transportation occupations in planning, engineering, safety, operations, and environment. 

To accomplish that goal, the NNTW team of multidisciplinary specialists will leverage its national network of stakeholders and extensive repositories of transportation workforce development curriculum best practices. Throughout the two-year granting period, the NNTW team will seek to respond to skill gaps created by changing transportation trends, including the hard-to-predict gaps resulting from the application of transformational technologies in the transportation sector.
Rural Safety Summit 



The WRTWC facilitated a session on workforce development during the National Working Summit on Transportation in Rural America held Sept. 7-9, 2016 in Denver, Colorado. The Summit, hosted by the National Center for Rural Road Safety, brought together key leaders and grassroots stakeholders to articulate important safety and transportation issues that impact economic prosperity and quality-of-life in rural areas. The workforce development session focused on challenges and opportunities to build workforce development strategies and partnerships to meet rural needs. For more information on the Moving Rural America Summit, click here.


Please check out our website for the most up-to-date news and activities.

Is your organization hosting an event or opportunity you would like to share with the regional network? Please contact us and we will be happy to help you distribute the information.