I’m going to go ahead and introduce our next speaker. I know he is anticipating a anticipating joining us today because I kind of might a highly entice him to come join and be a part of the discussion. But Ron Perkins is a is currently a workforce development strategist and a native of Pittsburgh historic Hill District. He has over 20 years of experience in retail, hospitality, and construction. He is a certified MBE masonry contractor small business owner. Throughout his professional career, Ron has worked diligently to make the region a place for all. He has collaborated with local and state governments on workforce and economic development efforts and training to meet the community’s demand among the employer, job seeker and MWDB e businesses. And we’ll talk about what those letters mean a little bit later. In the last three years though, Ron has been working as the workforce and economic development liaison. He is responsible for advising connecting and registering over 2500 employers to the workforce systems job board called job gateway. within that timeframe, Ron has also managed to increase the region’s economy by $300 million. By leveraging state hiring incentives for employers. Ron’s colleagues and peers along with the Pennsylvania Department of Labor have recognized him as one of the region’s best resources. Ron, come on over Turn on your camera, we can’t see you. We want you to join this conversation. And I’m going to end the poll. Hey, Ron.

Hello, how are you?

I am good. So, um, looks like it’s a great day to be in Pennsylvania with this $300 million you bought to the region? I can’t Can I go back and like collect some of my money from when I lived in Pittsburgh? Absolutely. I’ll talk about it, I need to get a check. So Ron, how did you get started in workforce development?

I would say by accident. When I was working for Zenith as a director, it was I was doing a lot of the activities. But at the time, it there was no, no, no definition to economic development, workforce development, everything else was just things that we just did as a working organization, by connecting people and businesses and opportunities, vendors, contractors, things like that. Until someone had mentioned it. To me, these were things that you’re doing. So you should label yourself as such. And I’m saying, okay, whatever, that works for me. Right. But going beyond that, when I got a call from the agency within the state of Pennsylvania to be their workforce, economic development liaison, it was I was thrown off a bit. And I really didn’t know much about the space other than what someone had shared with me in the activities that I thought I knew that I didn’t know. And I will say, Hey, let me know, let me just take a stab at it. The worst thing they can do to me is, I guess, Saturday. So it was it was purely by accident, it wasn’t something I planned to do was nothing that was my trajectory, and nothing about it coming in. So it was a it was a it was a real learning curve. Taking what I saw was something that was really nothing compared to what government looks at opportunities and providing opportunities in the region and and more than lives and communities of color. And
so now I’m like Okay, explain to me then or us because what is work for us develop because you like I came out of corporate as it is. And they’re like, No, it’s doing workforce development. So what what is workforce development? How do you define it? How do you describe it,

I will say is different now than it was a few years back. It’s a space within the workforce ecosystem that encompasses a whole host of activities. It prepares individuals for the workforce, and that includes helping individuals overcome barriers to employment, or other opportunities. Like post secondary education, union trade, so forth and so on. Okay,

thank you for that. So we now see how it’s like to lay the foundation of the conversation because we’re going to be utilizing a term and a phrase that everybody may not be familiar with, or adapt different definitions. Western Pennsylvania users out there have different definitions for everything. That’s all I’ve been saying. All right. What are goals? What are goals set for workforce development? So and what I mean by that when you talk about the government and the government being different than the way corporations see employment opportunities, what is the government? What’s the differences? And like, what are those goals that the government has around workforce development?

Well, industry controls, employment and opportunities, right. So let’s just start there. And when you look at the entire ecosystem, and that’s all people, it’s just not workforce and ecosystem. The ecosystem starts with economic development, professional development, workforce, workforce development, system development, and program development. And it’s just not one entity controlling everything. It’s actually an all hands on deck approach to it. Employers have opportunities. And in some cases, government needs to help those individuals that have been left behind provide services and resources and opportunities to get to opportunities that these employers have. So they have to work together. And in some cases, the language in which the corporate or industries use and the language that the government uses sometimes doesn’t meet up where it needs to be. And that’s really a part of my work, making sure that those language barriers are broken. And those opportunities are felt that just for the job seekers, but also for the corporations, because corporations have barriers to hiring people at times for various different reasons, and connecting to the right audience and the other way around as well. So both ends have barriers, and I try my best to mend those. Above it.

Thank you. Thank you for for breaking that down up. When we previously talked, we talked about the ecosystem. And I thought it was a fantastic way to really describe what’s going on around employment, because like you said, we often think in silos of employment. But in over like you said, an ecosystem, this is what it really can look like it really does and how it functions. So now that you we’ve talked about the ecosystem, and those parties within it, when it comes to to the work you do, let’s talk about working with employers on a on a basis. And the employer has a goal, what are some common goals that an employer has? And how does how do you help bridge what the employers goals are to the talent that you have in western Pennsylvania?
Well, I have four pillars that I use, but Ness when I engage in the audience doesn’t matter if it’s an employer, institution, other institutions of influence. And it’s my four pillars would be one, active listening, listening to observation, three asking the right questions, and for meeting them where they are in their conversation. I never assume that they know what I know or assume they know what they’re talking about. If I assume that I would not be serving them, well, I could let them go down this this narrow path of a disservice not just to their company and to their employees, but also to job seekers. I began with that, and I asked, I put them through like a triage session or I would say an assessment. And I will see where they are. What are you looking to do? And some employers will say, you know, we’re going to workforce development, and I said, Okay, great. What do you mean about workforce development? Okay, we know we hire people, and we train them on a job and we create pathways for them to become managers or leading to other interests that they may have once they’re on the team, like Coke K, there they are hired first right to say yes. So okay, what you want to do you want to mobilize a workforce, you want to qualify people already. And then once you have them, or you want to board them, you provide the necessary training to help them along within the company. And then if they want to become managers you provide provide professional development services to them, to upskill them say, Yes, well, you’re not developing a workforce. You’re not developing the workforce, because developing a workforce is outside of your company. You’re not helping anyone outside of your company, get into your company, you’re helping your, your, your team, your staff, your employees. So there’s a difference. And then once they say, Oh, wow, I didn’t know that that’s okay. That’s why I’m here. This is why I asked you these questions. So how can I help you with recruitment, that’s an activity, and you have HR for that, let’s see what they practice. Let’s start there.

I, I love how you broke down how organizations think they’re doing workforce development, when they really aren’t doing workforce development. And, and really taking a step back, there’s a huge gap in in that space. And what I mean is, oftentimes employers like, Oh, we’re going to look for talent. But once it’s in house, we’re development. That’s not workforce development. And then you have organizations that are truly like yours, and others, that are training people, training people to get these jobs, with with employers. But what is interesting is so many industries are talking about the shortage of talent. And they, the companies are talking about it, they’re talking about the shortage of talent not come out of construction, where right now they’re short, 404, over 440,000 people just today in this time, but most of the companies you look at are not doing workforce development. They’re like, we’re just going to take them from other places, which doesn’t solve anybody’s problem. But then we have you doing the workforce development part of it. And so my question is, for organizations that see, they have gaps in or talent gaps right now. Within their industries, what should they be doing? To try to close that? Because they can’t hire it, they can’t hire the foreign to 44,000 people, they don’t exist with that skill set. So what should they be doing? So that a brain that $300 million, to their to their region or to the US overall? What should they be doing? Because that is a huge question. And it’s not just just construction, I just know what construction is looking for. And we have it’s still intact when it comes to software developers. So what are things that organizations should be doing, that they aren’t really doing right now to help with that, that gap in their industries?

The first thing they should do is revisit their job descriptions. You will be surprised that a lot of job descriptions are outdated. Right? The language is outdated. So if someone is looking for a position, and they’re putting the new language in the search engine, and you’re still using old language, it’s not going to pull up on, you know, on or on or in the job search. That’s number one. The other one is the hiring practices. Are you still hiring or using the same process or processes that you haven’t in the past? So you haven’t you have evolved in your approach to hiring. Are you still reaching in the same bucket that you had been for the last 510 1520 years? Those buckets may have dried up. The other would be since you use construction. I’m assuming that you’re saying union union companies, when I work with them and let them know all the time, you really don’t have a shortage. They say yes, we do. I said well if you had a shortage, what are you doing, to change it, promoting what you have, and then still keeping the same standard or criteria of, of onboarding? I’m those individuals looking to get into the union with a sliding scale. I said, if it was really a crisis, you would adjust that to start. And they’re not willing to adjust that. That’s what they do, they’re always going to take in whatever number that they’re going to take in, say, for carpenters, the stones, no route there, if there’s going to take in 400, they only want to take in 400, no matter 4000 Apply. And there’s still a sliding scale. So when you say you need something, like you need air, right, and you’re drowning, you’re gonna do everything you can to get to the surface, right? But they’re not doing that. And that goes across all industries, when they say certain things like, what are you doing to breathe? Are you doing everything to breathe? Like, no, guess what? You’re unbothered?

Yes. They’re comfortable complaining and not making changes. And we’ve seen it in tech, they say, oh, we need so many software developers. So all of these software development boot camps popped up. But they’re still requiring entry level people to have two to three years of experience, like hold up, you said you wish you had a shortage of people. But you don’t want to change your internal processes to hire people come out of out of boot camps. So you like you say you really don’t have a shortage. Because if you did, you would be developing these programs internally partnering with these external organizations to create programs that easily brings in new, newly trained developers, and they aren’t doing that we’ve seen in construction is the article and I gave my feedback on LinkedIn, where they finally hit a million women in construction working in construction. Construction is centuries old, right? Dolly hit a million women. That’s how you knew somebody was desperate enough to change how they were hiring to get a milk. I can tell you, I worked in the industry for 12 years, they changed significantly somebody or some organizations order to get that a million women finally, and you’re like, Wow, that’s a lot. It truly is winning.

It’s not it’s not it’s not and and I would further stretch that to say, construction is, you know, there’s a lot of different moving pieces and construction. So when I say they’re in construction, does that mean that they’re you know, the general contractors are like laborers, or vendors or consultants. Foreman’s obviously break it down for me, so I can see what’s right, who’s taking it carpentry taking in more sheet metal, bro workers, like, let’s see that data to see actually who who is doing phenomenal work, and then applying those practices across the entire industry to increase their numbers to get that 1 million to 10 million. That’s how I approach things.

I love it. I love it. Let’s, let’s dig into that. So you’re saying okay, no, no, I think it’s really important. Because as we talk to on an industry level, as we’re talk, as you’re talking to employers, right? You’re gonna say, hey, we, you know, I was researching how construction hit their first 1 million women, and you’re having the same issues in software development. What I found was, it was specifically carpentry that was able to 10x, the number of women that that increased and hit help hit that $1 billion mark $1 million, 1 million women in construction mark, and this is what they did you have that framework that was use and say, Hey, why don’t we utilize this frame? They utilize this framework. Let’s see how we can you create a similar one for what you’re doing in this area? And literally understanding how data plays into that? Because I think a lot of people see the article, like, and I knew, like you knew like, oh, no, there’s so much going on. Going through it start like well, what questions do I have, and what companies are hiring. And so when I look at software development, and I’m talking to women that have come out of boot camps, and then I was like, I don’t know where to get a job, I said, find out what boot campers who previously went through this program, search for them and see who hired them, number one, number two, look at other boot camps and see what companies hired their graduates. And because that’s really, those are really the companies and organizations that are going that are that are generally invested are willing to take the risk and acid air quotes on there. And we aren’t seeing a lot of that done and this is this is what I believe is why Organizations love to complain. They don’t like to be held accountable. Yes. And so I want to talk about how are you utilizing some of that data, as you’re working with these organizations to help them be accountable for the goals and missions they have for workforce development.

If it’s if it’s strictly workforce development, or getting someone hired, you know, their hiring practices, there’s two different approaches in a workforce development space, that’s like your boot camps, and your other training programs was within the space. So let’s just use tech, for example. They are saying that they are training in these different skills upskilling these individuals and they receive a national or state certification. I see. Okay, that’s, that’s fantastic. That’s great. How does someone qualify to being your program? What’s what’s, what’s the qualifications? What impact do you really want to have? Right? Don’t answer those questions. I’ll say, okay, great. Once a one has completed the program successfully. Who are your partnering employers? If you tell me one, I said, Okay, you got one. Are they? Are they active in your program to say yes, okay, great. So I say, all right. How big are your classes with cohorts? Oh, we have 20. Okay, we have 2020 participants. And these cohorts. Okay, how many do you have per year? We have three. Okay, so you have 60 people coming through your program? Okay. What’s your attrition rate?

Right. Now, what do you mean? Okay, let me say it this way, what’s your graduation rate? What’s that number? Right? They’ll say, you know, 90%, that’s great. The ones that fell off? Do you communicate with them to see why they thought it program? Yes, no, whatever they may say. So can you one employer, and you’ve seen that percent? So let’s just say average number at a 60. It’s the same 5050 graduates are 50 of the have graduated, or all 50 gone to that one employer? Going to that one employer? is like, no. Okay, how many? You’re getting employed? Five, okay, so you have 45 people, and the other 10 without employment. So why don’t we have more employers? Well, we didn’t, you didn’t do you didn’t do the research, or you didn’t care. Because if your program is six weeks, eight weeks, two months, or whatever, these attend attendees, or students, were expecting something out of it, especially the ones that completed. So you have a connectivity issue, you need more employer partners in your pipeline. You received your money, but there’s no reward, or the other individual that went through your program for employment opportunities. So what can I do wrong? Well, you can start out working with your local Workforce Board and doing your own outreach to tech companies in the region. Start there, sell them your curriculum, and ask them if your curriculum aligns with your curriculum and if not, what’s missing? And are they willing to at least interview, at least interview your graduating class. And on top of that, you need to count or follow not count, but you need to follow up with those who’ve who dropped out of the program and found out why they dropped down. Perhaps she needs some type of supportive services or wraparound services to support them. Maybe they lost their their internet, what are the services out there’s organizations that do that, if you need that assistance, I can help you with that as well. So let’s make this 100% opposed to your fat people, no percentage that is of 60. But let’s increase the overall outcome. Impact 200% 90% that bare minimum, so I’ll walk them through these processes, right, and I engage them that way to ensure that they know that there are entities out there and not just wrong that provides the services for greater impact.

I love it. I love it. Thank you so much for breaking that down. We are unfortunately out of time. But how can people connect with you because the approach that you’re taking because we have a lot of people listening and watching who are on the employer side and trying to figure out how to they fill those voids. So how can people connect with you to learn more about what you’ve done and what you’re doing with workforce development in western Pennsylvania?

See, the easiest way would be through LinkedIn. I get so many emails at work, I’ll probably wouldn’t see it. And I’ll let my team go through my emails and discern which ones I should read which way they should. But I will say LinkedIn would be the best. I do check that religiously throughout the day. And I didn’t make a lot of connections through here using that platform, so I will say LinkedIn, Ron Perkins.
All right, Ron, we will jump drop Brian’s LinkedIn in the chat for y’all to connect with him. Ron, again, thank you so much for joining us today. This has been fantastic. Learning more about workforce development where where the gaps are, and how employers can improve connecting and really developing talent within your region.

So have a great day and enjoy the weather out in Pittsburgh because it’s about to be October so it should be snowing soon. Thank you. You’re welcome. All right, everybody that was Ron