The Business Value Assessment Toolkit was developed in cooperation with a learning group of nine sectoral employment development programs and their business customers. These programs represented two broad industry sectors – health care and manufacturing. Facilitated and assisted by WSI staff, the programs and businesses worked intensively and collaboratively to develop and test specific methods to document the business value of their workforce training and services.  Funded by the Charles Stewart Mott and Ford foundations, in 2003 the group began developing and testing a new Business Value Assessment framework, determining relevant and practical measures, and testing tools for implementing test case assessments. During the course of this project, the learning group emphasized the need for the methods to be practical and the final measures to have direct relevance to the businesses’ interests.

Business Value Assessment Learning Group Participants
The Business Value Assessment Learning Group was comprised of nine sectoral employment development initiatives working in the health care and manufacturing industries. Each program invited one or two of its key employer partners to work together with WSI researchers to develop and test the BVA tool. The participating business representatives were customers of the sector programs’ incumbent worker training, career advancement, counseling and other developmental services, or had hired new workers trained by the sector program.

More information about each of these participants can be found on their websites. Click on their name below to be redirected to these sites.

HEALTH CARE INITIATIVES & EMPLOYER PARTNERS

MANUFACTURING INITIATIVES & EMPLOYER PARTNERS

Boston Health Care and Research Training Institute with Children's Hospital Boston • Boston, Mass. Boston Private Industry Council with Partners HealthCare Radiology Departments • Boston, Mass. Jewish Vocational Services with UCSF Medical Center • San Francisco, Calif. Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute with Home Care Associates • Bronx, N.Y. and Philadelphia, Pa. Tucson Medical Center U. with Tucson Medical Center HealthCare • Tucson, Ariz.

Univ. of S. Maine Pathways to Higher Education Program with Barber Foods • Portland, Maine Jane Addams Resource Corp. with S&C Electric Co. and Dudek & Bock Spring Manufacturing Co. • Chicago, Ill. New Century Careers with Superbolt, Inc. and Curtiss-Wright Electro-Mechanical Corporation • Pittsburgh/Cheswick, Pa. Teamworks, Inc. with TEAM Industries, Inc. and Lamb Weston-RDO • Northern Minn.