The Aspen Institute’s Workforce Strategies Initiative (WSI) has been studying sectoral initiatives for more than a decade, with a particular focus on strategies with the potential to positively affect the employment situation of low-income workers. WSI’s research and evaluation work has placed us in a unique position to observe and collect data from a range of institutional players in the sectoral workforce development field.

WSI always has recognized that sectoral employment initiatives have a broad set of objectives and strategies. Over time, our body of research has progressed from an initial focus on documenting outcomes for program participants, to work that: further identifies the core elements of sector practice; examines models for collaboration; understands the necessary leadership competencies demanded by the field and provides related training opportunities; and develops methods for assessing business outcomes accrued to employer partners.

Our Beginnings
In November 1995, the Aspen Institute published “Jobs and the Urban Poor: Privately Initiated Sectoral Strategies.” Recognizing that sectoral employment development was an emerging approach to improving the labor market opportunities available to low-income individuals, the publication took an in-depth look at four sector programs and depicted ways in which workforce organizations across the country were successfully employing sector strategies on behalf of low-income people. Beginning in 1997, under the Sectoral Employment Development Learning Project (SEDLP), a 4½-year study was conducted of the outcomes, strategies and industry relationships resulting from the work of six sector programs. SEDLP gathered longitudinal participant outcomes data that ultimately began to reveal that sector strategies had great potential for advancing the fortunes of lower-wage workers. The early successes demonstrated through SEDLP led the Aspen Institute to establish the Workforce Strategies Initiative as a vehicle for further study and support of this promising approach.

The Field Evolves and Grows
Since the mid-1990s, there has been a substantial increase in the number of sectoral employment development initiatives, as well as in the range of actors involved and strategies employed. Some 10 years after the publication of “Jobs and the Urban Poor,” WSI sought to gain a fresh picture of the size and scope of the sector field, and to document key elements of the sector strategy. In 2005-2006, WSI spoke with more than 50 leaders of workforce initiatives that apply a sectoral approach to their work, and in 2007 published “Sectoral Strategies for Low-Income People: Lessons From the Field,” along with program profiles and a paper that discusses a role for funders in supporting systems change efforts. To further support the ongoing effort to document sector work and related outcomes, WSI is assisting Public/Private Ventures in an effort to measure outcomes experienced by participants of sector training program as part of P/PV’s Sectoral Employment Impact Study (SEIS).

Conducting Program Evaluations
Since its creation, WSI has conducted several evaluations of sectoral initiatives. Through these evaluations, we have studied the way in which programs operate and the range of partners they engage in their work.

• WSI and the Urban Institute collaboratively evaluated the U.S. Department of Labor’s Sectoral Employment Development Demonstration Project from September 2002 through December 2003. The Evaluation of the Sectoral Employment Demonstration Program: Final Report (published June 2004) discusses grantee strategies and progress in using the sector approach to engage local businesses and meet their needs, to identify and address needs of specific segments of the labor force, and to support the overall health of the targeted sector. The final evaluation report is accompanied by a separate volume that profiles the work of each of the grantees. The evaluation built on work by WSI and the National Network of Sector Partners in 2002 to conduct an interim review of the progress made by the grantees. Results of the interim evaluation are available in the report: Mid-Project Review: The Department of Labor Sectoral Employment Development Demonstration (published May 2002).
• Also in 2002, WSI began a two-year evaluation of the Flint Healthcare Employment Opportunities Project (FHEO), which was designed to both address the chronic unemployment and underemployment experienced by residents of Flint, Mich., and the health care industry’s workforce development shortages. The evaluation itself yielded important lessons about the inherent challenges of bringing multiple partners together to guide and operate a sectoral initiative.
• More recently, WSI completed an evaluation of the National Association of Manufacturers’ Manufacturing Institute’s “Building the Employer Infrastructure for Sectoral Strategies Initiative,” begun in 2003, which followed two industry trade associations as they worked to build and support the expansion of local sectoral workforce development strategies, and sought to gain a better understanding of the potential role of industry trade associations in sector work.

Researching the Employer-side of the Labor Equation
Armed with a growing body of information about the benefits sectoral programs impart to trainees, WSI perceived an increased need for methods to track and describe the benefits employers receive from workforce initiatives. As a result, beginning in 2003, WSI led nine sectoral workforce organizations and their business clients, in a two-year learning group, to develop feasible guidelines and methods for assessing results from the business perspective. This effort resulted in the Business Value Assessment (BVA) framework and toolkit for practitioners.

Supporting the Field through Leadership Development and Capacity Building
Early findings about sector programs stimulated planning and implementation of new initiatives by a variety of institutions such as community colleges, Workforce Investment Boards, industry consortia and community-based organizations. The range of strategies and types of resources used to implement sector initiatives also had broadened as the field continued to evolve and innovate. Noting this growth, WSI and its partners in the field began to see an expanding need for leadership development opportunities to sustain, strengthen and grow the field as older initiatives mature and newer sectoral approaches emerge throughout the country. Together with Public/Private Ventures (P/PV) and the National Network of Sector Partners, WSI conducted interviews, surveys and focus groups to document the range of competencies needed by sector leaders and to design a training mechanism for the field. The Sector Skills Academy was developed out of this research. WSI now partners with P/PV to run the Academy, an annual fellowship opportunity designed to provide emerging leaders in the sectoral workforce development field with an experiential learning environment, geared toward advancing their present and future work. The Academy provides approximately 25 participants per year with mentoring, technical assistance, and peer support designed to help them acquire and enhance their professional skills.

WSI also has worked to build the field’s capacity by creating resources and tools for sector practitioners through projects such as the Communications Initiative on Industry-Specific Workforce Development, and the Business Value Assessment learning group.

What’s Next
WSI’s newest work focuses on understanding the way in which community and technical colleges can work in partnership with community-based sector initiatives to address the special supports low-income adults need while they work and learn, and subsequently help them make employment advances. The Courses to Employment: Sectoral Approaches to Community College-Nonprofit Partnerships project involves a three-year demonstration, beginning in 2008, that is designed to support efforts between community colleges and community-based organizations that employ sectoral employment development principles in their work with low-income adults.

In 2007, WSI began conducting research on innovative approaches to integrating workforce and economic development functions at the local level. This research will lead to a paper discussing public sector-led work to align approaches to serving businesses’ need for skilled labor with efforts to increase economic opportunities for low-wage workers.