Skills for Chicagoland’s Future has identified the key components needed to build a flexible, demand-driven intermediary that can both deliver value to business partners and move unemployed and underemployed talent into jobs.
1. Focus 100% on Demand
SCF begins by working with the employer partner company to determine their workforce needs. With this need in mind, a solution plan is constructed to get to this outcome. SCF does not carry a case load of unemployed, but rather sources and creates a pool of unemployed and underemployed talent in the Chicagoland region based on the defined needs of businesses. Click here to learn more about SCF’s demand-driven approach.
2. Develop Business Executive Champions
Top down buy in is crucial to ensuring the company’s hiring needs remain aligned to the defined unemployed hiring goals and overall SCF services. At SCF, executive sponsorship is driven via a Board of Directors composed exclusively of business executives in the C-suite with a particular emphasis on CHROs. An executive sponsor is typically the target executor of the SCF commitment to hire agreement as well as the point of contact on initially internally championing the SCF initiative and driving towards results. Without this executive champion as an advocate, competing business priorities and the stigma of the unemployed can adversely affect the ability to execute the defined hiring commitments. Click here to learn more about potential employer partner engagement..
3. Make Public-Private Partnerships a Civic Priority
Bringing together numerous public sector, nonprofit and private sector leaders to collaborate was key to the design and launch of SCF. This level of support demonstrated that SCF’s mission was a civic priority and generated needed engagement in the business community. By engaging the community’s local leaders they become executive champions and the catalyst for change. Click here to learn more about partnerships..
4. Diversify Funding Mix
The flexibility and speed required to fulfill the hiring goals of businesses require access to diverse funding sources. Access to funds beyond WIA funding has been instrumental to the innovative and consultative business engagement work required to hire the unemployed. Click here to learn more about diversifying your funding mix.
5. Use Private Sector Hiring Practices & Consultative Approach
By design, SCF strives to utilize private sector hiring and sourcing practices that have been modified to find unemployed and underemployed talent. SCF’s consultative approach with employer partner companies allows the experienced SCF Client Services Team to understand hiring challenges and create customized solutions, rather than simply using a one size fits all approach. Click here to learn more about organizational structure.
6. Source from All Unemployed & Underemployed
SCF matches the most qualified unemployed and underemployed candidates to each employer partner company by extensively learning about the candidates. SCF sources from the entire unemployment and underemployment population, which includes those referred from WIBs and workforce centers, in addition to other sourcing strategies. Click here to learn more about candidate sourcing strategies.
