HOCKING COUNTY

JOB SERVICES CENTER

Business Plan:

A Service Guide for Employers

The Shoppes at West Front Street

389 W. Front Street

Logan, Ohio 43138

(740) 380-1545

(866) 882-9500 toll-free

(740) 380-2875 fax

Ohio’s One-Stop Strategy

Every Workforce Investment Area and Ohio Option Sub-Area have a comprehensive One-Stop system that meets the minimum criteria set forth by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. Ohio is committed to the implementation of One-Stop service delivery for employment and training programs. Funding was received from the U. S. Department of Labor to help pay for the one-time implementation costs associated with the transition to One-Stop service delivery. The Hocking County Job Services Center serves as a flagship and model of exactly how a One-Stop should function within its community.

One of the challenges that One-Stop career centers face is acquiring, installing, and operating the requisite state-of-the-art equipment needed to support their activities. The Hocking County Job Services Center has been created with extensive support of local community service agencies, businesses, and the Hocking County Commissioners. The Hocking County Job Services center has joined with Athens, Meigs, Perry and Vinton Counties to create a five county workforce delivery system known as 1-Stop Jobs.

Ohio’s One-Stop service delivery system has simplified and expanded access to services for Ohio citizens and businesses in a seamless delivery of services. Ohio offers universal access, customer choice, streamlined services, local flexibility, and increased accountability. Ohio’s One-Stop service delivery system is a valued, visible, and well-utilized resource in each community.

All Ohio citizens will be aware of and use their local One-Stop system for a variety of purposes, no matter what their interest or need. The system is relevant and used by everyone including parents and their children looking at occupational trends, pregnant teens needing various community services, employed people wanting to gain additional skills, retirees interested in part-time employment, students writing their first resume, and many more.

Local systems are encouraged to incorporate as many local partners as possible within their communities. In addition, a minimum set of core services must be universally available to all customers in each One-Stop site:

· customer oriented information on careers, labor markets, and the availability of quality training and education programs;

· testing and assessment;

· job openings, hiring requirements and referrals;

· job search assistance; and

· initial eligibility information on programs available in the community.

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A Service Guide for Employers

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Employers utilize the One-Stop system for purposes including on-site workshops, employee recruitment and screening, cross-industry strategic planning on future labor force needs, and a host of other services. Employer services will be available based on local needs of businesses and the economic and workforce development needs of the community. Up-to-date and user-friendly resources will be available depending on the customers needs.

Governance of the One-Stop systems at the state level is through the Governor’s Workforce Policy Board. The local governance structure to oversee the 1-Stop Jobs Workforce Development System is provided by a board comprised of business professionals and all mandatory program partners.

Hocking County Job Services Center

The purpose of the Hocking County Job Services Center is to continuously develop and deliver labor market clearinghouse services that meet the identified needs of job seekers, workers, employers, and community service providers. We will assist job seekers to find and keep a job by assuring that each individual receives needed training, education, focus, and guidance to find and keep the job for which they are best suited.

We will help area employers expand their businesses by supplying them with qualified workers equipped with the right skills to meet their industry-specific needs. We will support local economic growth, attracting jobs to the area by promoting and advertising the available, skilled workforce of Hocking County.

1) Why Do We Need the Job Services Center? Our purpose relates to friends, family, and neighbors–your community. The purpose relates to how your community intends to maintain its lifestyle over the next decades, in a global economy. Without this purpose, it is impossible for our community to stay on the competitive edge.

2) What Are Specialized Adaptable Skills for Workers? Staying competitive for an individual means surviving in a labor market where jobs are more broadly defined, yet specialized skills are needed. Workers need stronger basic, professional, technical, and job search skills that translate across employer and industry. They must develop specialized adaptable skills in response to quickly changing industries and workplaces. Specialized adaptable skills mean the skills need to be job specific and yet flexible for completing multiple tasks outside of singular job descriptions and, therefore, transferable across a variety of workplace settings.

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A Service Guide for Employers

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3) How Do These Skills Help Employers? For an employer this means producing a quality product/service, with a highly productive, adaptable, and a skilled workforce in a high performance work organization where outcomes are driven by customer and market demands. In a world economy, employers must react to more competitive and saturated markets. This means finding smaller niches, which in turn calls for quicker responses to fluctuating markets and more flexible workplaces. (Cappelli 1992)

4) Who Needs to Be Involved in Workforce Development? To avoid duplicate services, be cost efficient, and to succeed, it requires all the partners: economic developers, employers, social service providers, training and education providers, community-based organizations, public agencies, unions, and job seekers. It is for this reason that we have created an integrated, seamless delivery system to collaboratively serve in this effort. As a collaborative, evolving, and flexible system, it answers everyone’s needs by responding to the dynamics of a local labor market. Motivated by survival, the One-Stop approach will be used to continually develop real applicable services to the workforce and employers of Hocking County.

Employment Services

All employers who contact the Hocking County Job Services Center may request a single contact person who will help staff your facility with qualified workers. A Business Services Consultant is available daily to assist employers with the following employment needs:

1) Personnel services including recruitment, screening/interviewing of potential workers, and matching job openings to skilled applicants.

2) Providing on-line access to post a job opening (job order) independently or with the assistance of job service center staff.

3) Allowing employers to disclose or omit their identity to prospective employees.

4) Providing consulting services including local area labor market information and trends, business needs analysis, and financial hiring incentives.

5) Offering on-site staffing to assist employers with mass recruitments

and collection of applications.

6) Linkage to education and training resources to up-skill current workers.

7) Job retention services to new employees such as site visits to support the integration of the new worker into the existing workforce.

8) Assisting employers with services available at no cost.

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A Service Guide for Employers

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9) Meeting employer needs utilizing the flexibility to offer assistance in the Job Services Center or at the employer’s work site.

10) Preparation of employment documents such as employee manuals/handbooks or business plans.

11) Seminar presentations on employment-related topics such as wage and labor information, etc.

12) Individual and/or group testing and assessments to determine an applicant’s job skills, aptitudes, interests and values.

Assessments Available

A. Reading-Arithmetic Index–(RAI)

The Reading-Arithmetic Inventory (RAI) measures the job applicant’s level of development in reading and/or math computation. As with any selection tool, the RAI should be used in conjunction with other pre-employment screening tools.

1) The Reading Index contains 60 items that test an applicant’s ability to read and understand basic materials through to grade nine. The assessment is based on picture-word association, word decoding, comprehension of phrases, sentences, and paragraphs.

2) The Arithmetic Index contains 54 items that test ability to add, subtract, multiply, divide, and use fractions, decimals, and percentages to grade 8. The assessment is based on addition, subtraction of whole numbers, multiplication, division of whole numbers, basic operations involving fractions, and basic operations involving decimals and percentages.

B. Applicant Review

The Applicant Review was developed to address the issue and enable employers to screen dishonest applicants. Employee theft and violence in the workplace are two of the greatest problems facing businesses today. A recent survey of 745,000 business theft apprehensions revealed that the average value of property stolen by employees was $779. Unlike other honesty assessments, the Applicant Review is not offensive or ambiguous in the way in which it asks questions. It will not disqualify honest people by accident. As well, the test includes a unique Moral Reasoning component which enables it to differentiate between those who have internalized honesty and those who have not.

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A Service Guide for Employers

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The questionnaire is a four-page test, designed to measure the honesty/integrity and aggressive tendencies of job applicants without being intrusive. It provides valid, accurate and reliable data which meets the guidelines of the EEOC/ADA.

The test takes approximately 20-25 minutes to administer, minutes to score and the reports result in an easy-to-understand percentile score ranging from 0 to 99%.

C. Customer Services Skills Inventory–CSSI

The CSSI provides a system that will identify those who have the demeanor and aptitude to provide high quality customer service. This test will help you identify individuals with skills, behavior, and traits indicative of success in service-oriented positions. The test items were written to assess whether applicants: show a desire to help customers, understand and satisfy customer’s needs, cooperate with co-workers, put forth extra job efforts, and keep a reasonable balance between customer requests and company interests.

Designed for employers whose business depends on providing quality customer service, the CSSI helps identify job applicants who have the attitudes and aptitude to succeed in service positions. The Customer Service Skills Inventory can help employers: improve customer relations, encourage customer retention, reduce employee turnover and associated costs, increase employee productivity, and reduce employee theft.

The CSSI contains the following scales:

· Pressure Tolerance – employee does not lose control in the face of adversity and pressure.

· Realistic Orientation – makes realistic appraisals of what is doable and what is not.

· Time Appraisal – accomplishes things within time constraints and deadlines.

· Independent Judgment – measures whether an employee is afraid to make decisions.

· Responsiveness – pays immediate attention to customer problems and concerns.

· Sensitivity – shows flexibility to accommodate others

· Balanced Judgment – ascertains if an employee makes extreme or radical decisions.

· Precise Orientation – measurers an employee’s concern with precision and details.

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A Service Guide for Employers

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D. Tests of Adult Basic Education–(TABE)

The TABE can be used to provide a reliable estimate of an individual’s reading, mathematics, and language skills when subtest scores or specific objectives mastery information are not required.

The TABE is a normal-referenced test designed to measure achievement in reading, mathematics, language, and spelling – the subject areas commonly found in adult basic education curricula. TABE focuses on basic skills that are required to function in society. Because the tests combine the most useful characteristics of norm-referenced and criterion-referenced tests, they provide information about the relative ranking of examinees against a norm group as well as specific information about the instructional needs of examinees. The tests enable administrators to diagnose, evaluate, and successfully place examinees in adult education programs.

The TABE can be used to provide pre-instructional information

about an examinee’s level of achievement in basic skills, to identify areas of weakness in these skills, to measure growth in the skills after instruction, to involve the examinee in appraisal of his or her learning difficulties, and to assist in preparing an instructional program to meet the examinee’s individual needs.

Employers are invited to send an applicant or a group of applicants to the Hocking County Job Services Center for assessment testing. This service is provided free of charge to Hocking County employers.

A job seeker that visits the Hocking County Job Services Center can expect to receive the following employment services:

A. Information on careers, labor market trends, and information about the availability of quality training and education programs.

B. A listing of local, statewide, national and international job openings, hiring requirements, wage ranges and job requirements.

C. Job search assistance such as career counseling, job club, resume preparation, and development of interviewing skills.