Both sides now: Toward the dual customer approach under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act in the United States

Abstract

The U.S. Congress passed the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act in 2014. Some constituencies may view the new law as a radical departure from earlier approaches to human capital development at a national level. Yet the workforce investment system under Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act is premised upon a dual customer approach to serve labor demand (employers) and labor supply (job seekers) concurrently. With the rhetoric about the jobs and skills debate, it is easy to take for granted what is at stake behind supply-and demanddriven approaches within a workforce system. This paper's review is intended to revisit the characteristics and clarify the roles of the two customers in workforce policy in the United States, identify potential concerns of one customer's dominance, and suggest some ways to complement this balancing act. As a result of this analysis, one can potentially see both sides of the vision behind an integrated workforce development system.

Creating an Employment Collaborative

“…This type of one sided relationship can be difficult to maintain over a long period of time. The end result becomes the unfortunate utilization of a business engagement strategy that is in direct opposition to the dual customer model of business engagement as defined in the literature (Dell Valle et al, 2014;Holland, 2016;Simonsen, Fabian, Buchanan, & Luecking, 2011;Wehman, Revell, & Brook, 2003).…”

The design and uses of an employability index to evaluate the vertical workforce development process

“…The barriers identified in this table are drawn from the earlier work of Holland () which called for a return back to a balanced, more client‐centric, supply‐side approach to workforce development. The proposed scaling of the respective barriers is introduced in this paper.…”

“…This paper introduces the notion of an employability index as an innovative measurement that goes beyond the conventional “placement, earnings and credential” outcomes framework that is currently used to evaluate publicly‐funded human capital programs. What is argued here is that the inclusion of employability as an outcome metric could be used to evaluate the process of workforce development and potentially influence the redesign of the public workforce system toward a client‐centric approach that addresses and renews an emphasis on the needs of job seekers (Holland ; Blanchard ).…”

Leveraging the Workforce Innovation & Opportunity Act (WIOA) to Help Finance College & University Career Centers

“…WIA focuses on interagency collaboration to help job seekers obtain employment (Cohen & Fesko, 2005). The WIOA program has two key stakeholders: employers and job seekers (Holland, 2016). The term "One-Stop Career Center" was the name for the federal workforce development system's career centers before their recently revised name Paid training is offered to job seekers so they can acquire new skills to meet the industry workforce demands (S. Calvert, personal communication, April 4, 2018); training is industry recognized and considered "market-driven education" (Shaw & Rab, 2003).…”

“…WIOA focuses on enrollments, employment outcomes, and median earning (Ginn, 2015). In earlier proposals when transitioning from WIA to WIOA, the three populations of job seekers were to be consolidated into one allotment, however, currently they remain separated as three different populations/allotments (Holland, 2016) reporting a common set of performance indicators (Ginn, 2015).…”