Hartford Business Journal

10 Hartford Business Journal • December 23, 2019 • www.HartfordBusiness.com By Matt Pilon mpilon@hartfordbusiness.com H ere's a Connecticut puzzle no one's quite been able to solve: Companies in key industries, like manu- facturing, struggle to find the right skill sets for open jobs, as the aging workforce heads toward retirement and the state's population flatlines. Colleges face stagnant enroll- ment and growing uncertainty from students and parents about what economic returns they might expect from the ever-increasing cost of a degree. A broad swath of workers and un- employed struggle to attain new skills and upward mobility as the state's economy continues to underperform the rest of the nation with another recession potentially looming. Meantime, throwing money at the problem is a limited option, as massive and fixed legacy costs eat up a big chunk of the state budget. Any ideas? For the most part, these monu- mental, intricately linked challenges, aren't new or unique to Connecticut. But there's a growing consensus that the solutions must be. That's what led Gov. Ned Lamont to recently launch the newly recon- stituted and renamed Governor's Workforce Council, with the goal of crafting a more coordinated and sustained workforce-development plan for Connecticut. Loaded with high-profile CEOs from Stanley Black & Decker, Electric Boat, The Hartford and elsewhere, the 24-member council — some ver- sion of which exists in every state as a vehicle to obtain federal funding — will advise the governor on the state's workforce strategy and investments. Though Connecticut already boasts a relatively desirable worker pool with highly educated residents, there's room for improvement, said Garrett Moran, a former Blackstone private equity executive and work- force-training entrepreneur who Lamont named as council chair. Moran warns that most states are approaching workforce chal- lenges with an urgency Connecti- cut must match if it doesn't want to lose ground. "It really is not good enough to do it the way you did it before, even if you do an A-plus job," he said of the myriad players in the state's workforce-development orbit, including K-12 and technical schools, employers, community and four-year colleges, career cen- ters and regional workforce boards. "Fundamentally, we have to think differently about how we partner and what is expected of us. "Business is moving fast to keep up with technology, and education is trying to do the same and it's lagging. It's no one's fault. We're not set up for this level of speed." The state's workforce-devel- opment machinery consists of a broad array of agencies and service providers that collaborate to vary- ing extents to match worker supply with employer demand. While the overarching aims are similar, the entities sometimes have differ- ing funding sources, missions and performance metrics. The state's official workforce-devel- opment "system of systems," as some have called it, is largely built on a federal chassis, one designed to draw tens of millions of federal dollars each year to fund training and assistance programs that place the greatest focus on low-income, underemployed and skills-deficient residents. The workforce council will focus on those federally funded elements, but also aims to go much broader, bringing state funding and a deeper network of collaborators together to focus on in-demand industries and skill sets. Lamont has asked the council to fo- cus on data-driven outcomes, reduce the cost of education and training for workers, speed up the design and launch of new training programs to meet emerging needs, and place a greater emphasis on lifelong learning. The workforce council convened its first meeting in November at Southern Connecticut State Univer- sity and spent about two hours lis- tening to presentations from agency heads, business executives and col- lege presidents about existing train- ing efforts, what data is collected and tracked, and funding challenges. Kicking off the meeting with brief remarks, Lamont called Connecticut "the Silicon Valley of manufacturing" and praised its education system as one of the greatest in the world. But the pace of change is rapid, he said. He noted that in Stamford, where UBS once had the world's largest trading floor, WWE is moving into the space with its digital-produc- tion operations. "The world is changing," said Lamont, who stayed for the whole meeting. "And I've got to make sure we have the skill sets here to make sure employers want to come to Connecticut." Moran's vision of the future is a growing state where employers can find the talent they need when they need it, and where there's a clear strategy in place for attracting and keeping employers and workers here. "When people come to visit Con- necticut, they walk away saying 'these guys are going places and they have a plan,' " he said. "That's the way I dream about what we're trying to do." The council will likely call on law- makers to fund new or expanded programs, including some ideas poached from other states, but it can't all be about money. Filling the Gap All-star CEO roster hopes to solve CT's workforce-development puzzle Gov. Ned Lamont addresses his newly renamed Governor's Workforce Council, which has more than 40 appointed and ex-officio members. To his left are council chairman Garrett Moran and vice chair Kelli-Marie Vallieres. PHOTO | CONTRIBUTED

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