One Stop Activities

Alliance for Workforce Development. Inc. Charts New Direction for 2007-2008

Alliance for Workforce Development, Inc. (AFWD) has started 2007-2008 with a renewed emphasis on the business first philosophy, as embraced by the Northern California Rural Training and Employment Consortium, NoRTEC. The business first approach places the highest priority on serving the human resource needs of small businesses. As more business customers are pleased with the services received from the One-Stops, including recruiting assistance, the more job orders they bring to the One-Stops. And more job orders bring in more job seekers, which increase the applicant pool available to employers. It’s a win, win situation for small business and job seekers. Our motto is, “Serving businesses to serve job seekers.”

Alliance for Workforce Development, Inc.’s new Executive Director, Ms. Traci L. Holt, is very committed to the business first philosophy, and along with the AFWD Board of Directors, has worked diligently to reorganize the operations of the company to implement procedures that meet the needs of businesses. AFWD offers its services in four counties including Lassen, Plumas, Sierra, and Modoc, an area covering over 13,000 sq miles. AFWD truly believes that the business (employer) is the primary customer in the workforce development system.

NoRTEC has been extremely supportive of AFWD efforts, facilitating training to all staff with the goal of increasing the client base, and matching job seekers to employers, resulting in successful workforce development.

The results so far have been very impressive. More employers are utilizing AFWD’s human resource services and the requests for job order posting and customized recruitments are growing each week. Customized recruitments range from accepting applications for the employer, to pre screening, interviewing, and reference checking. In addition, the numbers of job seekers coming to the One-Stops continues to grow. Currently AFWD has an applicant pool of close to 300 job seekers looking for work. That’s the kind of pool that employers are eager to tap. The bottom line is that people are obtaining satisfying jobs in the communities in which they live, and our businesses are getting the employees they are looking for.

 

AFWD Attends Annual Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) Conference

Held in beautiful Las Vegas, NV on June 24 though June 27, 2007, the 59th SHRM annual conference, was the largest gathering of human resource professionals in the world to date.

During the 4-day event, over 20,000 attendees gathered to listen to motivational speakers including the keynote speaker, Lance Armstrong who talked about his battle with cancer and his founding of the Lance Armstrong Foundation created to assist people fighting cancer.

Alliance for Workforce Development Inc.’s Director of Business Services, Holly Schirmer attended this year’s conference to learn about the latest in human resource trends, legislative updates, resources available to HR professionals, and to enhance her knowledge, skills and abilities in the HR field. “The SHRM conference offers the most comprehensive and relevant professional programs. Attendance at the conference improved my knowledge, skills and abilities as an HR professional, in a capacity that will serve AFWD business and job seeker clients.”

In addition to speakers, the conference offered a full range of session on HR topics ranging from effective recruiting, managing a diverse workforce, HR law update, HR's role in strategic planning, preventing discrimination in the workplace, compensation programs, and employee handbooks.

SHRM’s mission statement is to: serves the needs of the human resource management professional by providing the most essential and comprehensive set of resources available. In addition, the Society is committed to advancing the human resource profession and the capabilities of all human resource professionals to ensure that HR is an essential and effective partner in developing and executing organizational strategy.

For further information on SHRM please visit www.shrm.org

 

 

Team Member Earns SHRM Certificate

Roberta Moore, a HR Consultant at AFWD Lassen recently received a certificate of completion for Essentials of Human Resource Management by the Society for Human Resource Management and the Northern California Human Resources Association. The seminar took place in Dublin, CA July 18th and 19th. During which time she received training on key HR roles and responsibilities and different HR efforts. The course also covered employment law in the workplace, ensuring legal compliance throughout the organization, effective recruitment and selection techniques, basics of compensation, orienting and training employees to ensure a good start with effective employee orientation, and ensuring quality performance.

Business Services Off to Great Start

The Business Services Team in Lassen County have been very busy since July 1, 2007. The following list represents all businesses in which the team has collected applications and conducted pre-screening activities. Way to go Team!!!

Our Newest Registered Nurse in Chester, California is

Deborah Hulsey!

Being a single mother is a difficult thing, especially in today’s economy. However, for Deborah Hulsey, she was determined to upgrade her skills in order to make a better life for her and her family.

She decided to attend Butte Community College’s RN Upgrade program since she had worked as a Licensed Vocation Nurse for a few years and had an interest and desire to upgrade her skills to become a Registered Nurse.

With the help of Alliance for Workforce Development, Inc., Deborah succeeded in obtaining her RN license. Deborah does not feel she could have successfully completed the program without the help of AFWD. She is now working for Seneca Hospital in Chester, California as a Registered Nurse.

Congratulations to Deborah for succeeding in her life long goal of becoming a Registered Nurse!

Another Great Success Story.......

Jackie Greenaway had been a client enrolled in our Adult program for several months looking for a job. She had worked with Vocational Rehabilitation and was retrained in the occupation of horticulture. She found that work to be seasonal and very physical therefore wanted to go back into a clerical field. She has great skills. She is a previous business owner of a tri-level business. Her job search lasted about 7 months with us at Alliance for Workforce Development, Inc. During which time she attended numerous workshops and was actively checking our job board and word of mouth for job leads. She finally received a job offer with Northeastern Rural Health Clinics that she couldn’t pass up and has been happily working there since. Jackie wrote a letter of her appreciation to our organization which is posted.

This is an email we received from Jackie:

July 11, 2007

Alliance for Workforce Development, Inc.
2545 Main Street
Susanville, CA 96130
Attention: Bobbi Moore

Dear Alliance for Workforce Development, Inc.,

I wanted to take this opportunity to "thank everyone" in your organization who was involved in my employment search. The experience was enlightening and positive. The resources and staff at A.F.W.D. are a great asset to anyone involved in active employment search. The multi faceted resources your organization has to offer, had surpassed any expectations to my knowledge. The experiences I have personally encountered with A.F. W. D., have been very educational and have inspired me to reach the fullest potential of my abilities for employment.
The "Job Search Workshops* held at A.F.W.D., were a helpful tool in my employment search. I want to give a special "thank you" to Bobbi Moore. Ms. Moore was very in tune and focused on my needs for furthering my skills and accomplishments to become gainfully employed. Again "thank you" to all for your help.



Temporary Job Creation Project Continues

Participants are working for the Temporary Job Creation program funded by the Nation Emergency Grant, providing road maintenance work to assist with storm damage repair and program monitoring oversight. Highways 395, 139 and 36 in Lassen County are being worked on. The damage from the storms was so extensive and covered a large area of Lassen County. Without the help of the TJC program, Cal Trans would not have been able to make as much progress on the storm damage throughout Lassen County.

TJC Workers on a storm clean up project.

 

To learn more about what we can do for you, contact your local One-Stop Employment Center or visit www.afwdhr.org

PLUMAS WORK CONNECTION, 283-WORK

LASSEN CAREER NETWORK, 257-5057

MODOC EMPLOYMENT CENTER, 233-4161

SIERRA WORK CONNECTION, 993-4295