VIRGINIA BOARD OF WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT

The Access & Equity Committee will focus on workforce development and employment of veterans and transitioning service members on reducing process and qualification barriers to training and employment services.

The Access & Equity Committee will, in consultation with other committees and the Board, recommend policy, budget, and administrative action to the Governor to improve jobs attainment for Virginia’s veterans and their spouses as well as access to qualified veterans for Virginia businesses. This committee will recommend ways to better align the multiple and diverse programs and forms of assistance available to veterans so as to improve outcomes in education and training, credential attainment, and employment.

The Committee will recommend policy and administrative action to expedite pathways for veterans into regionally available, well paying jobs. The committee will be concerned with all aspects of transition from military to civilian employment and will call upon a number of agencies and programs to assist in its work. Specific tasks, required by statute for discussion and relevant to this committee, include a focus on workforce development and employment of veterans and on reducing process and qualification barriers to training and employment services.

The Business Engagement Committee has a focus on high technology workforce training needs and skills attainment solutions through sector strategies, career readiness, and career pathways.

The Business Engagement Committee will, in consultation with other committees and the board, recommend policy, budget, and administrative action to the Governor to better align the needs of current and emerging industry sectors with the education and training programs and support services afforded to the emerging, transitional, and incumbent workforce.

Elements from the Board’s Strategic plan specifically assigned to this committee include:

• Identify and endorse a list of High Priority Occupations to include those in high demand, those that are strategic to Virginia’s economic development interests, and those that pay a self-sustaining wage

• Gather and disseminate business intelligence on jobs in high-demand for which there is a critical shortage. Lead and convene Industry Workforce Roundtables, to enhance our understanding of changing labor market trends and skills requirements

• Create a list of common competencies and describe the foundational skills of work readiness, endorse strategies to learn skills including work experience, and work based learning.

This committee will focus on education and business partnerships at all levels to ensure that workforce and education credential attainment is commensurate to the demand for those credentials.

This is the committee that will look at long-term as well as short-term development of Virginia’s workforce: from K-12 to adult and higher education. To expand successful models of business-education partnerships that expand workforce pipelines in critical industry sectors, this committee will strategize increasing business engagement, incentivizing public-private partnerships, and developing or expanding programming to meet evolving industry needs. This committee will identify strategies for filling critical skills shortages in high priority occupations in sectors identified as Virginia’s economic development targets.

In addition to a focus on occupationally specific training, this committee will drive recommendations and policy for enhancing career readiness in participants at all levels of education and training, including creating strategies for improving and expanding Virginia’s Career Readiness Certificate program.

Specific tasks, required by statute for discussion and relevant to this committee, include; identifying current and emerging statewide workforce needs of the business community; forecasting and identifying training requirements for the new workforce; recommending strategies that will match trained workers with available jobs to include strategies for increasing business engagement in education and workforce development; providing recommendations on the development of the Commonwealth’s Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education plan and other key education and workforce plans so as to better align the objectives and outcomes of all such plans to the Governor’s Workforce Agenda.

The Operations Committee will work to accomplish the federally mandated requirements of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act.

The Operations committee will serve as the “front line” for developing and revising policy to strengthen the performance of Local Workforce Development Boards (LWDBs) and Virginia’s network of One-Stop Centers.

The committee will also, in consultation with other committees and the Board, recommend policy to the Governor to strengthen partnerships between LWDBs and business and industry, education and training, human services and community based organizations, and economic development partners.

The Operations committee will strive to create and recommend policy that will strengthen the ability of LWDBs to act as regional conveners for collaborative workforce solutions.

Specific tasks, required by statute for discussion and relevant to this committee, include: creating procedures, quality standards, guidelines, and directives applicable to local workforce investment development boards and the operation of one-stops, as necessary and appropriate; development of local discretionary allocation formulas; development and continuous improvement of comprehensive state performance measures including, without limitation, performance measures reflecting the degree to which one-stop centers provide comprehensive services with all mandatory partners and the degree to which local workforce investment development boards have obtained funding from sources other than the WIOA; and development of a statewide system of one-stop centers that provide comprehensive workforce services to employers, employees, and job seekers.

The Performance and Accountability Committee is established to coordinate with the Virginia Employment Commission (VEC), State Council of Higher Education for Virginia to develop metrics and measurements for publishing comprehensive workforce score cards and other longitudinal data that will enable the Virginia Workforce System to measure comprehensive accountability and performance.

The Performance and Accountability Committee will, in consultation with other committees and the Board, recommend policy, budget, and administrative action to the Governor to ensure that Virginia can measure what matters for business, job seekers, and government.

Elements from the Board’s Strategic plan specifically assigned to this committee include:

• Design and implement a statewide business satisfaction survey. (with Service Delivery and Integration Committee)
• Develop and deliver a consolidated budget report that improves transparency in workforce funding to enable smarter policy decisions.
• Advance recommendations to the Governor to improve system alignment, accountability, and efficiencies.
• Endorse a set of common state performance measures and champion the delivery of a Performance Accountability System to track workforce program outcomes.
• Promote a model that determines the return on public investment for workforce system programs in order to inform policy and resource allocation.

The committee is charged with ensuring that all programs within Virginia’s publicly funded education and workforce system produce strong return on investment.

This committee will act as a resource to other committees assisting in the establishment of standards and metrics to assess and continuously improve program and system performance. The committee will be particularly engaged in cross-agency, cross-program performance metrics, in identifying common performance metrics, and in ensuring that decisions made by the Workforce Board are informed by sound data and analysis.

Specific tasks, required by statute for discussion and relevant to this committee, include evaluating the extent to which the state’s workforce development programs emphasize education and training opportunities that align with employers’ workforce needs and labor market statistics; conducting a review of budgets, which shall be submitted annually to the Board by each agency conducting federal and state funded career and technical and adult education and workforce development programs; defining the Board’s role in certifying WIOA training providers; s, and recommending structure and content of the annual report to the Governor by the Board prior to report development. This committee may also wish to provide metrics for evaluation of the work of the Board and its staff.