The cohort of nine West Michigan employers include Amway, Cascade Engineering, DeWys Metal Solutions, Haworth, Landscape Forms, Proper Beverage, Shape Corp., SoundOff Signal and Wolverine Coil Spring.
“We knew we needed to bring a solution and framework to West Michigan to do this well, in a way that would really engage the entire talent ecosystem.”
Carly Smyly is director of employer talent strategies and engagement at TalentFirst, the nonprofit facilitating the Talent Pipeline Management program. She says those nine employers have started the six-month program through the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation to help fill the workforce gap.
“And the first step was to really identify critical jobs that are common across all nine employers involved in the cohort.”
Those jobs include machine and repair techs, assembly line workers and first-line supervisors, positions with high turnover and vacancy rates due in part to in-house promotion and the high level of Baby Boomers retiring; roughly 25% of the workforce by 2035.
“Our goal and plan that is by December of this year, we will have a very clearly articulated action plan that we’ll deploy to solve for these problems in West Michigan.”
Smyly says that includes working with education providers and workforce development agencies in the area.
