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Going Green for the Long Term:
Creating a skill foundation for employee retention and success in green jobs with Career Ready 101® and the National Career Readiness Certificate (NCRC)
The green jobs initiative promises great impact on the entire nation. It promotes the health of our economy in myriad ways, providing important jobs for our citizens, acting for the environment, and reducing dependence on non-renewable energy sources. The importance of the initiative underscores the need to avoid pitfalls and to prepare the program and the participants for long-term success.
What are Green Jobs and Why are they Important?
Green jobs are primarily jobs that already exist today that have been repurposed for green industries. For example, sheet metal worker is a green job if its purpose is to create towers for wind energy generation. Green jobs have other important characteristics that make them very important to our nation’s economic situation. Because they are primarily local jobs, they are difficult to outsource. They also tend to be long-term, career track jobs that provide a living wage.
How Can the NCRC and Career Ready 101 Help to Maximize Success of the Green Jobs Program?
The importance of the Green Jobs initiative underscores the need to avoid pitfalls of other high-growth situations like high employee turnover, elevated training costs, and high rates of employee errors. These are the same issues that the NCRC and Career Ready 101 are addressing for businesses, colleges, secondary education, and workforce development agencies across the country.
Further, while green job industries are clearly defined, it is difficult to predict exactly which green jobs will be high-demand as the program comes to fruition. Readying individuals with foundational and job-specific skills are both vital components of preparation; however, foundational skill development is something that can be undertaken immediately because it is the common thread among almost all jobs.
How Would the System be Used?
Following is a usage example that encompasses the primary parts of the system: Discovery, Learning, and Certification.
Discovery: O*NET has identified 215 jobs within 12 green sectors that can be defined as green jobs – these are noted as such within the Career Ready 101 system. In order to determine what green jobs are about and what skills they require, a user would search the job profile database included in Career Ready 101. For example, if a user was interested in construction and wanted to find green jobs within that field, a search like the one below would provide information about green jobs in construction:
This search would show green jobs in construction including, for example, the job Electrician. It will also provide information about the job and tell the user what foundational skills are needed for that job. In the case of Electrician, a Gold level National Career Readiness Certificate is necessary (level 5 in each of the WorkKeys skills Reading for Information, Applied Mathematics, and Locating Information).
Further, the system includes an explanation of how the NCRC skills apply, and why they are important, in green jobs. This feature helps to create relevance for the user throughout the program.
Learning: In just a few clicks within the Career Ready 101 system, a user can automatically be assigned the appropriate lessons for the job Electrician, or for the NCRC certificate level Gold. The user would then simply complete the lessons.
Certification: After completing lessons in Career Ready 101, a user would take the three WorkKeys assessments in order to officially certify their skills. Based on the scores on these assessments, a user can earn the National Career Readiness Certificate at various levels (Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum) which will certify their foundational skill levels for specific green jobs.
Creating skill foundations using tools the nation already endorses, like the National Career Readiness Certificate and learning tools for career readiness and employability skills will help prepare our workforce, and the entire green jobs initiative, for long term success.
Many states recently received ARRA grants targeted at green jobs. To receive more details as to how the NCRC and KeyTrain’s Career Ready 101 system can help achieve the goals of such grants, please call Thinking Media at 877-842-6205 or email us at info@keytrain.com. We have worked closely with many states regarding ARRA funds and we will be happy to send you further information and consult with you about your state's programs and opportunities within the Green Jobs sector.
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