Anchor Local Hiring Presentations
The University of Maryland Baltimore and the University of Maryland Medical Center have been asked to present their workforce initiatives and goals.
UMMC: Jo Ann Williams
UMB and UMMC recently came together to talk about how to jointly address workforce goals, formed a joint committee. They will meet on a regular basis and are developing a strategy. Three positions at UMMC most in demand: administrative assistant roles (58 people hired a year), food and environmental services (58/59), and patient care technicians.
UMMC work from a model where a community-based partner will prepare an individual from the surrounding community for positions at the hospital. They also have career coaching available for incumbent workers.
Interested community members should be referred to Lisa, who will then refer them to UMMC HR. Being referred through the program ensures that their resume will be seen by a hiring manager.
UMB: Lisa Rawlings
Strategic Planning process: UMB and UMMC are doing it together, which is the first time they have done this sort of planning since they split 28 years ago. It makes a lot of sense for the two organizations to collaborate. Both presidents are very committed to the community—UMB has created the Office of Community Engagement and the Community Engagement Center. UMMC’s new president has recently created an office of workforce and community engagement.
There are four areas of focus: health, economic and community development, community connections, education and youth development.
Hiring goals: the two anchors will look at the proportion of the workforce in entry-level positions from targeted zip codes and will increase that number by 10%.
UMMC: 14-18% of all workers are from West Baltimore
Do have fairly high first year/six month turnover. Biggest struggle is attendance. There are lots of barriers that get in the way of people getting to work on time, every day.
UMMC is also working on making organization more responsive to the community’s needs.
The anchors have two initiatives
- In collaboration with workforce readiness partners recruit and prepare talent for targeted positions. This is ongoing and will be supported by Southwest Works.
- Design and implement wrap around services in partnership with community partners. This still needs to be discussed and planned.
Ongoing Workforce Initiatives
Workforce Wednesday: every Wednesday from 2-6pm at CEC. Help with resumes, job search, refer to training, mock interview. Works best when someone is job ready— if they are not job ready Workforce Wednesday will refer them to another program.
Anchor referral program: when a community partner refers client person is referred to position and UMB guarantees interview, UMMC hiring manager sees application.
Workforce Wednesday Workshops: every Wednesday from 6-8 will have a free workshop.
Have had 6 people hired (UMMC, UMB, BioPark) referred over 30, seen over 100.
Training partners: the Southwest Partnership has identified training partners that are free, have certification, and provide wrap around service and employment services that community members are referred to.
Jo Ann: what is the greatest challenge in trying to help people access anchor institutions? What are the greatest issues after they get hired?
Darryl: people with criminal backgrounds, repeat offenders. Showing people that’s what they did not who they are. It’s important to be able to provide people with motivation and inspiration and being able to identify with the instructor.
Jo Ann: Would a mentor be helpful? Yes. Trust is also very important.
Lisa: Noticed that the culture isn’t always ready in an anchor institution to make someone from a different background than the majority of workers welcome, so a peer mentor would be important.
Ellen: witnessed people struggle with understanding the financial decisions they are making when they first get hired. They don’t have the time and support to learn about the right thing to do in terms of setting up tax withdrawals, dealing with reduction in benefits, etc. Paroma: agrees, and sees it as an issue that the anchors need to deal with, beyond general financial literacy education, as decisions need to be made on the spot.
Deral: If it takes 6-8 weeks for someone to be hired how do the anchors keep people connected to them? Response from Lisa – Anchors don’t keep them connected. Candidates are referred directly to the anchor, will hear about and interview in about a week. Anchors are not responsible for keeping the person engaged. Roundtable decided that follow-up from anchors about individuals referred could happen at our monthly meetings and that referring community partners and anchors would need to have signed confidentiality agreements. Note, this part of the meeting would be closed to the public.
Lisa: There are other anchors that are smaller organizations—but don’t want to let them off the hook, still want them to have a community hiring goal. As a Committee, we should follow up and make a formal request of their hiring goals.
UMMC and Bon Secours and SeedCo are doing work together that just started but would be a good place to connect.
Leonard: while makes sense that focus on entry level jobs, but there are lots of other jobs and lots of economic diversity in the area and it will be important to look at that—especially for residents with a STEM background. Anchors need to be careful that they aren’t stereotyping the West Baltimore workforce.
Darel asked about training opportunities offered by the hospital. Leonard: they do provide some training in in-demand positions (such as patient care tech), but general work with other hospitals on individual training for incumbent workers where needed. Someone (Maxine or Jo-Ann?) suggested we reach out to the Baltimore Alliance for Careers in Health Care as so many of our anchors are health care providers.
Da’Shone: NPower is looking for internships for students in IT, starting November 1st. They will have been trained to work on the help desk,in quality assurance, LINNUX, website development.
Leonard: IT is a UMMS system level shared services, so a lot of the jobs are in Linthicum, but UMMC is already working with NPower on identifying internship opportunities.
Casino Impact Area Funding for Training Programs
Lisa encouraged all the eligible programs to apply for Casino Impact Area Funding. When the state and city agreed to build Horseshoe Casino, money was set aside from revenues to support the neighborhood around the casino. The neighborhoods in the area extend from Pigtown down to Cherry Hill, and over to Federal Hill. Some of the funds are designated specifically for employment and training (the Employment Connection Center was created with funds from that bucket). MOED is not the only group that can get funding from that bucket. If programs are interested Lisa suggests they write up a proposal and the SWP can help them connect with the Casino.
Southwest Works coordinator is partially funded through the Casino.
Announcements
MOED is holding recruitment events during the next month for employers including WalMart, FedEx, and Mercy Hospital. Job Club is held every Wednesday at 2pm at the Employment Connection Center.
Project JumpStart is recruiting for trainees who live in the Casino Impact Area.
Second Chance is recruiting for retail associations, warehouse, receiving, retail management, and deconstruction managers.
Lisa raised the possibility of holding a Southwest resource fair.
