Increased Demand Allows Workforce Development Center to Get Creative

Finding jobs in this economy can be difficult but for the past year, the Workforce Development Center in Pewaukee has received extra help from the federal AmeriCorps VISTA program.

The Workforce Development Center provides support for people looking for jobs and employers looking for workers. 

Their first VISTA was Traci Higgs, who completed her year of service last month. Norris credits Higgs for strengthening or establishing a relationship with other agencies throughout the community, creating a one-stop resource area for customers to the center, holding classes for job seekers and developing opportunities for students and interns to help with the program, in addition to other accomplishments.

VISTA member Dawn Vandenhouten, who just started her year with the center, says Higgs is a hard act to follow.

Vandenhouten may have a secret weapon, though.

Three years ago and after 28 years in the workforce, she was laid off.

“I was that person,” she said. “You feel like the floor is falling out beneath you. It’s a complicated process to re-invent yourself after that.”

Vandenhouten has worked for the past three years finishing her degree and polishing her job skills with the help of the center. She graduated with a degree in graphic design last May. The idea of a year of service was intriguing.

“I think it’s beneficial to give back in your life,” Vandenhouten said. “It’s a year of service but helps me pull together some of my other skills. I can help other people in my situation hopefully, and build on that. I’m sure I’ll glean a lot of good things in own my life, too.”

A woman she met during her first week on the job sticks in her mind. While helping in the resume building lab, Vandenhouten was asked to help a customer set up an email account for sending resumes.

The 74-year-old woman needed a job.

“That impacted me. There are so many people that should be sitting back enjoying retirement but who need to get a job to sustain their lives,” Vandenhouten said.  “They’re almost a forgotten generation but they’re out there. They need to be working too. And we’re all competing for the jobs.”

Encompassed in one building are eight different agencies that can help job searchers with staff who administer any number of different programs, including a career center, co-op program, public support and special education programs.

The increased demand for their programs when the economy took a turn for the worse in 2009 prompted the organization to get creative, according to Beth Norris, operations coordinator, at the Workforce Development Center.

“At the inception of the project, the center was experiencing record demand,” Norris said. “Our traffic flow was reaching 40,000 visits.”

“We hit that peak demand at the same time public funding for all the services in our building was going down. That led us say how can we extend, how can we help fill those gaps and voids where we’re challenged in meeting the needs of folks who are seeking services?” Norris said.

Enter the AmeriCorps VISTA program, a national service program designed specifically to fight poverty. VISTA members commit to serve full-time for a year at a nonprofit organization or local government agency, working to fight illiteracy, improve health services, create businesses, strengthen community groups, and more, according to the AmeriCorps VISTA website.

“It seemed like a good fit for us to see if we could use an AmeriCorps VISTA person to help us mobilize resources and look for creative ways to address unmet needs,” Norris said. “That’s what VISTAs do. They kind of bring creative energy to community needs.”

Weathering the recession

The Workforce Development Center offers a variety of services for job seekers:  career exploration, training and education, job search and placement, and resources for economic support, if necessary.

“Our goal is a person comes in the door and we just help them,” Norris said. “An employer needs a worker, and we help them find that person that they need.”

The job seekers are coming from different of groups of people – middle class, lower class and upper class.

“If there was ever a sense that we serve only one group of people, that vanished once the economy changed,” Norris said. “So there are highly educated people, people with long work histories, our neighbors, our friends, our family, coming through the door.”

One thing that everyone should do, employed or not, is work to improve their computer and job skills in case something unexpected happens, according to Norris.

“No one is ever done with what they need to learn. Everyone should consider themselves in a job transition, even if they have a job,” she said.

Signs of hope

There are signs of hope, though, for job seekers.

“We have been energized in the last year or so compared to a couple of years ago. We are seeing people get jobs, we seeing employers that are looking for people,” Norris said, noting that they are also seeing fewer companies going through lay-offs.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate in Waukesha County dropped from 6.2 to 5.9 from October 2010 to October 2011. The unemployment rate represents the number unemployed as a percent of the labor force.

Also, according to Norris, the current workforce development system is working better than it ever has. The model of having multiple agencies under one roof providing complementary services has never been more relevant.

“Because we’ve seen people who have lost their job after a long time being a taxpaying, stable, working citizens who because of the economy, the length of time to gain re-employment and the need to update skills, have needed to use some of the supportive services as a very temporary solution,” she said.

Plus with the balance between county, state, federal and educational services, all the key leaders in our economy and community in the building, she said.

“It feels like it’s been these last couple of years that it’s really had a chance to be there for folks coming through the door,” she said.