This afternoon the Energy Communities Alliance hosted the first webinar in a series to facilitate education and discussion of workforce development challenges and opportunities across the DOE complex.
ECA was pleased to have several prominent speakers with such a high degree of subject matter expertise provide their insights and experiences with this pressing topic. In just one webinar ECA members and attendees were able to hear from the Office of Environmental Management, local community leaders, and representatives from the educator, contractor, and industry sectors.
All speakers involved today shared similar concerns about workforce development in three major areas: the impact of an aging workforce, how to attract millennials to their communities or keep them there with job opportunities related to DOE-activities, and the specific kinds of jobs/human capital needed for the future.
The goal of this discussion was to provide participants with a better understanding of how local governments, the Department of Energy, industry, contractors and educators are addressing workforce issues and how we can work collectively to build these efforts and meet common goals.
Presenting first, Todd Shrader, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, gave an overview of how he sees the future of workforce. Mr. Shrader consistently noted in his remarks the need for a robust and diverse workforce to continue to support cleanup missions. Mr. Shrader, when asked about how DOE can attract that robust workforce highlighted promoting the scope of work available, the job availability, and
job security for decades to come to students at every educational level. In his closing remarks, Mr. Shrader spoke about the importance of communication commenting that “this effort today is a key effort” when discussing how communities can support DOE looking at workforce initiatives. “Communication needs to start early, it takes a year or two for initiatives to come up the line,” explained Mr. Shrader.
Communication was indeed a theme through the entire webinar. It was clear as nearly every speaker outlined the numerous and effective programs and opportunities that exist at every level that one of the best action items that can be done for those involved is to promote their respective initiatives across the complex.
One specific idea of interest was the concept of knowledge transfer. As mentioned by many speakers, there is a large percentage of the workforce that is nearing retirement or already retirement eligible. This percentage of the workforce has an immeasurable knowledge bank – something that can be called upon by the next generation of workforce members so as not to “reinvent the wheel” with techniques that
have already been discovered. This knowledge transfer could occur in the way of mentorship and apprenticeship. There is also a need to catalog solutions found by the previous workforce to be easily accessed and referenced.
Another area of interest was the constant references to “the pipeline” that is created through communication and collaboration between schools, labs, and contractors. A stronger pipeline outreach has the potential to import the technical skills needed to support a cleanup mission at sites and research missions at labs. When explaining the role of community colleges, Dr. Rick Aman, President of the
College of Eastern Idaho said, “don’t make community colleges guess what you need.” By specifically outlining and communicating the gaps and needs within the workforce, education can be modified to fit the specific needs. Education needs to listen to business, industry, and the government to match what is expected in the future in terms of necessity.
Dr. Mischell Navarro, speaking from a unique perspective of current EM representative with former NNSA work experience highlighted the efficiency and effectiveness of a previous in person recruiting event. This recruiting event was enterprise wide – a true collaborative workforce recruiting effort. At the event there was on-site drug testing, reference checking, and initial security clearance
evaluations to expedite the job search process. This event was advertised and marketed across several social media platforms with high returns on outreach efforts. An important aspect of this recruitment event was that a potential future employee could visit a federal information booth, and a federal representative, realizing they would have more interest or success in a different field, could redirect that person a different booth, for example a contractor or lab informational booth. This
recruitment event saw large success as nearly 200 people were offered jobs when combining federal and contractor offers.
It was evident from the webinar that there are numerous opportunities for collaboration at all levels. A crucial piece of that is being more flexible with the workforce, understanding the demographics, the needs and wants of people looking for work within the complex and people leaving the complex. The more collaborative in nature find solutions to these workforce development issues are, the more success
they will bring in the future.
ECA intends to host the next webinar in this series fall 2020.
ECA is appreciative of all the participation today and would like to especially thank those speakers and attendees who joined an ECA meeting for the first time.
Thank you to our speakers –
DOE Workforce Needs and Priorities: Todd Shrader
Defining Workforce Issues Across the Complex: David Reeploeg, Kristen Ellis, Kelly Beierschmitt, and Rick Aman
How Communities and Labs Can Partner in Workforce Development: Mark Gilbertson and David Izraelevitz
Building Collaborative Recruitment and Training Initiatives: Rick McLeod, Mischell Navarro, and Lori Brady
The webinar agenda can be found here.
