From Jobs for the Future and Make Fast Studio:

The long-overdue social and economic upheavals of the past few years have forced us to confront how our national history has shaped our institutions, even those formed on the fundamental principles of fairness and opportunity. The public workforce system is one such institution, and as workforce leaders, we are learning how to identify and confront the inequities baked into our policies, procedures, and practices. As part of this shift, we recognize that the transformed labor market has left our current models of training job seekers and connecting them to employment inadequate for the communities we serve, and so research has been conducted.

The research conducted led to the development of a “maturity model” that maps workforce boards along a spectrum of customer and community engagement. The maturity model includes four stages:

• Alone. Workforce boards that have a stand-alone business model and primarily engage transactionally with customers and community organizations to comply with state and federal statutes.
• Aligned. Workforce development boards that see the value in understanding unique and constantly-changing needs, and actively engage with community organizations to ensure programs, policies, and products are in alignment with those needs.
• Attuned. Workforce boards that have adopted a strategy for gathering feedback from and insights on their customers and community organizations and are embedding those insights into their decision-making and program design process.
• Anchored. Workforce boards that are fully embedded and viewed as leaders in the broad ecosystem of their communities. These boards’ operating principles are grounded in people, businesses, and systems that enable communities to thrive.

Read more here.