San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
COPS/Metro wants to tweak Ready to Work
From COPS/Metro’s standpoint, Ready to Work is a jobs program, not a jobs training program.
And not enough San Antonians are landing jobs through the city sales-tax funded program, say leaders with the interfaith grassroots advocacy group.
The city has failed to meet its goal that 80% of Ready to Work participants will find employment paying at least $15 an hour within six months of finishing their training.
“That’s unacceptable,” said Sister Jane Ann Slater, a COPS/ Metro leader. “If they would use the process we know works, they can say, ‘We have these jobs on the table,’ and they would be hired immediately.”
The organization wants that process to be employer-driven to ensure that participants are trained for the specific jobs that San Antonio companies need to fill.
“If we know what jobs are being hired for, we can then tailor the training programs to meet those needs and not train for a thousand positions, but the most in-demand jobs,” said Josephine Lopez Paul, COPS/ Metro’s lead organizer.
That critique isn’t new. COPS/Metro leaders first raised this concern more than two years ago, ahead of the program’s May 2022 launch.
Since then, Ready to Work has struggled to place people in jobs and to enroll San Antonians living below the federal poverty line to train for industryrecognized certificates or to pursue an associate’s or bachelor’s degree program — free of charge.
If more residents see their family members and neighbors find employment success through Ready to Work, they’ll have more reason to seek out the program, COPS/Metro leaders say.
The organization rallied voters in the November 2020 election to approve devoting 1/8-cent of the city’s sales tax over a fouryear period to fund the workforce training program. The city expects to collect $241 million for the effort from 2021 to 2025.
Mayor Ron Nirenberg pitched the initiative as a response to coronavirus pandemic-driven job losses and as a solution to San Antonio’s enduringly high poverty rate.
Slow going
Just over 5,200 people have enrolled in Ready to Work. The city Workforce Development Department aims to increase the number to 7,145 by the end of June, the close of the program’s second fiscal year.
By the time the program’s sales tax dollars are spent, the city “intends” to enroll more than 28,000 people and place 15,600 of them into “quality jobs,” according to the program dashboard.
At present, the six-month placement rate hovers around 60%, which Workforce Development Director Mike Ramsey attributes to several factors.
“It’s taking a little bit longer for some individuals to build their confidence up to either take their industry certification exams or to embark upon the interview process,” Ramsey said. “For some individuals, it can be a little daunting as they try to sell themselves in that interview process.”
Some graduates have secured jobs paying below the required $15 hourly wage threshold, meaning they can’t be counted toward the city’s placement figures. Others may be working but haven’t confirmed that with the city, also rendering them absent from the placement total.
Of the 763 people who have completed their training, 346 are confirmed to be employed in a job paying the minimum required wage.
“We’re going to try to find some ways to scrub some payroll data to find out who some of those people are so we can add them to the success stories and reconnect with them to provide that support to make sure that they stay connected to that employment that they found,” Ramsey said.
The Workforce Development Department is counting on upcoming initiatives to boost its placement rate.
In January, it will roll out a six-week paid internship program so Ready to Work graduates can gain employment experience. Employers who hire an intern will reimburse the city for the interns’ wages, enabling the city to fund future internships. City-owned CPS Energy, the city, USAA and Credit Human Federal Credit Union are participating in this first cohort.
The city also will debut an online job board early next year where participants will be able to share their résumés, and San Antonio employers can post openings.
Where the jobs are
COPS/Metro leaders are pushing for another approach: for city officials to nail down guarantees from some of the region’s largest employers to hire graduates. That’s contingent, however, upon Ready to Work training its participants for the actual jobs that employers need to fill.
COPS/Metro secured commitments on Nov. 8 — made in front of hundreds of parishioners — from city government, UT Health San Antonio, government contractor Accenture Federal Services and San Antonio’s two utilities, CPS Energy and San Antonio Water System, to hire Ready to Work participants.
The employers also pledged to provide the Workforce Development Department with the requirements for the specific positions they are looking to fill.
Executives and human resources directors with H-E-B, USAA and Bexar Countyowned University Health have promised the same things to leaders, Lopez Paul said.
To be successful, a workforce development program must be geared toward meeting employers’ needs, said leader Sister Pearl Ceasar. She sits on the board of Project QUEST, the workforce development nonprofit that COPS/Metro founded in 1992 to train San Antonians to work in specific sectors of the city’s economy, mostly health care.
Project QUEST is one of four organizations that Ready to Work has contracted with to enroll participants in training and provide case management services.
“It appears evident that you would start with the employer, but traditionally, workforce development programs have started with people in need,” Ceasar said. “But if we want them employed, there has to be the partnership between the institution that’s working with them and/or training them and the employers.”
COPS/Metro believes Ready to Work is far too broad in its training offerings.
Participants can enroll in one of more than 1,000 courses aimed at preparing them for to find work in 83 occupation types. The city identified those occupations based on labor market data for the most in-demand, high-wage jobs in the San Antonio region.
Prior to contracting with Ready to Work, Project QUEST supported 45 training programs. Today, it supports more than 300 programs.
Ramsey said Ready to Work finally has reached a point where its advisory board can begin removing courses for occupations in which participants have either struggled to find a job within six months, or that are hiring at wages below the city’s $15 hourly floor.
To date, the board has only expanded the occupation list. In September, it approved paying for training and education courses for clinical research associates and clinical research coordinators, after adding certified nursing assistants in June.
“The narrowing of the occupation list will lead to better outcomes,” Ramsey said.
The work of cutting occupations is unlikely to be as dramatic, or as quick, as COPS/Metro would like.
“I tell my team this: ‘We’re going to go at it with a scalpel. This isn’t a machete job,’” Ramsey said. “We have to be very strategic and surgical around which occupations are no longer funded by Ready to Work dollars for training. The last thing we want to do is to make a decision before we have enough data.”