The document discusses incumbent worker training provided by the Anne Arundel Workforce Development Corporation (AAWDC) to address soft skills gaps. It summarizes AAWDC's research which found that employers desired soft skills like communication, time management, and adaptability over technical skills. AAWDC created a soft skills training program called the Workplace Excellence Series to teach competencies identified as lacking like adapting to change, verbal communication, and understanding the employer's perspective. The training is incorporated into AAWDC's initiatives and occupational training and also offered as a fee-for-service to businesses.

1. Win-Win: Satisfy Employers & Generate
Funds with Incumbent Worker Training
Kirkland Murray & Elisabeth Sanders-Park

2. Quick Introduction of AAWDC
• Central Maryland – Between
Baltimore and Washington D.C.
• 4 distinct regions
– South County – rural
– West County – government, IT, retail,
hospitality
– North County – manufacturing,
transportation, healthcare
– Annapolis – government,
healthcare, retail, education
Population 560,133
# of Households 203,775
Total
Employment
Est. 295,599
(w/NSA)

3. AAWDC Heard What Businesses
Really Wanted
• Business call program & business meetings all
resulted in a demand for essential skills:
– “Send us people ready to work”
– “I need them to show up on time”
– “They need to be able to take direction”
• Businesses said if we sent them candidates
with these skills, they would be willing to train
the hard skills

4. Research Backed What We Heard
• On average 1 in 3 skills on a job posting is an
essential skill
– Even in highly technical jobs these skills are 1 in every
4 skills requested
• Writing, communication and organizational skills
are scarce everywhere – in-demand across nearly
every occupation
• These skills are over-emphasized in recruitment
process – suggesting there is an under-supply

5. Why is it so Difficult?
• Not traditionally covered in training programs
but still critical to performance
• As our world changes – technical aspects are
focused in school and at home, soft skills are
forgotten
• Soft skills are notoriously
hard to define

6. AAWDC Wanted Clarity: We Asked
Businesses Directly What They Want
Here is What We Learned

7. Who Did We Survey?
 Workforce Service Providers from AAWDC & Partnering
Agencies -- serving a wide array of job seekers (youth, SCSEP,
TANF, WIA, Veterans, more)
 Other Service Providers
 Job Seekers & Career Changers -- a wide array seeking jobs
at various levels in many industries
 Businesses
o More & Less engaged with the workforce system
o From across industries – hospitality, healthcare,
manufacturing, engineering, IT
o Who hire at various levels – entry, mid, high
Who Did We Survey?

8. What Did We Ask?
• What are the top 3-5+ soft skills AAWDC should teach?
• How do the presence/lack of these soft skills impact
your bottom-line?
• What soft skills are particularly needed by…
– Younger workers
– Older workers
– Displaced/re-employed/career changers
– Veterans
– TANF
– Ex-offenders
– Tech workers
– People with disabilities
– Immigrants

9. What Did We Ask?
• What is your level of interest in having
AAWDC provide soft skills training to
current workers.
• What would you like it to look like? What
training or competencies would equip your management
in supporting the application of the soft skills taught to
workers?
• Are these services worth paying for?

10. Defining Soft Skills
Soft skills are all the non-technical skills
required to do a job and to succeed in the
workforce in general.
The long list includes everything from…
o maintaining mental health
o to communicating your strengths in an interview
o to managing conflict on the job
o to organizing consistent child care
o and more.

11. Defining Soft Skills
Frequent employer complaints about soft skills include…
o being late or absent
o inability to communicate with co-workers & customers
o lack of eye contact
o improper use of cell phones
o lack of common-sense problem solving
o not dressing appropriately for the environment or job, and more
o rudeness
Soft skills are all the non-technical skills
required to do a job and to succeed in the
workforce in general.

12. Defining Soft Skills
The AAWDC Soft Skills Program is
designed to teach soft skills that directly
improve a person’s ability to enter and
succeed in today’s workforce.
Soft skills are all the non-technical skills
required to do a job and to succeed in the
workforce in general.

13. Other Soft Skills
The AAWDC Soft Skills Program focuses on skills directly related
to workforce success.
LIFE SKILLS
AAWDC builds partnerships to
help client address these non-
workforce-related soft skills:
o Housing
o Domestic violence
o Substance abuse
o Mental health
o Physical health
o Transportation
o Childcare
o Reading
o English – ESL, Grammar
JOBS SEARCH & CAREER
DEVELOPMENT SKILLS
Many of these are already embedded
at the core of AAWDC’s programs.
o Researching the company
o Marketing your qualifications
o Personal branding
o Interviewing & Good answers
o Managing your career
o Advancing your career
o Electronic job search
o Using the hidden market

14. Whiteboard Video
Job Search & Career Management
Life & Academic
Job-Specific Technical
Soft Skills
What skills do people need to succeed in the
workforce today?

15. Key Soft Skills Lacking
WIA, Dislocated Workers, Entry-level & Lower skilled
• Ability to change/adapt to new employment/career
expectations
• Ability to thrive in generationally diverse teams
• Ability to match/market themselves to a new level of
opportunity (especially professionals)
• Ability to explain why they left former employers
• The new job search
• Ability to manage time as expected in today’s business culture

16. Key Soft Skills Lacking
Older Workers
• Attitude, including a sense of entitlement
• Ability to work in generationally diverse work team
• Willingness to start over or lower
• Ability to change/adapt

17. Key Soft Skills Lacking
TANF
• Follow-through
• Honesty
• Time management
• Presentation
• Attitude
• Dedication (to work)
• Accepting constructive criticism
• Verbal communication
• Non-verbal communication
• Coping skills
Non-Workforce Soft Skills Needed
• Living clean & sober
• Getting & maintaining housing
• Budgeting & financial literacy
• Achieving & maintaining mental health
• Choosing & cultivating healthy
relationships, avoiding domestic violence
• Choosing healthy sex partners, family
planning, avoiding unsafe sex.
• Parenting
• Healthy living, feeding family healthy
meals
• English as a second language, English
literacy
• Managing personal transportation
• Increasing good citizenship and personal &
social responsibility

18. Key Soft Skills Lacking
Youth
• Understanding that there is a hierarchy and they are not at the top
• Accepting that they will have and must listen to a supervisor
• Understanding that it’s not their job to teach their supervisor
• Understanding what they can and can’t control
• How to function in a subordinate position
• Realizing that they world does not revolve around them
• Realizing that they employer is not ‘lucky’ to have them
• How to appropriately manager their personal technology in the job
search and on the job
• How to work hard and smart

19. Key Soft Skills Lacking
Ex-Offender
• Not presenting in a defensive or defeatist manner
• Adjusting to the culture outside the corrections system and on
the job
• Maintaining a positive attitude
• Learning to tell they story including why they will succeed this
time
• Finding companies open to hiring ex-offenders who will
maintain they confidentiality

20. Key Soft Skills Lacking
Veterans
• Making the culture change to the civilian work culture
• Dealing with mental health issues or PTSD from combat
• Understanding how to transfer their skills

21. Key Soft Skills Lacking
Immigrants
• Fitting into the US business culture
• Understanding the unwritten rules of the workforce (value of
time, respect, machisimo vs. sexual harassment, always
speaking English at work.)

22. What Should be Taught?
Competencies
• Adapting to change
• Managing your outlook
• Working in multi-generational environments
• Managing your time
• Verbal communication
• Non-verbal communication
• Written communication
• Workplace realities & expectations
• Personal presentation
• Understanding the employer’s perspective
• Managing work & life
• Fitting in on the job

23. What Else Should be Taught?
Competencies Woven Throughout the Curriculum
WHY?
These important topics should be woven throughout the curriculum as
a whole rather than taught in a single, focused module because:
• The lessons are best learned in conjunction with other
topics
• The topic is more about how to think or behave for
success that what to do
• This topic alone would not be compelling (or well-
attended) to job seekers

24. What Else Should be Taught?
Competencies Woven Throughout the Curriculum
WHAT?
Student materials should include opportunities to process these
lessons (and facilitation guides should allow application for each
clientele).
• Challenging a sense of entitlement
• Promoting honesty & integrity
• Appropriate usage of personal technology
• Demonstrating a strong work ethic

25. Lessons on When & How to Teach
It was determined that the following are important in order to
maximize the impact of the soft skills curriculum:
• Early integration
• Educating referral sources & partners
• Partnering across the continuum or care
• The value of clarity re: job target, career direction
• Staff training on the curriculum and key
competencies

26. Staff Competencies
To Maximize the Soft Skills Program
1. Demonstrating the AAWDC soft skills
2. Incentivizing soft skills acquisition
3. Understanding & infusing the employer’s perspective
4. Showing respect
5. Saying ‘the hard things’
6. Helping client get ‘unstuck’
7. Connecting clients needed resources
8. Accommodating the various learning/processing styles
9. Creating action plans, accountability, & forward
movement

27. The Competencies Employers Want
• Adapting to Change
• Managing Your Outlook
• Working in Multi-Generational Environments
• Managing Your Time
• Verbal Communication
• Non-Verbal Communication
• Written Communication
• Workplace Realities & Expectations
• Personal Presentation
• Understanding the Employer’s Perspective
• Managing Work & Life (Moving from Welfare to Work: JWA)
• Fitting In On the Job

28. Our Result?
• Looked for a solution to the skills gap
• Decided to explore our own solution
No Comprehensive Solution Was Found

29. Creating Our Solution
• Put out an RFP to create training around
essential skills
– Needed to address all the competencies that
businesses demanded
• Worked with Elisabeth to create The
Workplace Excellence Series

30. Our Solution – The Workplace Excellence Series
Adapting to Change
Managing Your Outlook
Multi-Generational
Managing Your Time
Verbal Communication
Non-Verbal Communication
Written Communication
Work Realities & Expectations
Think Like the Employer
Personal Presentation
Fitting In On the Job
Managing Work & Life
ADAPTability
RESPECTability
DEPENDability
WRITEability
WORKability
TRANSITIONability
PRESENTability
SUITability
COMMUNICATIONability
Our Solutions – The Workplace
Excellence Series

31. Utilizing Our Solution & Fee for Service
Within our Initiatives & Training
• Incorporated into every occupational training
• Taught within boot camps & workshops for
initiatives
Fee for Service
• Business services team promotes the training as
incumbent worker training & upskilling
• Partnered with our Community College to
promote the series to businesses

32. AAWDC’s Fee for Service Menu
• The Workplace Excellence Series
• Ticket to Work
• Pearson VUE GED Testing Center
• Space rental

33. Contact Us
Kirkland J. Murray
kmurry@aawdc.org
Elisabeth Sanders-Park
elisabeth@worknetsolutions.com