One Size Doesn’t Fit All:

Strategies for Auditing and

Developing Rural Workforces

Dr. Mary Emery

North Central Regional Center for Rural
Development
Heartland Leadership Development Center
 Presentation funded in part by a
Community Audit Grant from the
Federal Department of Labor
 Focus of This Presentation
• Look at different strategies for conducting
workforce audits in rural areas
• Share results of our audit project
• Discuss implications for:
– Research methods related to workforce development
– Workforce programming
– Workforce policy
– WIB performance
 Overview
• Applying for a Community Audit Grant:
expectations versus reality
• The struggle to arrive at an agreed-upon audit plan
• Reality intrudes – fostering job development when
the local plant closes and what we learned about
rural manufacturers
• Applying these insights into studying rural
workforce in North Central Idaho and Eastern
Washington
 Overview continued
• Our study of manufacturers and what we learned
• Applying the strategies to other sectors
• Implications for studying/auditing rural
workforces
• Implications for programming
• Implications for policy
• Observations on research and WIB performance
• Conclusion
The Setting
 Characteristics of the Area
• Sparse population
• Severe out migration of families and youth
• In migration of older families
• Serious underemployment
• Widespread rural educational disadvantage
 Why Focus on Workforce?
• Global niches for types of industry reflect
regional workforce capabilities
• Relation of training and education to
income
• Limitations of rural business development
– Inability to attract industry
– Home-grown firms leave for elsewhere because
of workforce
2000 Potlatch Plant Closure in
Clearwater County- Reality
Strikes
 Job Creation in Isolated Rural
Areas- One Job at a Time
• Current limitations to attracting alternative
industries
• Current limitations to living-wage job
creation in tourism
• Need to investigate opportunities in value-
added timber opportunities, technology and
manufacturing
 Alternatives to Traditional
Business Retention and
Expansion Programs – Turning
the Model on its Head
The Full-Court Press
 The One Starfish at a Time
Approach
• Collaborative approach with many
providers to share the work
• Going to the entrepreneurs/ self employed
– Awareness of resources
– Someone cares
– Access to counseling
• Focus on one-on-one
 What Reality Taught Us!
• Most small manufacturers are absolutely unaware
of resources for assistance
• Hiring employees is a great divide
• Going to them is essential as they have no time to
come to you or take classes
• Finding the ‘teachable’ moments is our challenge
• Running a business takes different skills than
making a product
 Reality’s Teaching continued
• Within several moths, 50 + potential new
jobs were identified
• BUT, follow- up is at odds with pie-in-the-
sky
• Rural business development is hard work
and requires you to be there for the long
haul
 Why Focus on Manufacturing?
• Job creation multiplier is higher than other
sectors
• Military readiness: major concerns about
graying of the workforce and outdated
production methods among existing small
businesses
 Barriers Facing Rural
Manufacturers
• Global niche marketing requires new
approaches which rural manufacturers’
isolation prevents them from learning
 Barriers to Participating in
Exporting Activities (Governors’
Guide to Trade and Global
Competition)
• Apathy and ignorance
• Inability to judge risk
• Lack export readiness
• Lack of time and resources to hunt done
information and resources
 Barriers Continued
• Weak U.S. private sector export networks
• Lack of good export financing and
insurance options
• Pricing and competitiveness problems
 Applying These Lessons to the
Regional Community Audit
• People underestimate the amount of
manufacturing occurring and the number of
manufacturers
• The study needs to go them
• The focus has to be one-on-one
• If you speak their “language,” they will
really talk with you
 Our Study
• Finding the manufacturers
– Regional database
– Personal contact
• Our target: 160 business
• Our results: 141 of 143 found businesses
participated
 Our Results
• Single proprietors/family businesses sometimes
don’t know enough about their business to answer
the questions
• These same businesses were often unwilling to
invest in training and relied on on-the-job training
(father to son)
• Those small business who did not use outside
training had the most pessimistic view of the
future
 Results (cont.)
• Willingness to take advantage of training
and technical assistance is significantly tied
to the firms’ outlook for a positive future
 Results (cont.)
• Almost 90% anticipate growth
• Half of these expect growth of less than
20%
• Ten % indicated expected growth of over
40%
• One quarter of these expect to grow 21 to
40%
 Results: Need for Assistance
• Firms reported needing
– Equipment
– Trained workers
– Capital
– 50% indicated that marketing was the area of
greatest need
 Results: Support for Education
• Over 40 firms indicated they wished to
actively support education in technical
fields by:
– Job shadowing
– Advising student clubs
– Guest speaker/demonstration
– Participate in advisory committees
 Results: Economic Impact of
Workforce Shortages
• Less than 10% answered the question
• Half of those answering indicated a
negative impact
• Estimates of $500,000 to $3 million dollars
in direct negative economic impact
• Indirect impact of up to $9 million or 20 to
150 jobs
 You Can Only Learn What
You Already Know
• Absence of lean manufacturing language
and techniques

• Absence of retooling and reprogramming

for equipment for product diversification

• You say marketing is… What?

 What Does This Mean?
• Decline in state revenues similar to reported
decline in small manufacturers sales
• Appearance of positive correlation between
incumbent worker training and projections
of growth
• Supporting incumbent worker training
seems like an ideas whose time has returned
Small Rural Manufacturers
Are the Starfish on
Economic Development
Beach
 Implications for Program
Development
• Focus on one-on-one
• Walking and talking the “language to
construct ‘teachable/coachable moments’
• Foster clusters for group learning and
sharing
 Implications (cont.)
• Assistance with ‘becoming an employer’
• Marketing help
• The wide-wide world or procurement
• Migration away from expert model to
coaching model
 Implications for Policy
• Find funding for incumbent worker training
• Support lean manufacturing to establish a
new framework for understanding the world
• Need a close look at efficiency of practices
for long-term sustainable economic
development of working with small
manufacturers versus chasing micro chips
or call centers
 Implications for Workforce
Research
• we are attracted to and shape research
problems that match our personal view of
seeing and understanding the world”
(Glesne & Peshkin, 1992, p. 9).
 “The way we see the world at a
particular moment determines the actions
we take,” (Flaherty, 199; page 31)

• The full-court press to reach out to rural

manufacturers changed our structure of
understanding of rural manufacturing
business development and workforce needs
• Based on this understanding, we undertook
a less than orthodox approach to learning
“between the lines” about workforce and
business development
 Research Strategies
o Person-to person
o Show up rural-neighbor style
• Speak the language the reflects their
structure of interpretation of the everyday
life
 …we account for behavior by
understanding it as what follows from the
way the world is showing up for
someone… it is the interpretation an
individual gives to the phenomenon that
leads to the actions taken..” (Flaherty,
James, 1999; page 9)
 Phenomenology and Rural
Manufacturers
• Unique relationships to the market are
meditated by their focus on production of a
single product
Unique relationship to workforce
is mediated by family and
community bonding social
capital
 Unique relationship to the
“business of business” is
mediated by the focus on family
style cottage industry
 Isolation from industry is a
critical variable and reflects the
lack of ‘language’ for product
diversification, marketing, and
retooling
Process must make their structure
of interpretation explicit to them
(Flaherty, 1999, page 32)
 Language or the Rural
Manufacturers’ Way of Being
Has Unwritten Rules
• Trust is essential – if you can’t discuss kids
or kin you better be up on the fine art of
discussing weather
• Connection to the real world of their
everyday life is essential to communication
The answer to, What happened? Is critical
to beginning a dialog
 Our Job As Researchers Is To:
• Construct our interview in language consistent
with their view of the world

• Conduct our interview in language which

resonates with their structure of interpretation

• Interpret the interview results into the language of

workforce and business development
 If we are there because we care
about them; then our follow up
must be timely and appropriate to
their view of the world
 Our job as Business/Workforce
Developers is to:

• Use the opening into the their structure of

interpreting the world to link new concepts
to concrete examples from their everyday
life
Translate everyday life concerns
into resource opportunity
”Provide new language, plus the
change by practice to have the
language become part of us, and
new observations, new action,
and a new world will inevitably
follow.” (Flaherty, 1999, page
30)
Make the case for training and
business development by tying
the future to family and
community goals (keep my
family and friends employed)
Use familiarity with their world
to introduce ideas and options
that overcome sense of
powerlessness
 New Language leads to a new
structure of interpretation leads to
design of a “new world, e.g.
adopting lean manufacturing,
marketing strategies, and
becoming an employer.
 Standard Research Methods for
Workforce Auditing
The Survey:
• Attributes: can get standardized information from
many businesses to develop a profile of business
and workforce development strengths and
challenges
• Limitations:
is based on the structure of interpretation of
consultants and workforce development
professionals
• misses the why?
 Focus Group
o Attributes: can get at the why of behavior
o Limitations:
o sample limits our ability to generalize
– Focus group
o Attributes: can get at the why, but
o Limitations:
o sample limits our ability to generalize
– difficulty in getting representative groups
 Observations:
• Attributes: can get at why and relational
information
•
Limitations: can not generalize information
 Interviews

• Attributes:
One-on-one can mediate meaning across structures
of interpretation

– Can get a high return rate

– Can get a why

Limitations: nature of responses limits quantitative
interpretation
• Limitations: nature of responses limits quantitative
interpretation
Determination of What We Need
to Know and How
to Find the Information
• Existing survey data – what would we get
that was different if we did more and better?

• Existing census and other quantitative data

 What Don’t We Know?

• Why do employers report labor shortages in

counties with 10+% unemployment?

• Why is retention such a problem across the

workforce?

• Why is underemployment a growing

problem?
 Additional Workforce Audit
Activities
• Healthcare:

– focus groups of C N A’s and DSN’s

– survey of major healthcare providers

 Hospitality

• Focus groups of employees across several

rural communities

• Interviews with employers (rural neighbor

stop by and visit method)

• Review of Department of Labor Data

 Hospitality
• 43 organizations
• 7 types of hospitality businesses
• 18 owners, 24 managers, 1 HR director
• Employed 1149 employees: 883 full time
 Hospitality
• 20 firms estimate 26% to 50% of gross
income in tourism related
• Entry-level wages from $2.43 to $9
• 29 firms offer benefits: uniforms, health
care, employee discounts
 Employee Turnover
• 20 firms employee turn over less than 20%
• Generally, firms with more than 10
employees experience turn over of at least
50% per year
• Industry standard is 60%
• More than half reported a negative
economic impact due to lack of skilled
workers
 Hospitality
• Workers are loyal to employers who recognize
their humanity
• Workers like working with people, solving
problems, and being busy
• Employees report that employers who are unclear
in expectations and organizational structure are
hard to work for
• Employers who don’t respect schedules and
worker needs for income have higher turn over
rates
 Focus Group on the Reservation
to Look at Issues Related to
Racism
• Race is a filter
• Lump everyone together vs. looking at what
one person can do
• Internalized depression keeps some people
from applying
• People look at your differently – have to do
double work to prove yourself, have to be
the best employee
Focus group with at-risk youth to
look at their view
• work ethic, punctuality, and attitude
– trial experiences
– More feedback from employers
– fair chance to succeed and learn from mistakes
by fixing them themselves
 They also suggested that one
would not go to a firm that hired
a great many youth to find good
retention and recruitment
strategies as any place that hires
lots of kids probably has a “bad
work culture”.
 Strategies to retain workers
• Better trained supervisors
• Clear priorities
• regular encouragement
• Clear expectations
 What did we learn?
Manufacturing
• Lots of potential
• Each star fish requires an intervention
• Success will require coordinated workforce
and business development assistance
 What did we learn: Healthcare
• Given the extreme difficulty in filling healthcare
positions, providers are willing to cooperate on
career awareness and subsidizing training
• Career laddering offers a solution if the
educational ladders are available to support them
• DSN’s and C N A’s need training on how to work
together to reduce turnover
 What did we learn: Hospitality
• Lack of workers will have a serious impact
on the ability of small towns to make
tourism an economic driver
• These businesses require subsidized training
• Most employers lack skills and knowledge
related to employee management
 What did we learn: Racism
• It is pervasive
• It is part of everyday life
• Indian people like to work on the
reservation because they believe in
furthering their culture
• Turf wars and organizational confusion are
not unique to reservations – bureaucracies
are bureaucracies
What did we learn: Youth issues
• Youth understand work ethic issues but
need instruction on what that looks like in
the workplace
• Youth need orientation to the work
environment
• Youth see loyalty as quid pro quid
• Poor first employers set patterns that impact
future workforce participation
 “…rural areas do not generally
have a large enough professional-
level workforce to attract or
develop ‘new economy ‘
industries….
 An educated, trainable
workforce is also important to
attract service and high tech jobs.
Without those jobs, the earnings
gap between urban and rural
America is likely to continue
widening. ” (Rural America, Vol. 16: Issue 1,
May 2001)
 Conclusion
• Much of the job churning is the
result of two ships passing in the
night – employers who don’t know
how to employ and employees who
have no reason to be loyal
 Implications for Programming

Job retention might require

spending resources on
training employers to get
better results of employees
 Rural WIB Needs
Capacity building in how to:
• gather data
• analyze data for program
development
• craft strategic intervention
• Set benchmarks and assess
results
 Implications for Policy
Successful business retention and
expansion with small rural employers
requires a new approach that focuses
on one-to-one technical assistance.
Most small rural manufacturers cannot
afford MEP services or T.A.
Maybe not more $, but different uses for
existing $
Providers need to learn to “speak
the language” and construct
‘teachable/coachable’ moments
to overcome isolation and
provide real help
 Providers must lessen the focus
on classes and increase the focus
on one-on-one at the location
 To support rural business
retention and expansion,
we must fundamentally
change our way of thinking
about those businesses