Kentucky Workforce Academy

We have entered into another busy holiday shopping season.  Many retailers like Best Buy held trainings to prepare their staff for the busiest time of the year.  Like the retail sector, our workforce development industry sees traffic increase in our offices this time of year. 

During this busy time many of our regions are currently going through trainings of the Kentucky Workforce Academy across the state. The Kentucky Workforce Academy (KWA) is an initiative designed to give our professional staff members the training and tools they need to support of our broader vision for the transformation of the Commonwealth’s workforce development system.  The Branding and Outreach initiative is also aiding in the transformation of our system.  We are helping to equip our staff with resources to help fulfill the Brand Promise through the KWA.

Most importantly, this training provides workforce system staff at every level with an opportunity to add your voice and your ideas for innovation, which will have the attention of your managers and leadership, both locally and at the state level.

After attending the KWA, participants were asked what they considered the strongest feature of the training. Here are some comments:

“The group discussions were the best part. Participants were able to get together with coworkers from other offices to openly discuss current issues that all the offices face.”

“The overall message of us being the heart of the pipeline of change for internal and external clients.”

“I really enjoyed the session on accepting "change" in addition to the exercise. It was informative and eye-opening.”

The Kentucky Workforce Academy steering committee is busy planning the next phase of the training for 2013 and beyond.  One of the projects is to video record the four modules so that we may have online trainings for new employees in the future.  Also, we are asking for volunteers to do video testimonials on their experiences in the KWA.  If you are interested, please contact Holly Neal (holly.neal@ky.gov) via e-mail.  As part of the planning process the committee is looking closely at all the feedback generated by the surveys to make this a valuable tool for all of our staff.

As we move closer to the external launch of the Kentucky Career Center brand, the Kentucky Workforce Academy is instrumental in this system wide transformation so that we may deliver on our Brand Promise.

Beth A. Brinly
Commissioner