Click here to find out more about the Georgia Work Ready Program.
Local business leaders want Floyd County to become one of Georgia’s first certified work-ready communities.
“It’s another tool in your bag,” said Sam Freeman of the Rome-Floyd County Development Authority. “It’s good for the retention and recruiting of manufacturers.”
The initiative, launched this month, is a partnership between the state and the Georgia Chamber of Commerce. Fred McConnel, the program’s statewide coordinator, said the idea is to assess local workers’ skills in a standardized way that industries can use to match a community’s workforce with their employment needs. Improving the high school graduation rate of a county and offering free training to low-scoring workers are other elements of the plan.
Tallapoosa City Manager Phillip Eidson, who chairs the 10-county Coosa Valley Regional Development Center, said the program could be a boon to Northwest Georgia counties trying to attract and keep good jobs.
“We’re coming up on the 1-year anniversary of the Honda plant opening in Tallapoosa, and there’s been a 22 percent turnover in employees,” he said. “There’s a lack of skills.”
The state’s technical colleges have been tapped to do the free worker-assessments and create profiles of different jobs for comparison. McConnel said the four-hour tests will focus on an individual’s abilities in applied math, locating information and reading for information.
“Eighty percent of businesses use those skills,” he said. “Workers will be graded and get certificates — credentials to prove to businesses they are ready for work.”
Plans are to assess 25,000 to 50,000 workers a year statewide and create a database with work-ready information for each county that businesses can use in determining where they want to locate.
Although participation is voluntary, Coosa Valley RDC Executive Director Bill Steiner urged all members to push their counties to enroll.
“If a county is not participating, it could be at a serious disadvantage,” Steiner said.
Coosa Valley Technical College will be providing the assessments for workers in Floyd, Gordon and
Polk counties, said Pete McDonald, CVTC vice president for economic development.
“We’ve met with the three chambers (of commerce) on this, and we’re forming teams to talk to the boards of commissioners in the next few weeks,” he said.
Worker-assessments are only one factor determining county certification, but McDonald said Floyd already meets the other standards.
The sign-up deadline is April 30 for the first phase of the program. However, McConnel said the state is accepting proposals through March 15 from counties that want to be part of a pilot program and receive extra help. Five counties will be picked from applicants with populations under 100,000, he said.
“We’re going to have to work at this,” Freeman said. “But the state and the governor are behind it, so I think it will work.”
