Welcome and Introductions
Co-chairs, Tom Hall and Tom Warren, called the meeting to order at 10AM. They thanked the meeting host, Mary Ellen Mason (HCAT), for refreshments and use of the class room and equipment for the meeting.
The chairs asked those present to introduce themselves by name, title and company. They noted that over forty people, who attended the summit, volunteered to serve on the steering committee. Many of those new volunteers were present:
C'helee Barnes, Baltimore City Public Schools
Libia Cuellar, L&M International
Bruce Davis, Center of Applied Technology North
Gordon Ellis, Sodexho Corporate Services
Larry Frank, Classic Catering People, The
David Greene, Keller Professional Services, Inc.
Marcy Jackson, Montgomery College
Ruth K. Lee, Stratford University
Cathy Parsons, Hawthorn Suites
Bill Pencek, Baltimore Heritage Area
Janet Saros, Montgomery College
Janis Siegel, Baltimore City Community College
Judy Streeter, University of Maryland Eastern Shore
Toni Talbott, Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development
Mary Yeates, Montgomery County Public Schools
Current Status of the Five Phase Process
Bernard Reynolds, industry coordinator, noted that with the completion of the industry workforce summit, the steering committee was entering a new and transitional phase of its work. He described the historical progress and current status of the steering committee and industry initiative within the five-phased process used by GWIB.
Phase I, Organization, was completed in April, 2005 when the steering committee was formed and convened its first meeting. Phase II, Research and Assessment, was completed between April 2005 and August 2006. Information was gathered and used to form an industry profile, workforce profile and to define workforce issues. Between August and December 2006, the committee completed a major task in Phase II, the writing and publication of the Industry Monograph.
Phase III was the Workforce Summit (convened January 23, 2007.) The steering committee planned and executed the summit between May 2006 and January 2007. The purpose of the summit was to validate the findings of the monograph, and to rank the fourteen workforce development recommendations proposed by the committee. The final task of Phase III, included on the committee's 2/27/07 meeting agenda, is the post summit report (see next section.).
The next phase, IV- develop a plan of action, begins at the 2/27/07 committee meeting. Reynolds distributed a copy of the Phase IV description taken from GWIB's "Industry Initiative Process Guide." He suggested the committee use it as a reference guide. He reported that the committee's objective, in this phase of the process, is to write a plan, to implement the (critical) recommendations validated at the summit, by June 2007. Between February and June 2007, the committee will attempt to complete these four tasks:
- Refine (update) the demand (High Demand Occupation or HDO) report originally presented August 2005 (see below)
- Conduct Gap analysis by appropriate State partners
- Update and expand best practices
- Develop strategies for selected recommendations
The the presentation of the plan of action to the Governor's Workforce Investment Board will complete Phase IV. Once the plan is accepted, the steering committee will evolve into an implementation committee for the next phase, V- implement the plan,. The June deadline was chosen because the Board meets quarterly: March, June, September and December. The June 2007 is nearest, reasonable date to present the Hospitality and Tourism workforce development plan.
High Demand Occupations
Reynolds suggested that the committee revisit the HDO report. He noted that the committee constructed an HDO survey instrument in 2005. It was distributed to the committee's industry members, but few (less than 6) were returned. Tom Warren noted that the committee worked on the HDO issue for three or more meetings. In addition to poor response rates, the committee felt that critical factors to the H&T industry, full time vs part-time and seasonal vs permanent staffing, were not addressed in DLLR occupational forecasts. In the end, the committee decided that there was high "demand" for all positions and, given available data, there was no way to narrow this list to the top 25 HDOs (as suggested by the Process Guide.)
Reynolds explained that his proposal did not include a new industry HDO survey. He was suggesting formation of a subcommittee with representatives from the four industry sectors, who would review newly prepared occupational titles and data from GWIB staff. The subcommittee's endorsement of the data would be presented to the full committee for final review. This process would provide a more refined "demand" picture which is not included in the current monograph.
The chairs and various committee members questioned the need to revisit HDOs, however, the chairs agreed to look over the new HDO data and evaluation tools developed by GWIB. Further action was postponed to the next steering committee meeting.
Post Summit Review
Mr. Reynolds noted that 248 individuals attended the summit. Of those, 100 completed the summit evaluation. Tim Bibo, GWIB analyst, prepared a "Summary of Evaluation" report which was distributed to the committee. Reynolds noted that the high ratings of the summit content and issues (as well as the comments in the structured comment section) validated the work and conclusions of the committee. The summit planning committee added two questions to the evaluation form: "What one thing stood out in what you heard today?" and "What questions do you still have?." Reynolds organized the long answers into categories suggested by the content of those responses. (see "Summary of Evaluation" report for more details.)
Post Summary Report
The co-chairs noted that the publication of a Post Summit Report would complete Phase III. The report is a description of what occurred at the summit. They distributed the first draft of the report, together with a description of the proposed format (a four page newsletter.) Committee members were asked to break into small groups to read and critique the draft. Following this exercise, each workgroup was asked to present its criticisms and suggestions. They reported:
- Instead of newsletter, write an executive summary or press release that briefly describes - here are the issues, here are the recommendation and here are our next steps. Post to the GWIB web site and embed links to more detail report.
- Get to "meat of the summit" more quickly. Shorten introduction about summit, and move next steps and/or recommendation to front of publication.
- Next Steps sections should be punchier - convey sense of action and urgency. Perhaps use bullets for quick read.
- Include some historical information to give readers, who did not attend the summit, a perspective on the what and why of the industry initiative.
- The listing of workforce issues is a must - but need to create link between and the recommendations. (There are 8 issues and 14 recommendations - what is their relationship?) Since the workforce issues have not been ranked, list them either alphabetically or with bullets. Numbers convey a sense of priority.
- Report all recommendations and their rankings (from the summit) - not just the first eight. (this recommendation come from this exercise, but was reinforce during the discussion of HDOs - see below).
- Create a simple graphic that defines who attended the summit (industry, education and government).
- Add to the report an invitation to readers to join the steering committee.
Recommendations Ranked at the Summit
The co-chairs distributed "Post Summit Report- Recommendations from the Industry Monograph" prepared by GWIB staff. The first page of the report was a matrix showing the summit workgroup votes by recommendation, by workgroup topic and in total. In addition, the top eight recommendations were listed in order with full details taken from the Monograph.
The goal of this Agenda Item was to narrow the list of 14 recommendations to the 3 to 5 to be developed for the plan of action. A lengthy discussion followed about the ranking method and the number and impact of industry attenders at the summit. Suggestions were made to survey industry members of the committee, the summit attenders and/or the H&T industry at large. Some committee members stated a new ranking survey would be confusing in light of the fact that the "ranking" exercise and reports at the summit were widely publicized.
It was noted that the 8 workforce issues had not been ranked, and that 3 or more recommendations were linked to each issue. This lead to an alternative proposal. It was agreed that the committee would delay narrowing the list of recommendations. The committee asked the GWIB staff to develop a survey instrument and implementation plan for the workforce issues to be reviewed by the co-chairs. (Note - it is assumed by the notetaker, but was not stated meeting that results from this survey would be ready for the next committee meeting in March.)
Next Steps
The co-chairs outlined ideas for organizing the committee and possible subcommittee to complete the plan of action. It was noted that decisions/results for the HDO and workforce issue survey would delay formation of subcommittees, and would require the full steering committee to meet in March and April.
The committee agreed to convene future steering committee meeting from 10AM to Noon, scheduled on the 3rd Tuesday of the month. (Note: exact date/place for the March meeting is still pending and may not be the 3rd Tuesday. A firm schedule will be distributed to the committee ASAP.)
There being no other business, the co-chairs adjourned the meeting at Noon.
Notes prepared by Bernard Reynolds, Industry Coordinator, March 1, 2007 |
