21A - GRANT - DISLOCATED WORKER - Laserfiche WebLink

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2. How would participants be better served by the Local Board or administrative entity acting in this role rather than through the awarding of contracts? The Santa Ana WORK Center has a long track record of delivering strong performance results for its Adult and Dislocated Worker clients. But beyond landing participants good jobs, staff provides a depth of services and benefits that are often difficult to express in a numbers -driven system. The WORK Center and its partners offer an experienced and stable workforce that has years of knowledge in the workforce industry. Long term ties, knowledge and insight to the residents and business community it serves. The City has oversight and coordination of the WORK Center and is administered under the City's Economic Development Department. Staffs is cross trained on various local, state and federal tax incentives and are well versed on what is happening with businesses moving in, expanding or notified of plant closures or mass layoffs. The WORK Center is very much seen as an asset to the City's business retention and attraction efforts and is valued for ensuring the city has a trained and skilled workforce. Staff has developed strong working relationships with area business associations such as the Santa Ana Chamber of Commerce, the OC Business Corporation, Orange County Employer Management Association (OCEMA),the manufacturing trade group California Manufacture Technology Consulting (CMTC), the local Small Business Association (SBA) and the Small Business Development Corporation (SBDC). In addition to the staff networking connections with employers and their knowledge of the local labor market and economy is invaluable to the participants. With an outside contractor, there would be no Board administrative control over factors such as technical expertise and experience levels of staff, staff turnover, and administrative stability. An outside contractor will be focused almost exclusively on quantitative outcomes to meet contract obligations and to receive full payment. In addition, the WORK Center has developed a successful pre-employment component, such as career assessment and counseling that has been built into program design for the benefit of the participant. The intent is to match participant skill sets, aptitudes and interests to appropriate opportunities to maximize longer term results for the client and over all organizational performance. The WORK Center also has a long established record in working together with the Adult Education and ROP centers to augment clients training and basic skills training that would be difficult to duplicate for an outside vendor. And finally, the WORK Center is committed to serve its local employer customers at the highest level possible has benefited both job seeker and employers. Staff is committed to 100% employer satisfaction and responds to all local employer job openings and screen and Page 4 of 8 21A-8