Looking Back on 2024 With the Institute for Workforce Excellence
The Institute for Workforce Excellence made plenty of great progress in 2024! We debuted a new website, which gives us the ability to share consistent and timely updates, and offers a resource library of previous workshops.
This year we unveiled our new partnership with the Indiana Commission for Higher Education, Western Governor’s University and SkillsFWD to create a learning and employment record (LER) ecosystem in Indiana. An LER connects employers to available talent with self-attested or verified credentials via a skills match. This helps employers see what skills are needed for their jobs and the talent who has those skills. It also helps to show what skills are missing to help create onboarding and ongoing development training plans.
The SkillsFWD work continues in tandem with our existing efforts in skills-based talent strategy. Hiring for skill is the number one predictor of job performance and can increase retention.
From our 2024 Indiana Chamber Employer Survey, 51% of employers stated that they currently assess or test based on skills and competencies during their hiring process (a three-point increase from last year). 18% said they don’t currently but are interested in learning about the steps needed to use skills-based practices. This is a positive trend toward more employers’ awareness and use of skills in their talent strategy, and a consistent interest in learning how to adopt the approach.
Continuing upon the momentum created in 2023, over 130 individuals attended a skills-based talent workshop from nearly 100 unique employers in 2024. Those interested in learning more can attend one of the monthly free workshops offered by the Institute’s Natalie Wenzler.
The Institute’s Work and Learn Indiana (WLI) program continues to partner with the Indiana Commission for Higher Education to offer EARN Indiana funding. Employers can receive 50 percent wage reimbursement for hiring eligible students. There were 280 high school EARN students placed into internships this year, and 445 college EARN interns.
WLI had 431 new employers join this year, and nearly 4,500 new student accounts. Approximately 3,200 new internships were posted, and 95.7% of positions posted were paid.
The Institute for Workforce Excellence has much to celebrate as 2024 comes to a close. During our third year as a non-profit entity at the Chamber, we overhauled our organizational website, launched several new initiatives aimed at supporting employers’ talent needs, and welcomed a new executive director to the organization, Sally Saydshoev. We are even more excited about what lies ahead for 2025. Stay tuned as we have some innovative new programming that is aimed to support workplace professionals in navigating talent challenges and providing resources/professional development to increase the quality and capacity of career-oriented learning opportunities across the state.
