Ep. 2: Get Your Education!

This season of Tight Knit has covered a lot of ground seeking to understand the landscape of workforce development in Southeast Michigan and Western New York. In our final episode, Tight Knit host Shannon Cason brings several guests to the table to answer the question: Where do we go from here to meet the needs of so many stakeholders? The conversation includes Chioke Mose-Teleford from the Corporation for a Skilled Workforce, Greg Handel with the Detroit Regional Chamber, and Karen Utz from Empire State Development. Shannon also talks to Susan Dundon of the Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation about its north star for workforce development.

A missed phone bill, a late bus, or even a not-quite-completed degree can derail employment for many. Meanwhile, employers suffer the cost of poor retention and few promotions within their entry-level workers. In this episode, we learn about the Employer Resource Network, ERN, which brings businesses together to solve sticky employment issues in their region. We talk to Trinity Health about their apprenticeships and skills-based hiring. Both have increased the health system’s retention and diversity. Finally, follow us as we try to take Metro Detroit buses to work.

If businesses want to find enough workers, they’ll need to change their hiring practices, according to the Society for Human Resource Management. We look at programs that provide job opportunities for untapped workers and businesses, why things have changed, what it means for business, and how nonprofits are stepping up to give those often overlooked an opportunity for a brighter future.

From solar cells and batteries to electric vehicles, the future is electric. Getting there takes a coordinated effort among nonprofits, schools and colleges, businesses and governments. We talk to several organizations in Detroit and Buffalo about upskilling workers and enticing young people to the field.

Take a deeper look at how workforce development programs, government, and businesses cooperate to keep workers and build economic opportunity. This episode also explores financial risks of these changes and the impacts on communities at large.

At Buffalo’s Northland Workforce Training Center on Buffalo’s Eastside, men and women are finding new careers in advanced manufacturing. The center’s programs help to fill a skilled trades workforce gap in Western New York. In Detroit, Sarah Gregory with Detroit Regional Partnership explains how they draw business to Southeastern Michigan.

This week we look at how public education helps the workforce, and we talk to one teenager who loves shop class at Detroit’s Randolph Career and Technical Center, and to Don Hutchison who had a bumpy road after high school and is now Dean of Engineering and Advanced Technology at Macomb Community College.

Learn more about the Tight Knit series from the Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation at tightknit.org.Tight Knit is hosted by Shannon Cason. Our supervising producer and editor is Sea Stachura and our executive producer is David Leins.This episode was produced and reported by Rob St. Mary, Cary Junior II, Jack Filbrant and Patrick Bernas. Sound design by Conor Anderson. Music supervision by Sam Beaubien. Music from Blue Dot Sessions. Video production by Jonathan Deschaine.We heard archival material from the U-S National Archives, C-SPAN, NPR, the Internet Archive and the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank. This season of Tight Knit is produced for the Ralph C Wilson Jr. Foundation by Lafayette American and WDET, Detroit’s NPR Station.

Our award-winning series returns with Tight Knit Season 2 focused on Workforce Development. In this season, we follow teens and adults as they navigate the various pathways that can lead to good jobs and careers, and the systems that can support or impede their success.

Many people in the U.S. are getting older without a close family member who can take care of them. A Buffalo organization is one of a growing number of global “villages” that draw on volunteers to help otherwise isolated people with all aspects of caregiving.