Steven Assarian: Let’s start with who you are, and your background.
Olivia Blomstrom: I'm Olivia Blomstrom. I'm the Business Solutions Manager at West Michigan Works. I oversee a team across all seven counties that we serve. We help businesses connect with and build the talent they need to succeed.
My background comes from healthcare. I made a move to West Michigan Works as a Business Solutions Representative serving Montcalm and Ionia Counties. I took a one year hiatus and went to work for the Right Place and did economic development for them for a year again, supporting the Montcalm area as the Executive Director of the Montcalm Economic Alliance. But I missed West Michigan Works, the work that we were doing and was fortunate to come back. It’s worked out really well. I never grew up thinking I'm going to go into workforce development, but I love the meaningful work and my team is amazing.
Steven: That’s a good start to my next question: what exactly is workforce development? I think a lot of people understand jobseeking, finding work, but not a lot of people understand what workforce development is.
Olivia: To me, workforce development is taking what the current workforce is and identifying where the trends are, where the gaps are, where those needs are, and then working to fill in those gaps.
My team, for example, specifically works with employers throughout West Michigan, and we're working with them to identify their needs, their pain points, and talent gaps. And then I can understand what solutions I can bring to solve their needs. It could be that they have a recruitment need, or they’re looking at layoffs, or they’re trying to understand the labor market. We can help any employer through any situation they find themselves in terms of talent.
On the jobseeker side, we help job seekers get the skills that are going to meet the demand of what these employers need and help them get into employment. In workforce development, you’re bridging the gap from both sides.
Steven: Employers and entrepreneurs might not know what West Michigan Works offers on the employer side, and how you all engage with businesses. Walk us through that.
Olivia: We start with a very organic conversation, asking open ended questions to learn where a business owner wants to grow, where are their grunts and pain points. And learning those things, we start to bridge what we have in our resource bucket to the issues we’re seeing. Do you need recruitment services? Upskilling? Entry level talent?
We have multiple ways to help a business find and develop talent. We can offer some wage reimbursement off-setting with some of our grant services, so that you can take somebody that maybe doesn't have all the skills that you need and bring them onboard and the grant offsets the wages while the new hire is in training, or help you set up an apprenticeship to train up employees while they earn.
Steven: What exactly is an apprenticeship?
Olivia: An apprenticeship program puts together classroom training as well as on-the-job training. The idea is that you're taking a new employee, training them, and giving them credentials and skills that they're going to have for their entire career, no matter where you’re employed.
When an employee goes through an apprenticeship program, they become certified, and because it's a United States Department of Labor (USDOL) certified apprenticeship program, the State of Michigan will help soften some of those costs by providing West Michigan Works with funding to help offset what an apprenticeship program is going to cost an employer, because it is an investment in the employee.
When people think of apprenticeships, they usually think of the traditional skilled trades. But there’s much more: there’s culinary apprenticeship programs; there's an MA for medical assistant programs. There's Early Child Care apprenticeship programs - that's a little bit newer.
We have an apprenticeship coordinator team. They're honestly rock stars. They work directly with the US Department of Labor (DOL) and employers. In coordinating those efforts on creating U.S. DOL registered apprenticeship programs coming up under our standards, we hold the standards for like over 40 different apprenticeship programs. Then we also work closely with our community colleges in the area that have their own apprenticeship standards and programs and help employers manage their own standards.
Steven: What are the big successes of West Michigan Works?
Olivia: Oh goodness, our big successes. Personally, for our team, I'm very proud of the amount of funding we bring back to West Michigan when it comes to the Going Pro Talent Fund, because it's a competitive state grant. Of the $55 million the state allocates to the Going Pro Talent Fund, West Michigan Works brought in $15.2 million this past year. We're bringing in a big portion of those resources for West Michigan businesses to upskill their employees and hire new employees.
Steven: Where are West Michigan Works’ aspirations right now?
Olivia: We're continuing to focus on apprenticeship development and maintaining our apprenticeship programs and helping those, not just employers, but also assisting with opportunities for pre-apprenticeship program development. Our apprenticeship team is really good at developing apprenticeship programs and standards with businesses that don’t currently have an apprenticeship program and then getting the program registered with the U.S. DOL.
We are fortunate the State of Michigan continues to invest in apprenticeship programs and provides apprenticeship expansion grant funding opportunities to support the expansion of apprenticeship programs. It's really an interesting time right now in workforce development.
Additionally, we are focusing on supporting businesses as they grow and expand with recruitment services, grant funding opportunities as well as access to talent pipelines through our youth program.
Steven: What are some parting words that you would have for an employer who wants to seek you out, and where can people find more information about you?
Olivia: Our website is where businesses can find us. If you email business@westmichiganworks.org, those emails will go directly to me, and I can connect you to the right Business Solutions Representative in West Michigan Works. That way, instead of trying to sort through a lot of information that can feel like drinking from a fire hose, we can start with a conversation and get businesses connected with resources that fit their needs.
