Responding to concerns and issues raised by employers about their need for front-line staff and first-line supervisory training, but the limited resources they had to send staff off-site for training, the State Workforce Investment Board in 2002 pursued an e-learning training project to test this modality as an effective means of delivering training. A catalog with over 2,500 courses was acquired from NY Wired, an entity initially established to help wire all New York’s schools to the Internet. This course library was made available to businesses across New York State at no charge. Businesses were required to identify the employees they wished to train and the online courses they wanted those employees to complete. Additionally, as a condition of the e-learning training grant, businesses and their employees needed to commit to completing detailed surveys about the course content, the method of training, etc.

Albany Medical Center was awarded 100 slots to train 100 employees. On average, employees have taken 5 courses each. Their participants have spent a total of 687 hours in ‘e-learning training’. Some participants have taken as many as 31hours of course work, and several as many as 20 courses.

This health care facility has had a high success rate due to clear expectations for employees and strong management support and structure set up by this facility up front, including large group orientations, and follow up and progress sessions with employees. Participants are being required to take 13 courses relating to Management and Leadership. Skill Brief handouts were made available to the participants for each of the courses they were required to take, and small group facilitators were selected from the participants to lead group discussions and gain feedback for the duration of the program. Written outcomes of these small group discussions were mailed to participating employees to further reinforce learning.

On behalf of the Emerging Worker Subcommittee, the State Department of Labor awarded a $159,996 Youth Challenge Grant to the Cattaraugus-Allegany Workforce Investment Board (WIB) to electronically link six school districts and two BOCES to its local One-Stop Centers. These school-based “Virtual One-Stops” were funded to bridge pre-existing gaps between area educational institutions and local One-Stop resources to better prepare youth for entry into the workforce. The project recently culminated with the production of mycareerchallenge.com, a web-based tool, “designed by youth for youth,” to help teenagers prepare for the future. Efforts are currently underway to expand the use of this website beyond the original pilot sites. Using its existing youth contractors, Cattaraugus-Allegany is distributing mycareerchallenge.com CDs to approximately 20 school districts in the two-county area. By the end of February, over 1,500 seniors in these districts will have their own copies of the CD to assist with their career planning.

This grant opportunity was designed to help maintain a ready supply of highly skilled workers by researching why older workers leave a particular occupation or industry, and identifying what kinds of changes can be made in the industry’s processes that would encourage older, skilled workers to remain in their skilled occupation. Each of the projects had four phases: Research, Development of Strategies, Implementation, and Evaluation.

Manufacturers Association of Central New York – The focus of this project was workers age 45 and older in critical sectors: Manufacturing, Retail, Health Care, Information Technology/Service. The project sought to identify problems and solutions to older worker retention, satisfaction, and performance within the critical sectors.

Eddy Visiting Nurse Association – The purpose of this project was to determine whether telehomecare intervention (THC) can improve the work schedules, job satisfaction, perceptions of the work environment, and emotional reactions to the job of registered nurses who are over age 45 in the Eddy Health Home Care Program and St. Peter’s Home Care Program. Another goal of the project was to reduce burnout, paperwork, and travel time for the nurses.

Long Term Care at the Eddy – The two primary goals of this research project were to identify Job Redesign Strategies that would help to retain older Certified Nursing Assistants, Home Health Care Aides, and Patient Care Technicians in their current positions within Northeast Health’s nursing home, home health care, and hospital divisions, and also to test these strategies in the Northeast Health Care system.

Both Eddy grants partnered with the State University of New York at Albany’s School of Social Welfare, Institute of Gerontology for the research components.