This chapter benefits various individuals and organizations, including community colleges and programs leading to higher education and the workforce. Community colleges, workforce programs, business, and industry utilize advisory committees. Whether they meet in a formal or an informal setting, the benefit of their input is critical to program success. The workforce is strategic and innovative when it uses collaborative partnerships to provide individuals in communities with training and retraining to compete in a changing workforce. This information helps institutions use advisory committees to the fullest to bring about negotiations and partnerships to advance skills for workers. This chapter focuses on the role of advisory committees in workforce education. Those who can benefit from the information presented include committee development officers, business/industry professionals, administrators, and workforce-education specialists. The collaborative nature of the partnerships within workforce-education programs creates opportunities to benefit professionals in a variety of specializations.
TopIntroduction
The development of an effective local workforce is imperative for the economic prosperity of a community. It focuses on the skills local businesses and industries require to yield successful outcomes in the community, and essentially can develop competitiveness in the global market (Haralson, 2010). Economic development that affects the community, the state, or even the global market, drives business and industry, and requires a well-trained workforce to achieve goals for economic prosperity. Achieving a sustainable workforce calls for worker skills that match the demands of the local environment. Thus, workforce development matches the skills of workers with the demands of the workplace (Haralson, 2010). Workforce-education programs are well suited to students, because such programs partner with business and industry, and simultaneously offer specific training opportunities to guide students toward their career path. Workforce and technical programs provide easy access, quick payouts, and the ability to meet a variety of interests (Holzer, 2008). Enlisting the assistance of higher education to gain or retrain in a new skill puts the student on his/her way to achieving full potential as an active contributor to the economic growth of the society. A comprehensive approach to developing a local workforce means utilizing community connections, invested employers, industry-driven support, skilled training, and networking. Integrating a workforce development strategy builds on past efforts, using job strategies that include local training, support of employers, long-term and short-term specific skill-set training, and job-placement considerations (Haralson, 2010). Higher education prepares students to succeed in their chosen fields, and when it contributes to the development of a community workforce, it streamlines and organizes the multiple paths to workforce development and provides workforce support effectively and efficiently.