On paper, the plan looked viable. In reality, implementation was much harder. On July 1, 2000, the WIA began in Tennessee under the direction of the Tennessee Higher Education Commission (THEC). The THEC was charged with coordinating, monitoring and maintaining an Eligible Training Provider List for the WIA. The list is composed of schools and other institutions that provide certification or degree programs for a variety of industries.

However, by 2002 the state still had not completed the federal government’s required annual performance report regarding training providers. In fact, Tennessee was under a federal waiver to get the report completed. This report, relying on supplied data from all of the eligible training providers in the state, was supposed to be complete at the conclusion of the first year of WIA operation in the state.

Enter Rosevelt Noble. In September 2002, Noble was named the director of the Workforce Investment Act at THEC. A Vanderbilt defensive back in the mid-’90s who has a Ph.D. in sociology and a background in quantitative data analysis, Noble approached the situation as a statistician. His first goal was to a get a report completed. “I came aboard in September and the waiver expired in January. So for the first three months, the goal was to get the report done,” he says.

Noble says the main challenge in completing the report stemmed from gathering the data. “We used to receive 40 different variations of a quarterly report and, as a research analyst, that’s like your worst nightmare because it makes data cleaning that much more problematic,” Noble explains. “As well as 40 different variations, we received them at 40 different times. Our reports are due on a quarterly basis, but we had problems with providers being chronically late.” Since then, Noble has created a standardized, quarterly reporting procedure for all providers.

According to Christy Pruett with Methodist Hospital in Memphis, the changes have helped a lot. Methodist is a training provider whose School of Radiological Sciences and Imaging offers students a 24-month core radiology program to prepare them for certification. It has been listed as a training provider for about three years. “[THEC] sent us a disc that had a form on it that we fax in,” Pruett says. “They are very good about e-mailing or calling us when the time period is coming up. The forms are user-friendly and arrive in a more timely manner, which is an improvement over what we had before.”

Of the reports that were due April 15, Noble says, “I think we only had four or five that were late, where before we would have 50 that were late. We had to change the thought process of the training providers. Once they realized that we were going to be sticklers about certain things, they adjusted and fell in line accordingly.”

Julia McGee, director of extended education at Austin Peay State University, which offers myriad training programs under the WIA, concurs: “We send a report to THEC directly. It’s a whole lot easier to file the reports since Dr. Noble took over.”

As Noble has refined the process each successive year, Tennessee is now further ahead of most other states regarding the WIA. Many of them are still under the federal waiver to get their reports filed. Noble says he gets queries and telephone calls from different state representatives wanting to know how he does it. “Many of them are still struggling with the data reporting issue in terms of the infrastructure to do that. To give you an idea, we actually have some out-of-state training providers on our list that send us data quarterly but don’t send it to their home state because their home state doesn’t currently require it,” he says.

The first annual report is still listed as a set practice on the federal government’s WIA Web site. Noble now speaks at workshops to help other states with their reporting processes.

Streamlining the annual performance report gives Tennessee a comprehensive idea of just how well the WIA program is performing. Although the 2004 report was not published in time for the printing of this article, according to the 2003 report, 8,345 Tennesseans completed WIA certification programs using WIA funds. The number of those taking advantage of the program has increased progressively since its inception. WIA had a statewide completion rate of 74.6%, which was 34 percentage points higher than the general student population. WIA students also fared well in terms of placement—66% were gainfully employed after completing a training program.

Deciding who is eligible to be a training provider falls on the shoulders of local Workforce Investment Boards. Tennessee is divided into 13 regions, each overseen by a local board comprised of volunteer members appointed by elected officials. The local boards are charged with the task of ensuring training providers are qualified. They have stringent requirements and notify THEC if a provider is no longer qualified or requests removal.

The Workforce Investment Boards also govern the local career centers. At these centers the one-stop shop concept of job assistance becomes a reality as they strive to coordinate a vast variety of training programs and job aid.

Christine Bradley, executive director of the Nashville Career Advancement Center, also is director of the Area 9 Local Workforce Investment Board. “I don’t believe that there has been an increase or decrease in the effectiveness of the implementation of the Workforce Investment Act since its inception, but I do believe that we have had the opportunity to create a dual focus in regards to workforce development,” she says. “The needs of the employer and the job-seeker alike need to be taken into consideration in an effort to make the best possible fit between the two.”

An individual who qualifies for WIA funding is assigned a caseworker who offers varying levels of information and guidance. Bill Elliott took advantage of the WIA after he was laid off at a company where he had worked for 10 years. Through WIA, the Rutherford County resident received training to become a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer. Afterwards, he found a job as a senior network consultant. Today, he is controller for systems integrator Digital Connections. He believes the training was essential to getting him where he is today. “Even though training at that time for the technology field was saturated, it still gave me the credentials to get my foot in the door,” Elliott says.

Stephanie Anderson, an office manager for TRC International, says she, too, found the program beneficial. She received her associates degree in business management from Nashville Tech. “I’d only had a high school diploma before then,” Anderson says. “The program gave me the opportunity to go to college.” She credits the program with improving her job prospects. “Without the training, I would have gone back into the workforce, floating around in administrative jobs. The career center was very good about inviting you to its career seminars to meet prospective employers. You had an individual assigned to you who followed up with you. I found it very helpful.”

One goal of the local Workforce Investment Boards is to create a match between employer needs and qualified applicants. “The Workforce Investment Act has allowed the career center system to partner with a variety of organizations and higher institutions of learning to lend focus on more systemic workforce issues, such as the need for health care workers,” Area 9 board member Bradley says.

Murfreesboro-based National HealthCare Corp. has benefited from this focus. Chris West, associate vice president of human resources, says that WIA-trained employees have been successful in alleviating some of the nursing shortage in long-term care. “WIA does a great job in bringing together the private sector, the public sector, and education,” he says. “Without WIA, we would be experiencing an even more severe nursing shortage in Middle Tennessee. The Middle Tennessee Career Center has been visionary in accessing WIA funds for citizens who can use the financial assistance.”

Statewide employer UPS is finding its relationship with the career centers to be positive. “We have a great partnership. We can help them and they can help us,” says Patricia Hanna, a human resources representative with UPS. For example, UPS goes to the career center and speaks at Job Quest to candidates who are seeking employment.

Overall, on its fifth anniversary under the aegis of THEC, the Workforce Investment Act is a program gaining in potential each year. Noble says the variety and substance of training programs offered is growing, creating a viable option for job seekers and a solution for employers in Tennessee.

“When I took the job, I knew nothing about the WIA and went into it strictly from a research analyst perspective—trying to get the report registered,” Noble explains. “Over time, I’ve learned more and more about it, and I think it is a wonderful tool if an individual utilizes it correctly. Students in Tennessee are offered something credible in terms of the training providers to go through. We have a nice system set up here.”

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