In a 100-day period between September and December last year, the new Business Engagement Division within Iowa Workforce Development held one-on-one meetings with 2,698 Iowa employers.

The new arm of IWD aims to tune in to businesses’ workforce needs and adapt with them as the only division in the agency working solely with employers, said Division Administrator Tim Goodwin.

Goodwin and Deputy Division Administrator Kathy Anderson’s work currently reflects employers’ need for better connection to the state’s workforce resources as well as the continued economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Building and renewing relationships with employers has been a priority since September as pandemic-era turnover at the agency and businesses disrupted them. Goodwin said there was also less engagement from IWD during the yearlong period where all of the agency’s employees were reassigned to handling unemployment claims.

Iowa’s 3.1% unemployment rate in December paired with at least 75,000 job openings has the Business Engagement Division focused on reemploying Iowans who are not in the workforce. Goodwin said the division’s launch marked the beginning of a “rebranding of Iowa Workforce Development from an unemployment agency to a reemployment agency.”

“What we’re really focused on right now, moving into 2023, is we’ve got low unemployment, but we’ve got a lot of open jobs, and we still have quite a few people that are unemployed [even] with low unemployment,” Goodwin said.

The agency is also likely to experience a broader shift as it expects to become the hub for workforce programs in the state under a House bill introduced Feb. 1 aiming to streamline government operations, an effort Gov. Kim Reynolds called for in her 2023 Condition of the State address.

Under the bill, IWD would assume management of Iowa Vocational Rehabilitation Services and the Adult Education and Literacy programs from the Iowa Department of Education. If approved, this would align all workforce programs related to the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act under one agency.

Lessons from the first 100 days

Goodwin, Anderson and a team of business engagement consultants set out when the division launched to be guided by employers’ input and experiences.

Some feedback could be implemented quickly, like adjusting the agency’s website to better highlight that employers can post open jobs. 

Other solutions depend on building relationships between the division and employers. Businesses expressed interest in accessing programs such as Home Base Iowa, registered apprenticeships, work-based learning programs and any grant opportunities but often didn’t know who to contact in their region.

Goodwin said the 100-day launch offered the first chance since the height of the pandemic to create or reestablish relationships, especially with new or existing businesses “that we might not have had a prior relationship with.”

“I want every employer in the state of Iowa to know someone within IWD, whether that’s their local business engagement consultant, whether that’s Kathy or myself, whether it’s [the] director — we can’t possibly say that’s accurate right now,” Goodwin said. “Part of this engagement was getting out there so people can put a face with the name and knowing that we’re out there trying to help them.”

Employers voiced two dominant needs during the meetings: locating potential workers and locating skilled workers, challenges that are widespread but “incredibly narrow,” according to Anderson. 

“Iowa companies need workers, and our job is to do whatever we can to help them find them. IWD seeks to match hiring employers with the Iowans who need work. How we do that will take a variety of forms depending on industry, location” and more, Anderson said.

To do that, the division plans to work at the “speed of business,” meaning providing support in a time frame where the “help is still practical” for businesses, Anderson said. 

The division’s business engagement consultants positioned across the state will help keep a pulse on their region’s needs and facilitate timely access to resources. Fifteen of 17 consultant roles are filled, and three local veteran employment representatives have been hired to help businesses locate veteran talent pools and make their workplaces veteran-friendly.

Connecting employers with existing resources can happen immediately, but Anderson said the 100-day launch also brought out employers’ ideas for what could be improved across the agency’s resources.

“We’re just touching the surface of what we’ve learned, but that’s going to be one of the things that as we dig deeper and we have the time to process, we’ll be making some significant strategy and directional changes based on what we learned that our employers need from these visits,” she said.

Be a part of the puzzle

Fulfilling the Business Engagement Division’s mission of responding to employers’ range of challenges has brought to light a role for everyone to be a part of Iowa’s workforce solution puzzle, Goodwin said.

“We’re one piece of the puzzle, ultimately. We’re not going to be able to solve this alone,” he said. “Employers have to be a part of the puzzle, employees have to be a part of the puzzle.”

Approaching the needs of each industry and region in Iowa “might be as easy as providing just one employee for this employer, and it might be as difficult as trying to bring 200 employees into a local region,” he said.

Goodwin hopes employers reciprocate the division’s outreach and communication, which has continued past the initial 100-day launch, so the relationships can lead to new hires and sustainable growth. 

Anderson said regular communication will help the division track changes among businesses and the overall workforce landscape. 

“What we’re finding is as we continue to follow up … as they experience that first bit of success in the relationship, then they share a little bit more in terms of [their needs],” she said. “It’s possible that if we met with somebody in September, and this really useful grant came out in October that addressed exactly what they had been talking about, we’re going to follow up in October and that might be a different conversation than it would have been in September.”

Goodwin and Anderson have noticed employers latching onto work-based learning, and particularly registered apprenticeships, as they explore strategies to be flexible and meet potential employees where they are. Anderson said it is “one of the more exciting stories in Iowa” given the rise of active apprentices, apprenticeship programs and how companies across industries are widening their talent pools to nearly any skill level.

Ongoing relationships between the division and employers will help ensure best practices reach the right employers, whether the strategies fit any employer or those in specific industries or regions.

“Northwest Iowa’s needs are certainly different than southeast Iowa’s needs. … We can’t use that cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all approach,” he said. “That’s not what our division is about.”

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How we got here: The history of the Business Engagement Division 

The Business Engagement Division of Iowa Workforce Development was created at the direction of Gov. Kim Reynolds in fall 2022 as part of a reorganization at the state agency focused on supporting reemployment and business outreach efforts. The reorganization created the Business Engagement Division as well as the Workforce Training and Education Division.

Reynolds originally called for the creation of a reemployment division in her 2022 Condition of the State address. 

Tim Goodwin, administrator of the Business Engagement Division, said that while visiting businesses before and after her 2022 Condition of the State address the governor heard employers sharing that they weren’t sure how to connect with IWD staff and resources.