For the last three years, as your Labor Commissioner, I have traveled across the state and talked with thousands of employers.
Whether it be Fortune 500 companies, or small business owners, the resounding theme I have heard from these businesses is that, although Georgia’s workforce has matured in technical and academic skillsets, they are falling behind in the soft skills needed to gain jobs, keep them, and excel in the job market.
As commissioner, I tasked the department with starting a program in select high schools across the state that augmented their classical education with the soft skills needed to become part of the workforce.
GeorgiaBEST (Business Ethics Student Training) is the pilot program that we started in 20 high schools in January 2012. It is now being taught in more than 200 schools across the state and has had 5,000 graduates. This program teaches the basics of the workplace — things like teamwork, showing up on time, conflict remediation, and many other skills that we often take for granted on a day-to-day basis. Upon graduation from the program, the student will receive a certification from the Georgia Department of Labor and have a portfolio of accomplishments that they can submit to would-be employers showing they are ready to work.
The Georgia Department of Labor is also working with current technology to create a more streamlined job posting and searching system. Our current system is outdated and, with the help of a workgroup within the department, we have found a solution that allows jobs and resumes to be scored against each other for the closest matches possible. This system will allow employers and would-be employees to find each other more efficiently, as well as show a career path that the job seeker might not have found on their own.
The Georgia Department of Labor is here to help the employer, the job seeker, and the unemployed find solutions to their needs. We are focused on making Georgia the state where: employers look to for a skilled and agile workforce, job-seekers can find their dream jobs, and the unemployed can receive their benefits as they find their way back into the workplace.
By focusing on these three points, we are creating a state ripe for greater economic development though a more skilled and accessible workforce.
