HARD TIMES! NEW WORKFORCE SKILLS TO OVERCOME THE CHALLENGES WE FACE!

A Series of 5 Webinars
Sponsored by the California Workforce Association
Presented by Larry Robbin

Price: $59 per webinar per person
You will have unlimited access to the recording for 30 days after the training.

These webinars will be sold out. Register now!

OCTOBER 17, 2023
10:30am – 12:30pm PDT

Webinar will be recorded and made available for 30 days after this date.
The webinar can be taken any day after 30 days after the session.

ARE YOU WORKING TO BURNOUT OR WORKING TO WELLNESS?
HOW TO REDUCE STRESS, ANXIETY AND BURNOUT IN WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATIONS!

NOVEMBER 14, 2023
10:30am – 12:30pm PDT

Webinar will be recorded and made available for 30 days after this date.
The webinar can be taken any day after 30 days after the session.

FROM JOB LOSS TO JOB FOUND! HOW TO HELP ADULTS AND YOUTH
WHO HAVE BEEN LAID OFF SURVIVE JOB LOSS AND GET REEMPLOYED IN LESS TIME THAN EVER!

DECEMBER 12, 2023
10:30am – 12:30pm PDT

Webinar will be recorded and made available for 30 days after this date.
The webinar can be taken any day after 30 days after the session.

THE SECRETS TO HELPING PEOPLE TURN
ONSITE AND VIRTUAL INTERVIEWS INTO JOB OFFERS!
THE HIDDEN TRICKS OF THE TRADE TO GIVING INTERVIEWS THAT LEAD TO “YOU GOT THE JOB!

FEBRUARY 27, 2024
10:30am – 12:30pm PDT

Webinar will be recorded and made available for 30 days after this date.
The webinar can be taken any day after 30 days after the session.

THE CAPTAIN AND COACH APPROACH TO CASE MANAGEMENT!
HOW TO USE MOTIVATIONAL INTERVIEWING, SOCIAL SYSTEMS STRATEGIES AND OTHER
INNOVATIVE APPROACHES TO REINVENT CASE MANAGEMENT

MARCH 19, 2024
10:30am – 12:30pm PDT

Webinar will be recorded and made available for 30 days after this date.
The webinar can be taken any day after 30 days after the session.

MAKE EMPLOYERS THE CHAMPIONS OF YOUR PROGRAM! USE BUSINESS ENGAGEMENT STRATEGIES
AND EMPLOYERS WILL SUPPORT YOU WITH COLLABORATIVE PROJECTS, CAREER PATHWAYS,
DONATING TO YOUR PROGRAM, PROVIDING VOLUNTEERS AND CONNECTIONS TO MORE EMPLOYERS AND MUCH MORE!

For any questions about the webinar, please direct them to Xue Lor at xlor@calworkforce.org.

For disabilities accommodations, please email Xue Lor at xlor@calworkforce.org and allow two weeks to process request.

Webinar Descriptions

ARE YOU WORKING TO BURNOUT OR WORKING TO WELLNESS?
HOW TO REDUCE STRESS, ANXIETY AND BURNOUT IN WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATIONS!


OCTOBER 17, 2023
10:30am – 12:30pm PDT
Webinar will be recorded and made available for 30 days after this date.
The webinar can be taken any day after 30 days after the session.

This is a very difficult time to be in the workforce development field. Stress, anxiety and burnout are proven killers, and they will shorten your life span. The lingering impact of Covid and the high numbers of unemployed people especially those with multiple and severe barriers to employment. In many places there is a lack of jobs especially those that pay a living wage. Our field has seen its funding cut dramatically leading to lower staff pay and less services for job seekers. We are experiencing the highest levels of stress, anxiety and burnout in the history of the workforce development field. You can see this in the high levels of turnover in workforce development. Stress, anxiety and burnout not only impacts our ability to deliver the best services, but it also takes its toll on our mental, physical and emotional health. In addition, it is all too easy for the pressures of work to spill over into our lives outside of work and have a negative impact on our families and friends.

This situation calls for powerful intervention strategies that can help us get on track and work to wellness instead of working to burnout. Generic strategies about how to approach these problems are often not relevant or effective for people in workforce development. You need approaches that are specifically geared toward staff and management that work in workforce development. That is what this webinar is all about.

You will learn the differences between stress, anxiety and burnout and how they develop in workforce organizations. Discover what needs to be done both on the individual and organizational levels to create proactive wellness strategies that work for people in our field. Get ideas about how management and staff can work together to create a healthier workplace that can overcome the challenges we face on a daily and long term basis as people in the workforce development field. This staff and management partnership can provide an ongoing antidote to the ever increasing negative forces that come into our work.

Learn about the best wellness practices used in the private sector and other workforce organizations around the country so you can put them into your work. Find out how to create a personal workforce wellness plan that will help you do your job in a different way so you can do it at the highest levels for the longest time. No matter what your job is and no matter what kind of program you have, if workforce development is a focus of your work this webinar will help you work to wellness and not work to burnout!

FROM JOB LOSS TO JOB FOUND! HOW TO HELP ADULTS AND YOUTH
WHO HAVE BEEN LAID OFF SURVIVE JOB LOSS AND GET REEMPLOYED IN LESS TIME THAN EVER!


NOVEMBER 14, 2023
10:30am – 12:30pm PDT
Webinar will be recorded and made available for 30 days after this date.
The webinar can be taken any day after 30 days after the session.

A research study cited by the British Broadcasting Company showed that 89% of laid off workers experience health problems as the result of the layoff. Substance abuse, depression and other mental health problems and even suicide rates increase dramatically because of layoffs. Actually, the health problems start before the layoff as people feel the incredible stress, pressure and anxiety as they wait to hear if they are going to lose their jobs.

While losing a paycheck is very serious, it is far from the only thing people lose when they are let go from their jobs. They lose structure in their lives. They lose purpose. They lose respect and self-esteem. They lose the support and friendships that come from their workplace family. In many cases they lose their dream of a career and a better future. The loss often spills over into their families and can lead to the breakup of relationships and even divorce. People who go through job loss often experience the same devastating feelings that people experience with the death of a loved one. It is easy to underestimate the impact of being laid off unless you have experienced it.

Youth and adults that have lost their jobs can be very difficult to serve in our programs. They often bring anger and resentment from being laid off into the counseling relationship. They can be disoriented and not be able to make decisions or get the most out of our services. They frequently have unrealistic expectations about how long job search will take and what we can do to help them. Many workforce staff will say it is easier to work with people who have no or limited work histories than work with people who have lost their jobs. You can be successful with this population if you have the right program design and skill sets to address their challenges. If you want to get better results than ever with youth or adults dealing with job loss and help them go from pink slip to paycheck as quickly as possible, don’t miss this webinar!

Learn the four ways layoffs happen and how the type of layoff should change how you work with people to get the best results. Get a list of the most common job search mistakes that are made by people who are laid off so you can help the people you serve avoid these costly mistakes that will prolong their job search. The session includes new employment counseling, case management and program design strategies that can make your program a powerful springboard to reemployment success!

Discover from interviews with hundreds of youth and adults what they actually did in their job search that led to getting job offers in less time. Learn from employer feedback why they often don’t hire people who have been laid off because of the mistakes they make in interviews. If you are going to refer people to training, get new ideas for assessment and to improve retention in training and get better outcomes. For example, of people that started apprenticeships about 50% of them drop out before they complete their training! This webinar will make your training referrals stick like glue so they can finish training successfully. If you want to help youth and adults go from job loss to job found in record time, make sure you take this webinar!

THE SECRETS TO HELPING PEOPLE TURN
ONSITE AND VIRTUAL INTERVIEWS INTO JOB OFFERS
THE HIDDEN TRICKS OF THE TRADE TO GIVING INTERVIEWS THAT LEAD TO “YOU GOT THE JOB!


DECEMBER 12, 2023
10:30am – 12:30pm PDT

Webinar will be recorded and made available for 30 days after this date.
The webinar can be taken any day after 30 days after the session.

The interview training that most workforce programs give to job seekers in many ways does not reflect what employers want to hear in interviews. For example, the widespread use of interview question lists leads job seekers to develop “canned” and generic interview answers. Interview question answers should change based on how the interviewer asks them, what the job is and who the employer is. A person should not give the same interview question answer to the interviewer at Target who is interviewing them for a customer service position and the interviewer at the local lumber yard who is interviewing them for a saw operator position. This is just one example of how our interviewing training is out of synch with what employers want to hear.

Virtual interviewing is here to stay and growing in popularity. When you make such a big change in the medium that is used for the interview, people should also make big changes in how they interview. They need to compensate for the communication barrier of not being in the same place and talking to a screen presents all kinds of new challenges. The workforce system is teaching interviewing in the old pre-Zoom way and many people are not getting job offers because they don’t know how to sell themselves through a screen and do all of the other things that are required when someone is giving a virtual interview.

This webinar is based on the feedback of hundreds of employers about what they really want to hear and see when they interview a candidate. Many of these things are not being taught in workforce programs and they keep people from turning interviews into job offers.

Some of the key points in this webinar include the following:

Discover how to uncover the employer’s hidden hiring agenda which are the reasons behind the actual questions the applicant is being asked. For example, are we teaching people how to appeal to the employer’s profit making motives or are we just teaching them to describe their experience, skills and other things they can bring to the job? Are we teaching people how to sell the employer on the fact that they are the best candidate?

Learn about new types of research people should be doing before they interview that will give them a competitive edge in the hiring decision.
For example, are we teaching people how to position themselves as the person that can help the employer beat their competition or are we simply showing people how to interview in ways that show they can do the job?

The impact of the pandemic has changed who employer’s hire. If you are still teaching pre-pandemic interview strategies, your approaches are out of date and will keep people unemployed. Learn about the profile of the employee that employers want to hire to help them overcome the profit destroying impact of the pandemic.

Get innovative strategies to help people deal with justice involved backgrounds, gaps in employment history or a lack of employment history, disabilities, language barriers and other things that can rule them out of the hiring process. Show people how to interview in ways that will help an employer see past their barriers to employment and into the true value the person will bring to their workforce.

This webinar will show you virtual and in-person interviewing from both the employer and job seek perspective. Discover the most common mistakes people make in interviews so you can help your candidates avoid these costly problems. Learn some of the hidden aspects of the virtual interview that can influence the hiring decision.

Get information about how to give much more effective mock virtual and in-person interviews that actually replicate a real interview. Find out how to help people deal with the unique and often overwhelming stress of the interview that can easily derail an interview.

If you want to increase the number of job offers your candidates get from virtual and onside interviews, bring this webinar to your program! For more information about this webinar email larry@larryrobbin.com. For more information about Larry Robbin go to http://www.LarryRobbin.com. Larry offers over 100 workforce webinars. Email him to get more information about the other webinars he presents.

THE CAPTAIN AND COACH APPROACH TO CASE MANAGEMENT!
HOW TO USE MOTIVATIONAL INTERVIEWING, SOCIAL SYSTEMS STRATEGIES AND OTHER
INNOVATIVE APPROACHES TO REINVENT CASE MANAGEMENT


FEBRUARY 27, 2024
10:30am – 12:30pm PDT

Webinar will be recorded and made available for 30 days after this date.
The webinar can be taken any day after 30 days after the session.

While much has changed in the world of workforce development over the last few decades, the approach to case management has remained the same.  Job seekers report that case management often feels like a subservient relationship with the case manager having all the power.  Hard-to-employ adults and youth do not respond well to this dynamic because it feels too dominating even when done by the most well-meaning case managers.  This old approach to case management inadvertently works against people making employment progress because it activates the resistance to authority figures that is common in the hard-to-employ. 

Case managers also report a lot of frustration with the current model. Hard-to-employ job seekers do not follow through on what has been discussed in the case management sessions.  Many case managers feel like they often work harder to help the job seeker than the job seekers work to help themselves.  Case managers are tired of the relapse into old behaviors that is a chronic problem with the old model of case management.  Despite these problems, case managers are still working in an outdated model because they don’t have another way of working.  Case managers are burning out because of the on-going use of antiquated ineffective approaches to case management that do not meet the challenges they are facing today. 

These are some of the many limitations and gaps between the traditional case management model and today’s hard-to-employ job seekers.  It is clear that current case management practices are not working.  The Captain and Coach Approach to Case Management is a revolutionary new approach to working with all types of adult and youth job seekers.  This radically different way of working addresses these issues and takes employment counseling to a new place designed to empower people to lead their own employment process.  It changes the entire paradigm of the old case management relationship.  The changes start with orientation, the very first words the staff person says in the initial session and continues to change everything about the staff and job seeker dynamic. 

In this new model, job seekers and staff are seen as a team with the job seeker in the role of captain and the staff person in the role of a supportive coach.  The coach guides the job seeker through a goal setting, option sorting and decision making learning process.  The job seeker makes choices and takes responsibility for their outcomes because the choices come from them and are not imposed on them by the case manager. They lead and make progress like the captain of a sports team with the backing of their coach.

One of the biggest weaknesses in traditional case management is that it does not address the powerful hidden influence of anti-work friends, family and other people in the community on the lives of the job seeker.  This social system of the hard-to-employ people that surrounds the job seekers we work with is typically filled with anti-work individuals and some pro-work individuals.  This system takes over when people leave their meeting with their case manager.  It discourages employment progress and it is a powerful reason that people relapse into old anti-work behaviors and attitudes. 

Traditional case management completely overlooks these forces. This lack of a holistic perspective about the influences on the job seeker explains why people do not make more progress.  The anti-work people are hard at work to erase any progress toward employment.  This new model uses social systems theory to help the captain identify the pro and anti-work people in their lives.  The pro-work people are organized by the captain with the help of the coach into a supportive team that will help the captain resist the influence of the anti-work individuals.  Strategies are developed to help the captain anticipate and overcome how the anti-work individuals will try to sabotage the progress of the captain. Using this model your new “client” is not just the individual, but also their social system that can provide wrap around support to help the captain stay on the pathway to employment progress.

In this new model, we take a very different approach to addressing barriers to employment.  The webinar will show you how to walk alongside the captain and see the barrier through their eyes.  Learn how to see what benefits the captain gets from the barrier and find out how to introduce change talk that helps the captain reevaluate the supposed benefits that come from the barrier.  Instead of just sounding critical about the barrier like in the old case management model, we work to understand the barrier and help the captain reframe how it fits into their future.

Stop wasting your time with outdated approaches to case management! 

Regardless of what population you serve, what your job title is or what type of program you work in, if you want to transform your work into the best state-of-the-art practices in in workforce development, then take this webinar and make the way you work into the Captain and Coach Approach to Case Management!

MAKE EMPLOYERS THE CHAMPIONS OF YOUR PROGRAM! USE BUSINESS ENGAGEMENT STRATEGIES
AND EMPLOYERS WILL SUPPORT YOU WITH COLLABORATIVE PROJECTS, CAREER PATHWAYS,
DONATING TO YOUR PROGRAM, PROVIDING VOLUNTEERS AND CONNECTIONS TO MORE
EMPLOYERS AND MUCH MORE!

MARCH 19, 2024
10:30am – 12:30pm PDT

Webinar will be recorded and made available for 30 days after this date.
The webinar can be taken any day after 30 days after the session.

Do you have a well thought out effective strategic plan that will take your beginning level relationships with businesses to higher levels of collaboration and transform employers into powerful champions for your program? Are you getting the most benefits possible from your relationships with businesses? This webinar will transform the entry level use of your services by employers into powerful champion level partnerships that will take your program to new levels of success that you may never have thought possible!  This webinar is for staff and management of all types of workforce programs that provide any kind of service to employers.

There are many differences between what employers can bring to your program and what employer champions can bring to your organization.  Employer champions integrate things that will benefit your program into their business.  Champions can easily help you develop career pathways and apprenticeships.  They can improve and expand the use of internships, work experience, on-the-job training and earn and learn models.  Champions can raise money and donate equipment to your program. 

Do you need more employers to use your services?  Champions can reach out to their supplier businesses, the members of their business associations, business customers and business owners they know from the community, and you will have as many employer partners as you like.  Employees and managers from the champion business can volunteer in your program and enhance the work of your staff and become mentors, coaches, role models and hidden job market connections for your program participants.  These are just a few of the many benefits that can come with turning businesses into the champions of your program!

But you need a well thought plan to get to these levels.  This webinar will give you the framework that will take you from the basic level of employer services, to partnership levels with employers and on to employers becoming the champions of your program.  Learn the types of activities that can take you on this business engagement journey.  Position your organization from the first use of your services to these services becoming the pathway to making employer champions.  Discover how to do the research that will help you identify the employers with the greatest champion potential for your organization even if they are not currently using your services.

This is not an easy process and there are many mistakes workforce organizations make that kill off the potential for businesses to become their champions.  The webinar includes valuable feedback from employers about what they see as the most common mistakes workforce programs make when they try to partner with them.  Learn to spot the early warning signs of failing engagement efforts so you can respond to them and keep your partnership on track.  Get a Business Engagement Resource List packed with examples of successful engagement efforts from around the country so you can envision how far this process can take you.

Chances are like most workforce organizations you are currently only getting a very small percentage of the benefits that can come with creating championship relationships with employers.  Business champions can have a powerful and positive impact on so many aspects of your program.  Instead of meeting your funding source performance standards, champions can help you exceed them.  They can transform your work with job seekers, employers, partners, funders, policy makers, the community and take your work to the highest levels of success.  Champions can play a role in improving your program design, building staff skills and make your program the state-of-the-art in workforce development.  Not only will your program benefit from this process the employers will also learn and benefit in many ways from their interactions with you.  Being a champion is a mutually beneficial relationship!

ABOUT THE WEBINAR PRESENTER

These webinars are presented by Larry Robbin, Executive Director of Robbin and Associates. Larry has over forty-five years of workforce development national training  experience. He is widely regarded as a national expert in the workforce development field. Larry’s services have been used by the Department of Labor, America’s Job Centers, nonprofits, schools, government agencies, training providers, businesses and many other entities. He has trained more than 100,000 people, presented at over 500 conferences and done more than 300 webinars.  Larry has done more training for the California Workforce Association and workforce programs in California than any other presenter.

Larry has spent his career focusing on improving the employment outcomes of people with multiple and challenging barriers to employment. He has played a leading role in the design of more than 150 programs and projects that successfully opened the doors to employment opportunities for all types of people that have dealt with both systemic and individual barriers to employment. Larry has worked with all the populations served by the workforce system, and he has done an extensive amount of volunteer work with people overcoming barriers to motivation and employment. His services are used by programs serving people in poverty, youth, dislocated workers, justice involved individuals, veterans, older workers, people with disabilities, welfare recipients, immigrants and refugees, dislocated workers, people who are homeless and many other populations.

Besides his work with workforce programs and job seekers, Larry also has extensive experience working in the private sector with employers.  Larry is the fourth generation of private sector business owners on both sides of his family.  His training and consulting services have been used by small, medium size and Fortune 500 companies.  Larry has designed many very successful partnerships between businesses and workforce programs.  One of his specialties is helping businesses improve their hiring processes so he has an inside perspective on how and who employers hire.  He uses this information to help workforce programs get better outcomes with employers.  Larry is very well respected in the business community and he has been the keynote speaker at conferences sponsored by Apple Computer and Microsoft.

Larry has received over one hundred awards and honors for his professional and volunteer work including proclamations from the California State Legislature and the Mayor of San Francisco and an award from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.  His work has received international recognition and in 1971 he was one of the first Americans invited to China to discuss workforce development. 

Larry provides webinar training on more than one hundred topics. If you are interested in seeing lists of his webinars, email him at larry@larryrobbin.com and put the name of the topic(s) you want in the email.

For more information about Larry Robbin and the other webinars he provides go to http://www.LarryRobbin.com.

For any questions about the webinar, please direct them to Xue Lor at xlor@calworkforce.org.