San Juan County receives Work Ready Designation

The New Mexico Workforce Connection Farmington Office, who assisted in this endeavor by providing the Work Keys Skill assessments, anticipates that their successful collaboration with San Juan College and Four Corners Economic Development will assist the community in attracting new industry into the area by identifying skill sets of the local workforce.

From 4 Corners Economic Development: 

ACT today announced that San Juan County has met all criteria to become a certified ACT Work Ready Community. This achievement caps a one-year engagement process and begins a two-year growth and maintenance phase to retain certification.

The ACT Work Ready Communities initiative is designed to assist a particular area, region or state in developing its workforce pipeline to provide skilled workers for employers. The framework allows each participating community to quantify and improve the skill levels of its workforce through a standardized workforce skill credential—the ACT National Career Readiness Certificate™ —supported by data updated online by Iowa-based ACT on a monthly basis.

To begin this certification process, Four Corners Economic Development and San Juan College leaders attended the ACT Work Ready Communities Academy, an executive leadership and training program designed and hosted by ACT. They then began to work toward their certification goals by gaining 70 endorsing employers willing to recognize the ACT National Career Readiness Certificate™ during their hiring process. In tandem with recruiting participating employers they also worked with New Mexico Workforce Connection to get hundreds of San Juan County students and job seekers National Career Readiness Certificates™. This starts the process where hiring employers can match applicants with National Career Readiness Certificates to their open positions. This is a winning hiring process for everyone involved, as skilled-based assessments are five times more accurate at ensuring an applicant will be successful in a new job than relying on years of experience or education level alone.

“We are excited to be the first county in the state of New Mexico to achieve this extremely important and noteworthy certification,” said San Juan College President Dr. Toni Hopper-Pendergrass. “Working in partnership with Four Corners Economic Development and Workforce Connections, this has been the highest priority of the College’s Workforce Development Steering Committee. This prestigious designation allows high school and college students a unique opportunity to prove their work readiness skills to obtain the jobs that will pave the way to a future for their lives and lives of their families,” she continued. “In turn, employers who hire candidates with this certification can trust that they have a valuable tool that can improve hiring decisions, as well as reduce training time and turnover.”

The New Mexico Workforce Connection Farmington Office, who assisted in this endeavor by providing the Work Keys Skill assessments, anticipates that their successful collaboration with San Juan College and Four Corners Economic Development will assist the community in attracting new industry into the area by identifying skill sets of the local workforce.

“We congratulate San Juan County for this significant achievement, and we are proud to add them to our growing list of certified ACT Work Ready Communities,” said Tony Garife, ACT Regional Manager, Workforce Initiatives. “The progressive thinking and positive action demonstrated by county leadership shows an enduring commitment to growing the economic success of the area. As a result, local residents will begin seeing the important linkage between education and workforce development and the value of matching people to jobs.”

The common building blocks of the initiative include:

• ACT WorkKeys^® assessments: Standardized tests that measure an individual’s essential work readiness skills in applied mathematics, reading for information and locating information. According to decades of ACT research, these foundational skills are essential for a majority of today’s jobs.
• ACT National Career Readiness Certificate: A national credential based on assessment results and issued at the bronze, silver, gold or platinum level to indicate career readiness.
• ACT Career Curriculum: ACT KeyTrain^® and ACT Soft Skills Suite training tools to help individuals improve their “hard” and “soft” skill levels, as well as ACT Career Ready 101™ to help teachers bring work readiness skills into the classroom.
• Job profiles: A job analysis system that helps employers understand the specific ACT WorkKeys assessment scores required for entry into and effective performance in a given job.

For more information on this initiative, go to http://workreadycommunities.org/NM/045. For more information on all of ACT’s workforce solutions, go to act.org/workforce.