A new committee within AHRMA with a new theme! The Workforce Readiness committee collectively came up with ”bridging the gap” as our theme. The idea that we are the voice of the HR community, we want to be the link between employers, schools, and education and serve our own members.
Only 10 months ago, we met for the first time, nearly 20 AHRMA members interested in helping form this brand new committee with Kate McLagan as the leader and VP of Workforce Readiness (WFR). I remember the very first meeting as we all introduced ourselves. Person after person giving their personal account of why they were so passionate about WFR and their experiences. It was so energizing to see so many like-minded people! But more importantly, when you counted up all the combined years of HR, education, mentorship and just knowledge of WFR we had in the room, would would just be in awe, well we knew we could make great things happen together. We also knew we had a lot of work ahead of us and ahuge responsibility to put our arms around.
Our first mission was to build partnerships with community resources and organizations. In the beginning of 2009, Austin and our country faced enormous layoffs and a questioned economy. With great resources on our team, our committee jumped into action and decided our first step would be to assist both members and our community by providing a Job Seeker Tool Kit granted by the JobingFoundation. This tool kit provides online learning modules that break down the job search into simple, easy-to-follow lessons. http://ahrma.jobing.com/
Our next task was to find organizations we could plug into and support with our plethora of HR human capitol. After meeting with Communities in Schools (CIS) www.cisaustin.org, Education Equals Economics (E3 Alliance) www.e3alliance.org, and Texas Business and Education Coalition (TBEC) http://tbec.org/, and hearing all of their initiatives we decided to not just help one organization, but help all three.
Last month we put into motion functional areas that have sub-committees divided into the following:
- Mentoring
- Presentation
- Job Shadowing
- Strategy/Leadership/Curriculum Development
At our September luncheon, TBEC http://tbec.org/ introduced “Get There Texas” www.gettheretexas.org that will connect “socially” education to business, students to business and education and and so on.
Finally, one last gap to bridge in this story. As a first time committee accomplishing so much its first year, that just doesn’t go unnoticed. We were thrilled to find out that Kate McLagan was nominated and accepted as the President Elect for AHRMA 2010 to become President 2011. So that left a leadership gap for WFR for the next 2 years! So as our leader and current President is stepping off the podium, she is crossing the bridge into the VP of Workforce Readiness role. Ramona Rohrer is one amazing lady who has not only exemplified leadership by being involved with WFR every step and the meetings along the way, she also is involved with every committee, and every second of any luncheon down to the last second! We are a very lucky committee to have Ramona Rohrer leading our team with Kate McLagan right there beside us!
Filed under: AHRMA Workforce Readiness Committee
