For city council to go into close session pursuant to NCGS 143-318-11A4.

Economic development negotiations.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Did I get a second?

I apologize.

I should have had a second crystal second.

All right.

Hello, everyone.

I'm Jim Longworth, and welcome to a special edition of Try It Today, coming to you from the Currentville Auto Museum, as always.

I call it special because we're going to devote the entire half hour to the good work and the good folks of Guilford Works.

And we'll tell you about that throughout the next 30 minutes.

And we start out with Fred Henry, a good friend of ours has been on the show before, assistant director for Guilford Works.

Good to see you again, sir.

Good to see you.

Thanks, Jim.

Uh Fred, what is let's remind people what is Guilford Works and what's the mission?

Gift for Works is the uh workforce development board of Guildford Works.

Uh, we're one of 20 workforce development boards in North Carolina that provide oversight for the NC Work Career Centers within our local area.

Uh, we serve both employees and job seekers.

Our primary focus is on youth, and most of the time, probably about 75% of out of school youth, but also those job seekers who may be uh dislocated workers or underemployed, looking through transition.

They just got laid off or something.

Laid off or somebody wants to make a career change or exactly, and then the employers, because the employees without those employers, we can't connect those job seekers to opportunities.

Right.

Now, what uh what kind of give me some examples of programs that you offer to job seekers in Guilford County?

Give me a couple examples.

Sure.

So uh we offer training and subsidies for job seekers.

Uh a lot of times when folks who have worked um jobs for a number of years, sometimes their skills could be outdated.

Uh so we provide scholarships for those uh job seekers to get in-demand skills, but also connect with our local opportunities with some of the needs of our uh manufacturing or other sector employers uh to make sure they're a good fit.

Other resources that that are offered, maybe the offer resources for for folks in this position.

Yeah, so when we look to uh support individuals, whether it's through training or uh job search, uh we provide what we call wraparound services and these are services to assist individuals who may need transportation assistance or daycare or child care assistance uh so they can complete training programs in a timely manner.

Now, who can access these resources?

Is there a criteria for who can take advantage of the resources you're offering through Guilford Works?

Yeah, there is eligibility criteria for certain certain programs.

Uh a lot of times with dislocated uh services.

Uh these individuals who have showed that they displaced a duty no further on, uh, they can come in and uh we work with those individuals where they're filing for unemployment insurance and so forth, uh, but also those individuals who may just need that extra hand holding to help them with career transitions that we can connect them to training, whether it's through the local school or community college or other vendors.

Yeah, uh people might be watching and say, well, that that's nice, Mr.

Henry.

You know, helping the people that want to uh their job seekers, but what if somebody's watching who's a business person?

How do you support the business community?

Yes, so it's businesses.

We look at as two primary employers, uh customers.

We look at our businesses and our job seekers, but that business has been our primary customer.

We help them with the recruitment needs.

But also we provide subsidies when businesses are looking to upskill their incumbent workers uh that we could provide uh grants to support them to offset some of those costs.

Uh when we look at some of our work-based learning programs, we provide subsidies to the business to all set some of their onboarding costs.

And tell us tell us now what what we mean work base?

Work-based learning could be things like on-the-job training or what we call work experience or internships or apprenticeships uh that we work with businesses to customize those needs, and as we connect those job seekers, uh we hope to fill those opportunities by not only paying those applicants as they go through training, but also providing subsidies for those businesses.

Yeah, and I and I think uh we hear stories about the fact that if somebody goes through this and work based training or apprenticeships like you were talking, it introduces them to that industry, and maybe they want to stick with that that industry and and uh and stay in the workforce, and that's an important part of it, isn't it?

Um just a few seconds left.

Uh who or what led you to a career and an interest in a career like this?

Well, I think it started for me uh initially just coming out of high school and growing up in the PMO Tride area.

I wanted to get in something like a HR.

But actually going to grad school and doing HR and then getting it to my second practical and and to workforce development.

I saw their workforce development, I got to wear a number of hats, not just be stuck in office, uh, not only work with the employees, but also work with community.

I like our community and I like to see the benefit of these programs serving our community, not only for families, but uh the economic growth of the PMA trial.

Well, and you do an excellent job with it too, and and I'm glad uh of that that we have you as a resource.

Uh Guilfordworks.org is the website on screen, Guilford Works.org.

I invite you to check that out throughout the program as you meet more folks who work behind the scenes to make all this work for the community.