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Bottom-line: Brain Drain… or Train & Gain!

By March 16, 2009January 16th, 2019No Comments

A guest commentary from the Workplace Learning Connection

–by Mary Lou Erlacher

What will I be when I grow up…a butcher, a baker, a candlestick-maker? Time-honored question! Only now, the choices are infinitely more varied and the answers are of interest not only to our young people but to their parents, teachers, and local employers.

At 8 a.m. on a recent Saturday morning, 16 students from 12 regional high schools, job shadowed RNs and Surgical/OR Techs at Cedar Rapids’ Mercy Medical Center. The students had selected this career area as one they might consider as a post-high school career.

The 11 health care professionals opened four surgical suites with different hands-on activities for the students to experience – from the proper procedures for scrubbing-in and gowning to inserting a trach tube into and removing a “gall bladder” from manikins to manipulating objects with the DaVinci Robot. The professionals answered students’ questions about post-high school education, salaries, work environment, and job satisfaction. Every student left that day with a sense of accomplishment and a vision of what the future could hold.

Bottom-line: This is a career I could have and a place I could work!

As exceptional as this day was, this type of investment of time and resources by generous employer hosts and eager, interested students is common throughout our area. Through the connecting work of the Workplace Learning Connection, a regional intermediary, more than 2500 students, annually, have an opportunity to explore a career of their interest. Two-thirds of them are convinced that they are on the right track; the third that discover this is not the direction they would like to go, are able to make different choices for themselves with that knowledge and without the investment of a semester or more of college to come to that conclusion. Students tell us the following after a one-day job shadow:

62 percent – positively influenced decision to live and work in Iowa
71 percent – formed a connection between high school and the world of work
76 percent – influenced the selection of a career field
78 percent – more aware of local career opportunities

Bottom-line: These experiences make a difference!

This is good news, not only for the students who are making career and college decisions and their parents who may help pay for the schooling, but for the educators who aid them in the planning process and for the employers who are looking at a workforce shortage as vast numbers of current employees are poised to retire and Iowa strives to attract and retain workers.

Bottom-line: Better informed and better prepared students, building relationships with local employers, create economic capital for this region!

The need is three-fold:

(1) Parental awareness of these programs in their high schools and encouragement of their sons and daughters to participate in job shadows and/or internships.

(2) Employer participation with awareness of the implications for future workforce development.

(3) All community members valuing and supporting their school’s investment in these types of forward-thinking opportunities for our children, even in tough economic times.

Together we are showing our young people that this area is home to healthy and dynamic communities and worksites – a place where families thrive and individuals can make a difference.

Bottom-line: “You ask, ‘What if I train them and they leave?’ I say, ‘What if you don’t and they stay?'”
–(Henry C. Humphreys)

Mary Lou Erlacher is the director of the nationally recognized Workplace Learning Connection, a 501c3 partnership of Kirkwood Community College and Grant Wood Area Education Agency serving students and communities in Benton, Cedar, Johnson, Jones, Iowa, Linn, and Washington counties. For student stories, pictures, and more information go to: www.workplace-learning.org

[This commentary was featured in The Gazette, Feb. 25, 2009. ]