Health-care system University Hospitals (UH) offers a portfolio of workforce development programs designed to tackle the challenges employees face in advancing their careers and enabling them to successfully overcome those challenges and succeed with their education and career goals.
Bridge to Your Future is a college preparation program that helps employees who desire to develop their careers at UH by going to college to pursue a degree or certificate. Most employees who go back to school are placed in remedial math and English after taking a college placement test.
Data shows that people who enter the lowest level of remedial classes have little more than 0 percent chance of completing their degree. Bridge is a six-month remedial math and English program that allows employees to brush up on skills and concepts not learned in high school and build a stronger foundation for college. As a result, employees gain the confidence they need to be successful in college.
There are many reasons why lower skilled employees struggle to re-start their education and advance on their own. These barriers often lead to frustration, lower aspirations, lower self-confidence, and lack of job satisfaction. Bridge is designed to tackle the challenges employees face in advancing their careers and enable them to successfully overcome them and move ahead.
Some personal challenges include:
- Lack of soft skills
- Low literacy and numeracy
- Previous failure at school
- Lack of personal support system
- Lack of mentoring
- Unaware of opportunities within UH
- Lack of knowledge of navigating system for success
Program Details
Bridge includes a multi-disciplinary team that tackles each of the areas listed above. UH has a partnership with a non-profit, Towards Employment (TE), which provides an advisor who works one-on-one with program participants, helping them with personal barriers that have an impact on program participation and completion. Some issues the TE advisor has assisted with are financial management, child care, transportation, and stress management. In addition, the advisor leads monthly workshops on topics such as goal setting and time management. Another key component of Bridge is the integration of career development activities led by the Career Coach.
This integration has led to more program participants becoming aware of career opportunities within UH and linking their education to these opportunities. This led to an increase in the number of program graduates who entered college in the last year. It also increased the number of graduates who applied for new jobs they were qualified for immediately that they were not aware of previously.
Results
UH’s Career Development series provides employees with information on career opportunities within UH, how to navigate the recruitment system, and how to present themselves as ideal candidates. This work is being done with both workshops and individualized coaching. In 2012, 116 employees who participated in these workshops found new jobs. In 2012, internal promotions increased from 32 to 39 percent, equivalent to 198 jobs. Some 140 of these internal hires participated in UH’s workforce development programs. UH’s workforce development programs and strategy won three industry Best Practice awards last year.
