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Benchmarking Project
How can we know if our job placement and retention results are as good as they could be? What is reasonable to expect?
How can we get better "apples to apples" comparisons of our outcomes with those of other organizations? What can we learn from those organizations?
The Benchmarking Project aims to identify meaningful outcome benchmarks for the workforce development field, so that practitioners, funders and policymakers can be better informed about what constitutes "good" performance when working with diverse populations and service delivery strategies. The project is currently developing a tool that allows similar organizations to compare their job placement and retention outcomes. In an effort to boost performance in the field, the project is also creating a learning community, using both the data collected and the experiences of participating organizations to discern effective program strategies.
To date, more than 150 organizations across the country have submitted aggregate data on close to 180 programs serving a variety of participant populations. Since the project began in 2005, staff from many of those organizations have also participated in a series of workshops on Using Data to Improve Performance offered in New York, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Ft. Worth, Cleveland, Minneapolis, Seattle and Philadelphia.
To be eligible to participate, organizations need to directly provide workforce development services and track job placement and retention outcomes. They also must:
- Have served individuals 18 or older, not including incumbent workers;
- Have enrolled a cohort of at least 25 participants (not counting carry-ins) during a recent one-year period (but aggregate data is requested on the entire one-year cohort of enrollees);
- Provide complete aggregate outcome data for the cohort on job placement and retention (retention data at 6 and 12 months after placement is preferred; 3-month retention data will be accepted if longer-term data is not available); and
- Provide summary information on cohort demographics, type and length of program services and program budget.
A summary of the requested data can be found here.
In return for participation, organizations will gain:
- Reports with anonymous comparisons of their outcomes to those of similar programs across the country;
- Access to a variety of no-cost learning activities, including Webinar conference calls and listserv discussions among Benchmarking organizations, as well as face-to-face workshops in some cities; and
- The opportunity to provide feedback to help shape this critical tool that can greatly benefit the workforce development field.
Click here for a flyer about the project.
To learn more, email benchmarking@ppv.org.
The Benchmarking Project is nationally funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, with additional support from local foundations and other funders in various cities. |
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PUBLICATIONS
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Good Stories Aren't Enough: Becoming Outcomes-Driven in Workforce Development
by Martha A. Miles
August 2006,
48 pages
Workforce development organizations are more and more focused on achieving and documenting performance outcomes; yet managers frequently face a challenge getting buy-in from frontline staff about collecting and using data—not only to satisfy funders' needs but to improve services. Good Stories Aren't Enough looks at the experience and learnings of six organizations as they focused on becoming more outcomes-driven. It identifies practical, hands-on strategies to increase staff involvement and communication around data, so that what at first seems like impersonal information becomes a useful tool to better meet job seekers' and employers' needs.
free download
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