Key Challenges

Job Quality Is Too Advanced: Agency staff or partners say they already have challenges working on basic job readiness with many jobseeking customers. Introducing job quality concepts to frontline staff is too much of a leap forward.

Developing career plans and providing coaching to jobseekers and workers is our core business. Job quality coaching will be tailored to what workers can do, not what they can’t. If a worker needs to take a six-month transitional job to get on their feet and build work history, that’s ok. But we need to start talking with our customers early and often about what a good job means to them.

Low Job Quality for Frontline Staff: Frontline staff resent talking about job quality to jobseekers when their own jobs do not meet job quality standards (e.g., living wage) or if little or no action is being done to improve job quality for them. This can lead to poor customer interactions on this topic.

This common challenge is why the leading by example foundational tenet is so important. Agency and contractor staff must believe that your agency wants to advance job quality for all workers in the jurisdiction, including themselves. Key talking points should be focused on what is being done to improve the job quality for both agency staff and contractors.