09/19/12 - Martin Scaglione, President of Workforce Development at ACT, contributed a blog pubished by the Huffington Post. The blog, entitled Credentials Validate Competencies, Work Skills, identifies the challenges facing the US Manufacturing Industry and identifies credentialing as a solution.
Scaglione writes that agencies and employers needed to‘identify an effective way to document workers skill levels’. This type of initiative could ‘serve area workers… by helping soon-to-be-laid-off workers secure new jobs equal to or better than their current positions, before their exit dates so that there is little or no need for unemployment benefits’.
The solution given was a set of credentials issued by the Manufacturing Skill Standards Council (MSSC). ‘Before or after their work shift, [employees] could earn two nationally recognized credentials in only five weeks’. These certifications would be earned in a computer lab setting, which would provide ‘convenience and flexibility’ to the process.
A prime example of the use of credentialing is occurring in Ohio. The article states that ‘many members of the Manufacturing Consortia Cincinnati are such believers in these two workplace credentials that they now guarantee an interview to any applicant with an ACT National Career Readiness Certificate and an MSSC Certified Production Technician credential, or a 50-cent-per-hour increase in the offer salary -- or both.’
Learn more about ACT's National Career Readiness Certificate