S5 E6: Workforce Training Grants to Level Up Your Training & Development

Podcast April 23, 2024

• Discovering how the Massachusetts Workforce Training Fund Program (WTFP) can benefit your company
• Commonwealth Corporation – Workforce Training Fund Program

Transcript:

Pete Wright:
Hello and welcome everybody to this special edition of Human Solutions: Simplifying HR for People Who Love HR from AIM HR Solutions. I’m Pete Wright, and this week we’re talking about grants. Massachusetts, we’ve heard you here at AIM. We’ve heard your questions about how grants work in our fair state and we are here today with a dose of clarity. Rob Duncan is the director of Workforce Training Fund Programs at Commonwealth Corporation and Jen Moff is our vice president of learning and development at AIM HR Solutions, and they join me today to help us all understand how to take advantage of Massachusetts grants and how you can level up your corporate training as a result. Rob, Jen, welcome back.

Jen Moff:
Thank you as always, Pete.

Pete Wright:
Let’s dig right in. First, for those who don’t know about or understand Commonwealth Corporation, Rob, give us a little bit of an introduction on what Commonwealth Corp does.

Rob Duncan:
Sure. In a nutshell, we’re a quasi-public state entity here in Massachusetts. We’re dealing with workforce development, funding and developing programs throughout the state. We’ve got some programs that are focused on young people entering the workforce and getting experience in summer employment, some are under employed or unemployed individuals who are going through training in order to gain access to a career path. And some programs like the one that I run that are focused on training opportunities for employees of businesses located in Massachusetts presently.

Pete Wright:
And that brings us to our AIM-Commonwealth collaboration. Jen, why don’t you tell us a little bit about that?

Jen Moff:
Yeah, I think this is something that is so powerful. I’ve lived up and down the East Coast and done training in multiple different parts of the North American continent and as I’ve traveled and learn about different programs around the country and the U.S., this is the first state that offers something like this that I’m aware of that I’ve came across. And so I thought when I joined up with the team here at AIM HR Solutions, what incredible opportunity that the state of Massachusetts is providing. Just my mind was just blown by just the sheer fact that these programs exist and not just, oh, it’s a one-time thing that we did as a PR stunt.
This is an ongoing initiative because they really put their money where their mouth is and say, “This is a valuable thing. We’re going to show that by having a whole initiative and organization and program not just for one type of thing, but multiple different types of needs so that we can really support the employees in this state.” Because they recognize that there’s so much innovation here and learning is one of the key things we’re seeing that keeps people in their current roles and not job hopping. So I’m just so grateful for the initiatives that the state of Massachusetts has created here as part of the Commonwealth Corporation’s grant programs.

Pete Wright:
It is amazing, to your point, that this is an ongoing program. I think we grew accustomed potentially to grant programs coming out of COVID and that money is on the bubble in many states and that’s not how it works in Massachusetts. Let’s talk about it. Help us understand the architecture of Massachusetts grants. Rob, a brief overview of the general grant program and then we can get into where we’re putting our money today.

Rob Duncan:
Sure. The Workforce Training Fund Program offers a couple of different grants to businesses. The first one I wanted to mention is the general grant, so these are grants of up to $200,000 for employee training initiatives, and these last up to two years. There were about 150 of these awarded last year and they averaged about $100,000 for a company. These are significant grants that are for customized training projects that are awarded competitively as applicants appeal to different selection criteria. This is not the primary starting point for most companies. This is for the more complex and customized projects.
The starting point for most companies is going to be the express program from the Workforce Training Fund. The Express Program is a more simplified and streamlined program that awards grants up to $20,000 per year per company up to $3,000 per person per course. Those are awarded exclusively to employers in Massachusetts with 100 or fewer employees. It’s a simple process where a company can apply for a grant by filling out a form to show us that the company is eligible and selecting training that they would like to send their employees to from a directory of pre-approved training courses that allows for the quick and easy approval process. A company could apply for a grant in as little as three weeks before the start of training that they’d like to take. So really want to emphasize this as a great opportunity, the Express grant, that is for businesses with 100 or fewer employees in Massachusetts to find a way to access training in a very user-friendly and approachable program.

Pete Wright:
Rob, where does the money come from?

Rob Duncan:
The Workforce Training Fund is funded through payroll taxes that employers in Massachusetts are paying, and accordingly, grants are only available to those companies that are paying Massachusetts payroll taxes. And in effect, all for-profit companies in Massachusetts are contributing and are eligible to take part and most nonprofits. Some of the larger nonprofit organizations, hospitals and universities, they’re self-insured and they’re not part of this program, can’t take part, but virtually every other private employer or nonprofit organization in Massachusetts is eligible. Unfortunately, no government employees can take part.

Pete Wright:
Sure, sure. I mean that just really hits home for me. If I’m a small employer, under 100 employees, this is effectively my training dollars you’re holding onto. I can think of no excuse not to apply for a grant to level up my teams. In your experience here, what’s the general penetration of the Express Grant? Are we seeing a lot of organizations actually take advantage of it? Where’s the uncertainty?

Rob Duncan:
Quite a bit. As a matter of fact, it’s been a real period of growth in the Express Program, particularly since the end of the pandemic. We made a lot of changes in recent years to make the program as approachable as possible, especially for the smallest businesses who were most impacted by the pandemic and needed the most support in recovery. We have in the last two years had a 5X growth and awards made from the Express Program, and we hope to keep growing the participation of the smallest businesses. It’s the companies under 50 that are the largest growth segment, and we’re really proud of that.

Pete Wright:
That’s incredible and what a wonderful thing to take advantage of. And speaking of taking advantage of it, let’s talk about how organizations can really leverage these grants for corporate training. Right? How are companies specifically using these grants? Are we seeing just, “Hey, I need to get trained up on Excel, so I’m going to go to a class and I need the Express Grant to pay for it.” Or what are we looking at? Project management, engineering, manufacturing? Give me a scope.

Rob Duncan:
It’s a wide, wide variety. In effect, there’s any topic under the sun that could be covered as long as it’s work-related and provides a work-related skill. In the Express Program, a training provider that’s interested in offering courses will submit a course in our directory of courses, and that too is a fairly fast and painless process approval. Also, usually within three weeks. Companies can go into the directory and find different offerings in there. Oftentimes, companies will start with a relationship with an organization like AIM who is helping to make people aware of the resource and also providing training services who has courses listed and a number of other training providers as well are in there.
So often companies will start there, often companies will start with the directory to search for what trainings are available. We see everything from project management, machine operation, some adult basic English as a second language, leadership or supervisory skills, process improvement or Six Sigma, customer service, any variety of software. You name it, we do it.

Pete Wright:
All right. Turning to Jen, what is the AIM HR experience as a member of the catalog and a provider?

Jen Moff:
We’re also a user of the grant too, Pete.

Pete Wright:
Sure.

Jen Moff:
I can speak about it from all the different aspects. We have currently 71 individual sessions that we offer that are approved to be funded through the grant and I believe close to 10 courses as well. We’ve had so much success in partnering with them to get the full range of sessions that we offer. There’s not a single session that we offer that’s not been part of the directory, so we have things anywhere from supervisory skills that focus on management, all the way to succession planning for C-suite team members. We have customer service sessions. We’ve even done Zoom sessions as part of the catalog and we see a lot of success in companies coming to us by way of finding out about us on the directory. And then once they know about us and see what the experience is like, their trust has been established with not only us, but also with the Workforce Training Grant Fund. And we’ve had clients year over year repeatedly use what they can when there’s funds available because they’ve had such a positive experience with this partnership between Rob’s team and my own.
From a user standpoint, I can also say we don’t train on everything. We don’t pretend to be all things for all people. And so when we had a team member that needed a very specific type of training for support in their role, what did we do? We utilized the same thing that we recommend and I went through the exact process Rob spoke about for the Express Grant. I’m no different. We started with the Express Grant and it was a very painless process in my personal opinion. The online wizard or widget that takes you through the prompts about what you need is very clear. It really did only take a few minutes after you had all the initial information and it wasn’t a long list of things, no worse than the things you need to get your driver’s license renewed or something like that.
And the approval process was painless and easy. We had one item that we needed to correct, they made it super easy to do that and the employee was able to take the session and received a lot of value and the whole experience is really great. We definitely recommend it from both sides of the experience.

Pete Wright:
I like the idea that the catalog is sort of training dim sum, right? You pick a little bit from each plate, each provider. I think that’s fantastic. But now Rob, you said you can get approval in as little as three weeks and Jen said there was something that needed to be corrected. For those listening to this who’ve never taken advantage of it, what are the potential roadblocks? What should people understand about this application process before they start to make that three weeks, maybe two and a half?

Rob Duncan:
First of all, I think it’s important to have some ideas on what you want to do. There are lots of ideas and I think some prioritization is in order. Talking to the right people who are involved, those that are going to be trained, their supervisors and whoever the experts are at your company to make some priorities. Then it’s a matter of sourcing your provider. Finding a provider that has a course that meets your needs. The directory is a great source of that. The company will have to prove eligibility to us, so you’re going to have to submit a certificate of good standing from the Department of Revenue of Massachusetts showing that the company’s current on their taxes, which is available online and a company has to be current on things like payroll taxes.
So we’ll go and check in with our partners in state government to make sure everybody’s current, and then it’s just a matter of some paperwork via email. Once a grant is approved, there’ll be notification via email followed by a DocuSign agreement that’s executed before training can take place, then the company just simply sends their people off to training and submits an invoice to us when training’s complete to get reimbursed for the cost of training.

Pete Wright:
You make it sound so easy.

Jen Moff:
One part that Rob started with, I think that really is actually, I wouldn’t say it’s harder, but there is so much intention that needs to be done in making sure that you’re picking the right things because one thing Rob did touch on is where, and I spoke about it too, imagine a company comes and says, “We want this time management training from this provider. We see it in the catalog.” But then somewhere after the approval, they realize that’s not actually what we need. We’ve since learned it’s a efficiency or productivity session that we need. So making changes after the fact isn’t impossible, but what could be done is a needs analysis on the front end, and that’s something that people in my industry and learning and development do and partner with companies and clients to make sure that the right solutions are being provided for the right reasons.

Rob Duncan:
Yeah, I think that’s a great point.

Pete Wright:
Sounds like a great point. Yeah. Sorry, Rob, go ahead.

Rob Duncan:
Yeah, and I just want to emphasize that there’s a just-in-time dynamic here too. A company can apply for an Express Grant today. There’s an example that comes to mind. There’s a medical device manufacturer in North Orica that they have about 20 employees, and they ended up receiving a grant for just under $2,000 for five different courses from HR solutions, things like performance appraisal and attracting and retaining talent. At the point that they applied, they were ready to place their order. They had a plan together, these five courses and the individuals that work to take part, but there might be a point in time where they’re just clear on the first two and they can apply today, get that training underway, and come back next month for an additional Express Grant for the next course that they’re able to identify. Up to $20,000 in a calendar year in new grants approved.

Pete Wright:
You can get a lot of training done with 20 grand in a year.

Rob Duncan:
That’s right. And it’s a little easier to apply the second time too, in that we’ve already got your certificate on file and so on and so forth.

Jen Moff:
Yeah, there’s a lot of great strategies to employ and that I think that again goes back to really making sure you know what solution is best. So it could be you have a new population of people that you want to send through this training that you always do annually for new hires, or it could be, I want this one person to take a whole bunch of different stuff. So you really have to be very intentional. I think that that’s a key part of this process.

Pete Wright:
Well, that brings to mind, Jen, the idea of operationalizing the Express Grant application, using it for building a standard onboarding curriculum. When you get new team members, you want them all to have been through the same training. Putting the Express Grant as part of the operation seems like a no-brainer for a small business in Massachusetts.

Jen Moff:
For those under 100, it might be the perfect solution. Otherwise, there is the general grant that Rob touched on as well, and that’s something that can be utilized over a two-year period, so it’s about a much longer roadmap and plan for strategic professional development internally.

Pete Wright:
Well, speaking of the Express Grant, if you’re watching this on video, I’m dropping a link onto the screen. It will be in the show notes. Rob, check me on that. Is that the correct place? It seems to be as I’m clicking around. I want you to go take a look at it. I’m just scrolling through it here as we’re talking. It is extraordinarily comprehensive in what you can do and the programs that you can evaluate for your own training initiatives. It’s incredible.

Rob Duncan:
I probably should have shared our more user-friendly version, which is workforcetrainingfund.org will also get you there.

Pete Wright:
Workforcetrainingfund.org. Better late than never, Rob. Better late than never. What have we missed? What other questions do you often get from organizations that are just starting up with their Express Grant process that you want to make sure people are aware of as we wrap up?

Rob Duncan:
Three things that are priority of the Workforce Training Fund that we always like to encourage companies to consider approaching when they’re thinking about their training needs, diversity, equity, and inclusion. Is there anything that a company can be doing to make sure that their practices are inclusive? The administration is really wanting to emphasize the opportunity to use Workforce Training Fund for training related to reactions and challenges around climate change. Is there any additional practices or planning that needs to be adopted to keep up with the changes related to climate change and international regulations that touch upon that, and then always a priority of the Workforce Training Fund is ESOL, English for Speakers of Other Language is some of the most important work that we do, some of the most transformative training. Where company is able to establish a workplace English program for workers with low English proficiency, we really encourage it and have some additional opportunities and resources for those companies. Again, we can cover anything under the sun just about, but those are three priorities that we like to emphasize in our marketing.

Pete Wright:
Any limitations for organizations that do fit the bill, under 100, but happen to have small or satellite offices outside of the state of Massachusetts?

Rob Duncan:
Wow. We can only cover training for mass-based employees, so that is employees who work in Massachusetts, don’t even necessarily have to live in the state because it’s all related to where their payroll taxes go. So payroll taxes to Massachusetts means they’re eligible.

Pete Wright:
Seems like an easy thing to remember. Rob, Jen, thank you so much for coming in and sharing your wisdom on the show. I sure appreciate you doing this again. Links in the show notes and that’s workforcetrainingfund.org is pretty easy. Even I remember it and I only had to hear it once. Workforcetrainingfund.org. Check this information out. It’s incredibly powerful, transformative training for your organization.
Thank you as always everyone for downloading and listening to this show, for checking out this very special edition of Human Solutions. If you’d like to hear more of this kind of conversation, head over to aimhrsolutions.com. You can listen to the show right there on the website or subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, anywhere that you get your podcasts. Any other locations that you would like to send people to make sure that we have in our notes, Rob or Jen?

Jen Moff:
You covered everything for us. You did great.

Pete Wright:
Thank you so much.

Rob Duncan:
Excellent. Thank you, Pete. Thanks, Jen.

Pete Wright:
We’ll wrap it up. Thank you so much on behalf of Jen Moff and Rob Duncan. I’m Pete Wright. We’ll see you next time right here on Human Solutions: Simplifying HR for People Who Love HR.