Fixing to Change:

A Best Practices Assessment of
One-Stop Job Centers Working with Welfare Recipients

Executive Summary

Contents of Chapter:

This study was undertaken in an effort to assess the impacts of recent policy, organizational, and technology changes on the delivery of employment services to welfare recipients. The study examines five of the most developed and promising One-Stop Job Centers around the country to find out what makes them work well, and to understand their potential for moving people from welfare to self-sufficiency. This study does not provide a formal evaluation of these model programs, but identifies those approaches and practices that seem to be working well in different locations.(1)

The Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (WIA) created a new policy and program framework for workforce preparation and employment. Under the WIA, states and local areas must establish workforce investment boards to oversee the delivery of a broad array of services for youth, adults, and dislocated workers, including federally funded job services. Job-seekers and business are expected to benefit from a One-Stop delivery system designed to offer a full range of employment and career counseling services to the general public via a single location or a system of linked service centers. These One-Stop Job Centers are expected to provide customers with:

Through One-Stop Job Centers, employers are intended to have a single point of contact to provide information about current and future skills needed by their workers and to list job openings, creating a single system for finding job-ready skilled workers who meet their needs.

Many One-Stop Job Centers have already been established in response to earlier initiatives by the U.S. Department of Labor, and in response to federal and state welfare reforms. Some of these centers have been operating long enough to develop an understanding of how well they serve different client groups. The purpose of this study is to examine some of the most promising One-Stop models to better understand what makes them work well and the potential they offer for moving people from welfare to self-sufficiency.

Methodology

Five One-Stop models were selected based on their success in addressing welfare-to-work issues, geographic distribution, and urban/rural diversity. One-Stop officials at each site were asked to provide background information and to set up separate focus group interviews with One-Stop management, staff, current welfare clients, previous welfare clients, and local employers of welfare clients. Researchers conducted focus group interviews on site, guided by a structured set of questions.

Each One-Stop site was also asked to provide three types of data to support this research:

  1. The characteristics of welfare clients in the area,
  2. Service records and characteristics of a sample of between 70 and 150 welfare clients served by the One-Stop, and
  3. Data on employment and training outcomes for the sample of clients.

Five One-Stop Models

The five One-Stop models included in the study are:

These models were selected based on their progress in implementing the One-Stop concept for welfare-to-work initiatives, their reputation for innovation and success, and their geographic dispersion and diversity. All but one, Whatcom County, had received implementation funding from the US Department of Labor (DoL). Note that very few major urban centers had established a One-Stop model that was ready for assessment when the study started in early 1997. This observation may reflect the difficulties inherent in coordinating or integrating multiple services in the complex organizational settings typical of major cities.

All of the sites have a number of similar characteristics. Some of the similarities include similar origins of the initiative to create the One-Stop, a common set of core partners, programs and program elements, and a familiar set of personnel, space, technology, and state/local issues.

Several unique characteristics in each of the One-Stop systems underscore the diversity of local circumstances, capacities, and system designs. Differences in partnerships and integration, work requirements, data systems and funding reflect the variety of One-Stop responses to the welfare-to-work mandate. To some degree, the evolution of local One-Stop systems in the local economic, policy, and institutional environment is an ongoing, dynamic adjustment process, with different systems examined here illustrating different points on the learning curve. Given this diversity, it is unrealistic to expect that a single One-Stop model will be appropriate for all localities. Similarly, it would be too simplistic to assume that all One-Stop Centers will be able to provide the same level or quality of services.

Successful Models

In our national scan for successful models, we found very few One-Stop systems that had been operating for a period of time in large urban areas. Most of those that we did find were either overshadowed in their reported success by other sites within the same state, were simply too new to be usefully assessed, or did not sufficiently focus their services on welfare recipients.(2)  Our sample of One-Stop models thus contains only one system in a major metropolitan area, Tarrant County (Fort Worth).

We infer from this experience that the One-Stop concept may be easier to implement, and in some cases, more appropriate to smaller metropolitan areas and rural business centers. In many of these areas, One-Stop models may have emerged in part because it is easier to identify the appropriate institutions and resources for inclusion and exercise local leadership, without the complex systems and often overlapping constituencies and politics associated with human services in larger urban areas. However, the difficulty in establishing a One-Stop system may not reflect on the system's success, once established. As a result, it simply may be necessary to wait longer to evaluate the success of the One-Stop model in major urban labor markets.

In all of the sites visited, it was clear that established One-Stop systems have all had to address a similar set of challenges. Inclusion of partners, co-location or coordinated system approach, technology and data systems, facility management, contracting out -- all of these issues must be addressed and agreed to by multiple agencies for the One-Stop to be successful. To some degree, the "success" of a local One-Stop may depend on how long it has been working at resolving these issues, allowing the system to evolve as institutions and partners learn from their interaction and adapt to changes in federal and state policies and programs.

Key Factors

Based on our observations and interviews, three key factors tend to contribute to the success of a One-Stop center:

Promising Program Elements

There are several promising program elements among the five One-Stop models. While the excellence of each of these elements may not imply overall program effectiveness, they do tend to help illustrate some of the activities being done well in the context of the One-Stop concept. Some highlights include:

The degree to which these individual elements contribute to job retention and long term self-sufficiency remains unclear. Nonetheless, it was clear in discussions with clients and former clients that many of these elements played a critical role in their positive experiences within the One-Stop environment.

Common Problems

Some of the common problems with One-Stop centers raised by participants in focus groups tended to focus on issues of location and transportation, child care funding, availability and scheduling, dealing with substance abuse, and assistance with job retention and ongoing education and training.  All of the sites visited are to some degree pioneers of the One-Stop concept within their state employment systems. In most cases, the design and emergence of the local One-Stop has more to do with local initiatives than with any program-wide redesign efforts initiated at the state level. In some instances, these model sites have been useful to state officials in structuring elements of their approach to One-Stop systems. In others, systems developed locally don't always match the designs subsequently developed by the state and create tensions around issues of local flexibility.

Each of the sites reviewed has struggled with a series of issues that makes each local One-Stop Center unique, including:

Institutional Factors

Several other institutional factors may contribute to the success or failure of a One-Stop, including:

Suggested Improvements

Suggestions for improving One-Stop models came from focus groups with management, staff, current and former participants, and participating employers. Their recommendations include:

Challenges in Reaching the Welfare Population

Not all One-Stop clients have the same abilities or employment needs, and by design, not all clients will receive the same services. The intent of the inverted pyramid model of One-Stop service delivery is to provide multiple points of access to a variety of services, beginning with easily accessed self-service opportunities and culminating with intensive, one-on-one services for clients with the greatest needs.

For the most part, the self-service job matching and education, training, and career planning systems seem to have been more than adequate to service the experienced labor force. However, there are several points at which TANF recipients may have difficulty gaining access to the employment and training services provided by One-Stop systems. First is the challenge of getting TANF recipients through the door, given that some are reluctant to participate on their own. Second, there may be issues of location and logistics and retention affected by system design. Third, there are issues about how well the services offered meet the needs of the clients. And finally, there are issues of follow-through once TANF recipients are placed in employment.

The current pattern of One-Stop centers to provide welfare recipients with the minimum level of employment services necessary to move them from welfare to low-wage employment offers an optimum strategy for reducing caseloads during the strongest economy in several decades. However, even a relatively mild recession could force a serious reallocation of resources within many One-Stop centers once these employment opportunities evaporate. These centers might be better suited than the traditional "unemployment office" for handling high volumes of experienced workers via self-service job search tools. But if they are unable to move TANF recipients into employment, severe financial and caseload strains may result during an economic downturn, especially since the flow of federal funds will no longer be driven by changes in caseloads.

Occupations and Employers

Employer focus groups reflected a remarkable level of understanding of the complexities and challenges of recruiting and retaining a low-skilled labor force. For the most part, employers who participated were typical of this labor market, employing relatively large numbers of workers with very modest skills in firms with relatively few opportunities for serious training or advancement. Most of these employers expressed a genuine willingness to provide the limited training necessary for individuals ready to work, but frequently expressed frustration at the lack of such readiness, and the seeming lack of screening for this preparation by One-Stop personnel.

Most of the client focus groups reported very positive results from work experience activities, indicating that these positions frequently became permanent positions or offered real experience that could be used in obtaining permanent employment. Employer reactions tended to reflect the way in which the worker was treated -- employers who provide work experience workers serious work were most likely to be pleased with the results, while those treating it as "make work" often were not. Several employers, both public and private, reported hiring work experience workers on a permanent basis, often noting the loyalty and sense of responsibility these workers brought to their jobs.

Given the distribution of low-skill, entry-level jobs in today's economy and the narrow scope of education and training funding under most state welfare reforms, it appears that many of the One-Stop welfare-to-work programs tend to place their clients in a fairly limited set of typical occupations. In some cases, the following occupational paths are emphasized by design through specific training and employment agreements with large employers:

One employer that was present in at least three of the locations was Manpower, Inc. As a temporary employment agency, Manpower can often offer One-Stop clients a useful point of access to employment opportunities, and they frequently share their listings with the One-Stop employment services. However, they also tend to do more job readiness and skill screening than the One-Stop, and not all welfare-to-work clients may be deemed "job ready" by their standards.

Empirical Evidence of Success

Most analysts would agree that real success in moving welfare recipients to self-sufficiency should be measurable in terms of employment and wage outcomes. A review of administrative records from three of the five sites, and management tracking reports from a fourth, suggest that for the most part, these One-Stop models have been at least partially successful. However, these data also highlight some of the gaps and limitations in the One-Stop concept as it has been implemented so far.

The variation in the characteristics of the populations served across sites illustrates the need for flexibility in defining services and designing service systems that respond to unique local needs. Differences in local economies are very important in understanding the types of work skills necessary to be successful, yet differences in education levels, age distribution, number of dependents, and racial/ethnic diversity also persist, requiring careful attention to unique local design issues.

Footnotes

1.  Note that our goal was to highlight promising practices in One-Stop Centers and therefore the sites we selected and the people interviewed should not be considered a random or representative sample.

2.  Milwaukee is a good example of the first of these circumstances, Boston the second, and Renton (Seattle metropolitan area) the third.

3.  JOBS was the parallel employment and training program for AFDC clients.

Where to now?

Home Pages: