MMAC, M7 launch Talent and Industry Partnership

New collaboration to help Milwaukee Region companies attract, retain and train talented workers

Responding to Milwaukee Region companies’ urgent need to for talented employees, the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce (MMAC) and Milwaukee 7 Economic Development Partnership (M7) are convening employers in collaborative solutions.

The new partnership will harness MMAC and M7 talent development resources, amplify both organizations’ existing efforts and launch new programming to help companies in our region attract, retain and train talented workers.

“Talent development, especially up-skilling, is the single most significant challenge facing companies in our region, and will only become more challenging in the future,” said Pindel Global Precision CEO Bill Berrien. “As employers, we can do more together than any one company can do on its own. The MMAC and M7 are well-positioned to provide resources and convene stakeholders to drive solutions that will benefit our entire region.”

This partnership evolved from an ongoing collaboration among more than 30 of the Milwaukee Region’s top manufacturers. Led by ManpowerGroup and Rockwell Automation, MMAC and M7 convened a group of manufacturing executives in November 2018. Since then, chief human resource officers from participating manufacturers have continued to meet and design solutions to help their talent needs.

“Nearly every business is experiencing a labor shortage, complicated by the shortage of advanced skills required in our rapidly changing digital economy. By emphasizing lifelong learning, credential-based education, and stronger partnerships between manufacturers and technical schools, we’ll be able to successfully bridge the skills gap in the region,” said Lyman Tschanz, Vice President of Connected Enterprise Consulting, Rockwell Automation.

“Simply put, we need to stop fishing and start farming – to do everything we can to find, develop, retain and attract the talent the region needs to be prosperous,” added MMAC President Tim Sheehy. “We can collaborate to inspire the next generation of our workforce, help current employees acquire new skills, bring in members of our community who have been left on the sidelines and attract more talented workers from outside our market. With a new partnership dedicated to making these connections, our region will be even stronger tomorrow than it is today.”

CareerX to create new school to industry connections
The first new program of the joint effort will launch this fall. Called CareerX, this program will create ongoing connections between industry and education by matching Milwaukee Region manufacturers with area high school educators and students for a series of career experiences to make them more aware of the spectrum of career opportunities in smart manufacturing. Additional details will be released later this year. The next area of emphasis will be a pilot program to help employers with upskilling current employees.

The MMAC and M7 Talent and Industry Partnership plans to replicate this collaborative process in other regional industry sectors, adding to existing programming such as our partnership with Microsoft Philanthropies’ Technology Education and Literacy in Schools (TEALS) program.. Long-term goals for the partnership include:

•    Improving K-16 education pipeline connections with employers
•    Upskilling existing employees and lower skilled candidates
•    Connecting workers with untapped potential to opportunities
•    Recruiting talent from outside our market

“While M7 is best known for helping new businesses enter our region and existing businesses expand, we also have made significant steps in talent development since our formation in 2005. By combining our efforts with MMAC’s, we can do even more to help our employers solve their talent needs, ” said M7 Executive Director Pat O’Brien.

The Talent and Industry Partnership will be led by vice president Susan Koehn. Koehn, who previously served as M7’s director of industry partnerships, has significant experience in workforce development and strategic and program planning. She is joined by Alexis Deblitz, Director of Talent Pipeline Programs, who has led the MMAC’s Be the Spark program. The Be the Spark program has provided career-focused local business tours to 13,000 Milwaukee Public Schools seventh-grade students. Also joining the team is Brittany Morton, in the new role of Business and Education Partnerships Coordinator.

“Our region’s employers will always compete with one another to hire the best employees, and we don’t want to change that. But we are committed to helping employers find new ways to work together and increase the overall pool of workers that they all draw from,” said Koehn. “We also are committed to forming connections between employers, public and private workforce development programs and our region’s educational institutions. We can all do more together than any one of us can do on our own.”