The Importance of Workforce Development in Hawaiʻi

Addressing Hawaiʻi’s “living wage gap”, defined as the difference between the state’s median wage ¹ and a sustainable living wage ^2,3, is crucial for preventing brain drain and promoting economic growth. This gap is primarily due to the high cost of living and the low wages in Hawaiʻi’s dominant sectors such as hospitality and retail.

In the next decade, Hawaiʻi can address this issue through targeted WFD efforts by building effective career pathways to “relatively high-demand” living wage jobs. However, in the long-term, Hawaiʻi must diversify to higher-wage sectors to address this fundamental issue in its economy and workforce.

Understanding the Challenges in the Current WFD Efforts

Despite numerous WFD initiatives in Hawaiʻi, several issues hinder their effectiveness:

• Siloed efforts: Fragmented initiatives in WFD, with incomplete understanding of the labor market, past and parallel efforts, lead to over-investment in some areas and underinvestment in others.
• Lack of evidence-based investment: Funding is often allocated without considering prior evidence of success, particularly in career pathway development.
• Absence of coalitions:  There is no effective coalition between the providers of education, technical training, wraparound services, and funding. Unlike  in the continental US, individual service providers in Hawaiʻi are either too small or capacity constrained to provide “bundled services” needed by the community for effective WFD.
• One-size-fits-all approach: Current initiatives often fail to provide targeted solutions for specific communities, which could yield a much greater impact.
• No champions: Unlike many other states ^{4, 5}., Hawaiʻi has not had a Governor or a top policymaker advocating for WFD as a cornerstone of their legacy.

Career Pathways: The Key to Living Wage Jobs in Hawaiʻi

Investing in WFD programs that target in-demand living wage occupations can help address Hawaiʻi’s living wage gap. Although, most entry-level workers will not make a living wage, by identifying and promoting career pathways to living wage occupations, we can make them more accessible to all workers.

Meeting Employer Needs is Fundamental

Employers in Hawaiʻi often struggle to find local candidates, especially in managerial or more specialized positions. While “equity” is important to many policy makers and funders, WFD efforts must prioritize near-term employer needs in their program design to avoid developing elaborate programs that don’t go anywhere.

Designing Effective Career Pathways

To ensure success, career pathways must be designed with industry- and demographic-specific considerations in mind. This includes addressing financial barriers, improving basic skills, and providing targeted support to underrepresented groups. It will require an effective coalition of educators, trainers, service providers, policy makers, and funders working together to meet the needs of Hawaii’s employers and communities.

Aligning Education with Market Demand

Educational institutions, particularly community colleges, must adapt their programs to align with the changing labor market. By offering flexible programming, industry-recognized credentials, and work-based learning opportunities, they can better prepare students for the workforce.

Role of Data in Workforce Development

Developing a shared understanding of Hawaiʻi’s labor market challenges is essential. By utilizing data to track both activity and outcomes, policymakers can make informed decisions about WFD initiatives.

Results-Based Investments in Workforce Development

Funding for WFD should prioritize scaling proven models and investing in organizations with a track record of success. This will ensure that resources are directed toward initiatives that yield the best results for Hawaiʻi’s workforce.

Hawaiʻi can overcome its workforce development challenges through concerted efforts from public, private, and civic sectors. By addressing these issues, we can create a brighter future for Hawaiʻi’s residents. We invite Hawaii’s employers to guide and support local workforce development programs.

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Singapore is different from Hawaii, but the same general principle applies to us here. The virus is still around, but we are reopening because we feel we can somehow contain the damage it will cause, and because the cost of economic shutdown is unbearable. As Hawaii begins to reopen from a soul-crushing lockdown, a dramatic dance of life and livelihood is about to begin.

Many well-intentioned experts will no doubt be a part of the great reboot. However, the final decision makers will have to weigh conflicting advice against their own political wisdom. No matter how prudently they act, not everyone will be satisfied.

To our political leaders, we offer three principles to deal with this long crisis which will likely come to us in waves.

1. Think Micro: You know Hawaii better than the federal government. The opposing sides of this open vs. close (of the economy) debate will feel the full force of every decision you make. Their long-term interests are quite aligned because we all live in the same small place.

In geography, think local (not island, but neighborhood, community, or district). In time, review plans day-by-day. In demographics, think age groups, labor categories and specific segments of our community.

We envision a control room with a wall-to-wall map of Hawaii showing the status of the crisis, in granular detail, updated in near real-time. Each neighborhood is either a RED (needing lockdown), YELLOW (maybe, wait-and-watch zone, or a buffer zone) and GREEN (open for business). There are several brilliant data visualization experts on the islands to assist with this.

Critical supply chain and health infrastructure, with their fallback arrangements, will need their own special tracking on this map.

2. Think Reversible: The defining characteristic of this crisis is its unpredictability. A detailed, but inflexible, project plan for an economic restart will fail on first contact with the reality. Adaptation is key.

The reboot management team will need to strike a balance between safety and economy—a balance that will never be perfect or popular. Without mass testing and a vaccine, the best we can do is to establish clear guardrails and keep the situation reasonably stable.

As such, a green neighborhood which is open for business may slide into a yellow if the leading indicators point to a potential relapse. If conditions deteriorate, the neighborhood may turn red (mandating a localized lockdown) to allow for its point-containment. The same thing can happen in the opposite direction. Once local conditions improve, a red zone may progress to a yellow, and eventually to a green.
The good news is that if we think of reversible actions on a micro level, we won’t have to endure another extended statewide lockdown. Instead, we can deal with cold, warm, or hot spots

3. Think Perception: What would it take for people in Hawaii to feel safe to go back to work in a downtown office? To shop at Ala Moana? The perception of relative safety, by individuals, will drive the recovery.

Should we deploy thermal screening? Mandate drive-through testing? Nearly everything will need to be reimagined to enable neighborhoods and the economy to reopen and thrive.

Similarly, the public needs to know that there is light at the end of the tunnel. Several plan-changes or even missteps will be made along the way, but every success story will uplift our spirits, and make the entire state smarter about dealing with this crisis.

The criteria for red-yellow-green classification will need to be crystal clear, and the “map” we propose should be shared with the public. Transparency will provide relative predictability, in the face of great uncertainty, for businesses. And for the public, a reason to comply with, what may otherwise seem arbitrary, decisions.

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If you are a pessimist, you are intensely focused on the negatives of what lies ahead for us. If you are an optimist, you think, “The cup is always more than half full and even if it has a few dabs of arsenic in it there are opportunities.” We at GUILD Consulting are amongst the latter.

We are also realists and pragmatists. Grappling with larger and smaller problems, we go to lots of meetings and many of us are called on to design, moderate, facilitate, or manage them. Some of them, especially ones that deal with contentious issues, get people’s blood up.

Imagine any or all of the following:

• The state has called an informational meeting for next Wednesday to talk about a new vaccination campaign to combat an outbreak of Zika virus. People are scared.

• Neighbors have gathered to talk about the potholes, inadequate lighting, and cars racing down streets where their kids play. People are mad.

• At work, the senior manager in your division has just announced that that company has been bought out and merged and budget and staff consolidations are coming soon. People are fearful.

Each of these will usually be attended by a variety of personality types: introverts, extroverts, deductive reasoners, inductive thinkers, people with technical minds, people doing politics, and people who just want to listen. Almost always there is someone who will talk too long, try to hijack the meeting, or want to beef with someone they don’t like or trust.

The old and new literature on facilitation and meeting management is rich with what trainers call managing “Difficult people.” Sometimes they are categorized as “Sherman Tanks,” “Exploders,” “Snipers,” “Complainers,” “Clams,” or “Know-it-alls.” Much of the advice for dealing with them is repetitious and comes down to a few platitudes. Fashion a safe setting where people can speak their minds, create ground rules, encourage everyone to speak up.

There’s another and better form of analysis. It doesn’t assume these are immutably flawed personalities. Rather, it says all of us have moments in public places when we at our worst.

In the 1950s, Dr. Eric Berne, originally trained in psychoanalysis, wanted a theory which would be understood and available to everyone to help reduce unnecessary friction in family, work, and community systems where people had no choice but to interact. He called it Transactional Analysis or TA. Part of his work was built around three role patterns that play out over and over again privately and publicly when we are struggling with complex issues: parent, child, and adult.

We see all three sides in meetings on snarky subjects.

In simplified form, what Berne was getting at was this. In our child roles, we tend to be self-centered, experience strong emotions, and are not always sociable. We get talked down to and don’t like it. We argue, rebel, and push back. As parents, we try to socialize children. We issue directives, admonishments, and lessons. “Don’t run with scissors.” “Always chew with your mouth closed.” “Play nice in the sandbox.” And as adults, we become more cognitive, careful, and thoughtful. We become capable of deliberation, give-and-take dialogue, and problem-solving.

Our new challenge is to find new ways to bridge the gap from “ready to rumble” to “open to discussion” and from “I’m mad as hell” to “Let’s talk about the issue.” In effect, to help people become “adults” when they are at those meetings that evoke fear or anger.

Our Partners at GUILD Consulting will be happy to talk to you about dealing with difficult subject matters. Email us at solutions@guild.im or call (808) 729-5850.

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The National Science Foundation, Pew Research Center, and others have noted said trends. And from a business perspective (or a local one), they’re worth looking into. Confidence in government has dropped, not just in the United States, but in all Western countries. Government institutions aren’t immune. Meanwhile, trust in churches, universities, schools, and research groups, has also continued to plummet.

At the exact same time, the rise of social media amplifies public disagreements. Project proponents have started using social media to advance their causes — this information usually shows up without warning or asking on the topic on Facebook Twitter, texts, e-mails, Instagram, Snapchat, and more. The goal of each post is to gain attention and persuasion. They say: “Look at this big cause. This is why you should believe us.”

On the other side of the spectrum, opponents of each cause do the same; they use social media to gather and convince sympathizers. Jan Tenbruggencate, a Hawaiʻian writer wrote:

Social media is a powerful force. 

It’s is a growing new reality to the modern cause. It creates viral images and narratives that work against efforts to strive together for solutions. A question for exploration is how do we use social media when we are trying to build new collaborative discussions on very hard topics?

We welcome your ideas. Our Partners at GUILD Consulting will be happy to talk to you about leveraging trends for social media in public policy. Email us at solutions@guild.im or call (808) 729-5850.

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