Building Tomorrow's Workforce through Training, Leadership, and Economic Development. The Southwest Minnesota Private Industry Council, Inc. (SW MN PIC) is a private, non-profit organization which provides employment and training services to residents and businesses across Southwestern Minnesota. With a highly qualified, professional staff and office locations in Montevideo, Marshall, and Worthington, the SW MN PIC provides job training, assessments, and various employment services to hundreds of residents and many businesses across our fourteen county workforce service area every year. John Roiger One of our local partners, the SW/WC Service Cooperative,testifies: "The PIC could benefit greatly from a new website. Based on my experience, it can provide 4 fundamental benefits: 1) Shows your customers and other organizations that your agency is progressive and well organized 2) Reduces the need for staff to answer routine phone calls and emails by providing necessary forms and information on the site 3)Provides better service to customers and employers by providing up-to-date customer and employer forms on-line 4) Can enhance your ability to conduct on-line registration or data collection. Your website helps define who you are." Career and Technical Project Coordinator SW/WC Service Cooperative Marshall 2010-01-08T14:04:45Z 2009-12-28T15:27:29Z Juanita Lauritsen $4,078,114 7/1/08-6/30/09 507-537-6997 Currently, our clients apply for services on paper forms. Having the ability to reduce paper usage would not only allow for less waste, but will also allow a reduction in budget for these items. Our application process requires eligible participants to drive to the Workforce Center to pick up and fill out the application. Having these applications accessible online with the ability to submit online or via email not only eliminates the transportation costs to the client; it also reduces the paper waste and vehicle emissions expended to obtain the paperwork. With only three sites in a 14-county area, online forms are necessary for the progression of the programs and the accessibility for clients. In addition to paper applications, our current processes for distribution of client surveys is via U.S. Mail. This often requires an addition of an SASE to encourage our clients, who may not return the survey if they have to purchase their own stamps. Currently the response rate for return of paper surveys is very low. By allowing clients to fill out the survey online, we not only reduce waste and costs, but we increase the rate and ease of response. 27 Currently $0.00 - The PIC has limited resources to budget for IT. As a nonprofit, with the primary mission to be to serve customers, the Board of Directors works hard at assuring that the majority of the resources are direct and customer focused. Howeve In a technology-driven world, it is important for us to have a customer-friendly, useful website that is not only informative but interactive. Tomorrow's workforce rests on technology, and, as an organization, we are not setting a strong example through our current website. A new website will provide our clients with greater access to the services we provide, the paperwork necessary to participate in our programs, and the ability to progress through our programs more quickly. Our goal is to create a communication system that allows greater access and usability for our clients and to provide direct access to our adult and youth job counselors. We believe this will encourage a faster response to our clients and increase the rate in which we assist them to become re-employed or placed in a sustainable living situation. As we service a broad area (14 counties in SW Minnesota), we also have multiple employees who travel to multiple locations to meet with clients or to cross-train with other employees. Having a more interactive website will allow our employees to distribute information to clients and share information with other employees. A new website will also allow us to market our information to a wider audience, while being able to provide one website - ours - that will have multiple links for our clients to access all the information they need in their job, training or educational searches. The clients we currently serve are encouraged to go to multiple websites to search for jobs; we teach clients to submit job applications online, yet they must submit applications for our services on paper. We would like our website to serve as a one-stop-shopping experience for career counseling, youth services, and job searching. We also work with local businesses who provide on-the-job training or additional support services for our clients. A new website will allow us to distribute information to more businesses, serve as a marketing tool for greater local and regional support of our programs, and direct businesses who would like to become involved with our efforts an avenue to communicate and collaborate with us. /system/logos/27/normal/swmnpic_logo.gif?1262959414 image/gif swmnpic_logo.gif 21556 2010-01-08T14:03:34Z Building Tomorrow's Workforce through Training, Leadership, and Economic Development. The SW MN PIC provides job training, assessments, and various employment services to hundreds of residents and many businesses across our fourteen county workforce service area (Big Stone, Chippewa, Cottonwood, Jackson, Lac qui Parle, Lincoln, Lyon, Murray, Nobles, Pipestone, Redwood, Rock, Swift, and Yellow Medicine Counties) every year. SW MN PIC operates programs under the Workforce Investment Act (WIA), Adult and Youth services, State and Federal Dislocated Worker Programs, the Minnesota Family Investment Program (MFIP), Employment and Training services, the Food Support Employment and Training (FSET) program, the Minnesota Youth Program, the Youth Intervention Program, as well as various other projects. The goal of the SW MN PIC is to be a leader in the development of a world class workforce in the communities we serve. SW MN Private Industry Council 507-537-6236 $4,101,755 7/1/08-6/30/09 false true MN 607 W. Main 41-1487964 (Federal) 3012698 (State) 2010-01-11T21:06:27Z http://www.swmnpic.org/ 56258