Recognizing both the importance of improving Ohio’s workforce development system and the enormity of the challenge, in February 2012, Governor Kasich issued Executive Order 2012-02K, creating the Governor’s Office of Workforce Transformation (OWT) to be headed by a director reporting directly to the Governor. The Governor also established the Governor’s Executive Workforce Board, comprised of business leaders and workforce development stakeholders, to guide the OWT in its work and ensure that business needs are at the forefront of improvements made to the workforce system.

The Office of Workforce Transformation has prioritized its work with three strategic goals that drive our work and provide our focus:

• Identify businesses most urgent job needs:  Workers and training institutions do not have a reliable, consistent method for identifying the most in-demand jobs or the skills that workers need to fill them.  Developing that ability—and encouraging participation from employers—is the first step to aligning the system and training programs with those needs;
• Align the skills needs of employers with the training offerings of the education system: Business in Ohio struggles to connect with qualified people to fill high-demand job openings.  We are missing critical opportunities to expose and inform students of Ohio’s most in-demand jobs. With a directionally accurate forecast of businesses most urgent job needs, our education and training system will be in a better position to fill the gaps;
• Reform Ohio's workforce delivery system: Ohio’s workforce development efforts are spread out across 90 programs in 13 agencies.  We are committed to moving reforms to create more efficient, responsive and effective services for employers and workers. With better alignment, we will reduce redundancy, fragmentation and lack of coordination to improve the state and local programs that fuel our workforce system.

Click here for our plan to reform Ohio’s workforce system

The Office of Workforce Transformation has developed a strategic framework to drive workforce sector strategies for the State of Ohio.

Sector strategies are partnerships of employers within one industry that bring government, education and training, economic and workforce development, labor, and community organizations together to focus on the workforce needs of an industry within a region or statewide labor market.

Click here for our plan to reform workforce sector strategies