Recognizing that its current approach has been less than user-friendly, the Indiana Department of Workforce Development (DWD) is drafting a new RFP that will be open for bids in summer 2006.
The RFP will focus on consolidation, partnerships and cost efficiency. The DWD officials hope to increase user traffic by creating a one-stop, cutting-edge online system, attractive to both public- and private-sector companies.
A Costly Past
According to Roy Templeton, deputy commissioner and CIO of the DWD, Indiana's current approach to bringing job seekers and employers on common ground is obsolete and expensive.
"The system that we run now is called CS3 -- Customer Self Service System. It was a silo system, a traditional Wagner-Peyser Labor Exchange system developed in the mid-1990s," said Templeton, adding that it cost $12 million to develop and approximately $500,000 to maintain it.
Another disadvantage of the current system is its lack of diversification. Although it was originally intended for citizens statewide, regardless of their specialty, it became almost entirely directed toward blue-collar jobs, according to Joe DiLaura, press secretary for the DWD.
Other companies often chose to post jobs on their own Web sites, leaving the majority of postings to less Internet-oriented businesses.
"It was factory workers, manufacturing, things of that nature, and our economy has changed a lot," said DiLaura of the job postings on CS3. "Manufacturing is important, but again it didn't serve a lot of individuals or companies because of the nature of the jobs listed on it."
Although cost preoccupations and the need for diversification are important in the DWD's decision to update its system, the desire to provide a more simple and up-to-date approach that would also be attractive to private industries is just as critical, according to Templeton.
"We were trying to provide a system to Indiana job seekers and providers that was more user-friendly, more current and provided better service than what we were able to do with our old siloed system," he said.
A New Vision
The new RFP intends to address the consolidation issue, an aspect that had not been a focus until now.
"The objective of the new system is not only to increase job opportunities for businesses and citizens in Indiana, but also have a single job matching system for all state government entities in Indiana," Templeton said, adding that an additional perk of the new system is that it will avoid duplication statewide, in terms of effort and cost.
Such consolidation will also benefit job seekers by enabling them to visit a single Web site for public- and private-sector job opportunities, thus reducing the time spent navigating several sites.
As an important component of this consolidating vision, the DWD hopes to include Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana -- an institution composed of 23 campuses statewide -- on its list of potential public- and private-sector partners.
Ivy Tech, like other community colleges nationwide, offers associate's degrees in several disciplines, such as accounting, liberal arts and visual communications. However, because it also provides corporate training and work force certification, Ivy Tech plays a critical role in training future job seekers, DiLaura explained.
"It's another state system intimately involved in work force development and training. I think it makes a lot of sense for them to be part of the system as well," he said, adding that the terms of this partnership still need to be defined in the RFP.
The CS3 system had partially succeeded in saving job seekers time and money by minimizing visits to WorkOne offices, which are centralized recruiting and job matching locations. With CS3, job seekers can already access postings from any computer, instead of physically going to the offices.
The 26 WorkOne locations, dispatched over eight regions mapped by the DWD, also provide a variety of other important services, such as training opportunities, and for that reason, there is no talk of consolidating this branch of the job matching process once the new system is in place.
Another focus of the future RFP will be the new Web site. Templeton hopes the future system's format will be less reminiscent of a government entity, and thus more appealing to businesses and job seekers alike.
"To the extent possible, we [are] trying to separate the system from the department," he said. "We feel that a less pronounced government presence on the system will increase customer traffic."
