Location: Sault Ste. Marie Office
Wage: $22.50/hour
Work Week: Full-Time, 32 hours per week Monday - Friday 8 am - 5 pm
Benefits: Medical, Dental, Vision, Long Term Disability, Life Insurance, Excellent PTO, Paid Holidays, etc.
Supervisory Responsibilities: None
Organization Overview: Upper Peninsula Michigan Works! (UPMW) cultivates opportunities for developing a skilled workforce, helps businesses succeed, and collaborates with partners to build a strong economy. UPMW serves the 15 counties of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
Position Overview: Business Services Specialists function as a team to assist employers in taleBenefits:nt acquisition, training and upskilling, and retention. These Specialists use the Demand Driven Model to provide workforce development solutions to businesses.
Essential Job Functions:
- Oral Comprehension and Expression – The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences and to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
- Written Comprehension and Expression — The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing and communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
- Deductive Reasoning — The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
- Information Ordering — The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern per a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
- Active Learning – The ability to understand the implications of new information for both current and future problem solving and decision making.
- Time Sharing – The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information.
- Driving – The employee must possess a current, valid driver’s license and be able to travel within the UP.
Specific Job Duties:
- Be the ‘go to’ person in the assigned region for resources and solutions to address employers’ workforce challenges.
- While maintaining comprehensive knowledge of the workforce system, provide focused services to employers within assigned geography via business-to-business visits.
- Establish relationships with businesses and industry by conducting research and developing leads, making customer calls, attending networking events and asking for referrals.
- Conduct and document activities focused on employer penetration rates, retention rates and repeat business.
- Develop relationships with business and industry, working together to create solutions, anticipating needs, and providing strategic value through programs such as Going Pro and Apprenticeship USA, among others.
- Determine needs of employer customers through comprehensive fact-finding, asking questions that reveal core issues, actively listening, conducting research on trends, and building knowledge of labor market issues.
- Offer an array of workforce services tools and strategies from multiple sources and partners to assist employers in addressing their workforce needs by having a deep knowledge of available tools and strategies.
- Work collaboratively with employers, team members and partners to create customized solutions from tools and strategies such as on-the-job trainings, work-based learning, recruitment tactics, fidelity bonding, etc.
- Work collaboratively with team members to access appropriate talent and relevant training services.
- Coordinate Talent Tours to introduce youth, teachers, and parents to available career paths by offering a behind the scenes look into in-demand businesses; facilitate activities that create the Talent pipeline.
- Forecast employment and training needs for specific employer customers, based on growth or layoff projections and initiate hiring events, Rapid Response, Dislocated Worker programs and Trade Adjustment Assistance grant activities.
- Coordinate with local and/or regional economic development organizations to assist employers in attracting and retaining talent.
- Work with others to develop and maintain career awareness activities, job fairs, talent tours and other Workforce Services aligned outreach, activities, and events.
General Job Duties:
- Obtain / maintain current Business Services Professional certification.
- Provide high quality customer service to all customers, internal and external.
- Promote access to and use of all available Workforce Services resources.
- Use applications in the Microsoft Office Suite to advance work.
- Input timely and accurate data entry.
- Develop and continually increase knowledge as a Subject Matter Expert (SME) in a selected area(s).
- Create, produce, and provide written materials as needed.
- Develop and maintain trusting relationships; uphold confidentiality and standards of professionalism in all activities.
- Represent Michigan Works! positively in public; be an ambassador in the local community.
- Other duties as assigned.
Education / Qualification Preferences:
- Some college preferred; sales, entrepreneurial, operations, human resources or similar experience is a plus.
- Demonstrated business acumen.
- Previous experience using Customer Relationship Management tool desired.
- Proficient with Microsoft Office and other standard applications.
- Strong interpersonal skills and the ability to communicate in a professional setting.
- Demonstrated experience taking initiative and self-managing work.
- Self-confidence.
- Ability to adjust and adapt in a fast-paced environment.
Status: Non-exempt, full-time.
Expected Hours of Work: Regular office hours (8-5), occasional evening hours.
Travel Requirements: Significant travel within assigned service area on a regular and routine basis.
