Powering Climate & Infrastructure Careers: Reframing Job Quality as a Business Solution in Michigan
Michigan is actively pursuing a clean energy future, and like many states, faces the critical challenge of not just creating new jobs, but establishing high-quality, family-sustaining careers to attract, cultivate, and retain a skilled workforce. The Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity (LEO) sits at the center of this effort, connecting residents with employment opportunities and helping businesses find the talent they need to thrive. As a participant in the Families and Workers Fund’s Powering Climate and Infrastructure Careers (PCIC) initiative, LEO strives to build an equitable and prosperous clean energy economy by promoting quality jobs and supporting energy and auto workers impacted by economic shifts.
LEO and its local partners, the Michigan Works! Agencies (MWAs), work closely with small- to medium-sized businesses to understand and meet their workforce needs. Those interactions point to a need to build a better understanding among employers of how job quality elements can support retention and growth. Employers also need practical and actionable strategies to implement job quality standards, no matter their size or level of resources. LEO seeks to develop tools and messaging that resonate with small- to medium-sized businesses and can be shared and supported through the state and local workforce system.
Third Sector had the privilege of partnering with LEO to navigate the complex challenge of turning ambitious goals into actionable strategies. Our technical assistance focused on two key areas: narrative shift and decentralized implementation.
- Strategic Reframing: We helped LEO communicate the return on investment of job quality in ways that would resonate with employers. Our coaching emphasized that practices to advance job quality – like competitive compensation and benefits, safe workplaces, and learning and development cultures – are viable strategic solutions to address common business challenges, such as attracting skilled workers and high turnover. This strategic reframing resulted in shifting the conversation from an ideological discussion to a practical, business solutions-oriented approach that makes job quality initiatives more palatable and actionable for small and medium-sized businesses.
- Empowering Trusted Messengers: We collaborated with LEO to expand MWAs’ capacity to engage employers on job quality. For state agencies looking to scale initiatives, local workforce development boards are an invaluable asset. MWAs, as Michigan’s local delivery system for workforce development, possess the regional knowledge, trust, and commitment to hold solutions-oriented conversations directly with employers. Because they are acutely aware of the economic challenges local employers and their communities face, MWAs can tailor the narrative strategies we provided to truly resonate with local business leaders, ensuring that state-level policy is translated into local, credible action.
By grounding the job quality message in tangible business outcomes and empowering local partners to tailor it to their unique contexts, Michigan can effectively bridge ambitious economic development goals and workforce equity at the regional level.
Based on our partnership with LEO, we offer the following actionable recommendations for state and local agencies seeking to drive high-road workforce opportunities:
- Frame job quality as a growth and retention strategy. State agencies frequently struggle to achieve employer buy-in because “job quality” concepts can sound abstract or like a political mandate, especially to small and medium-sized businesses whose priorities are centered on daily operations and profitability. To overcome this, agencies can intentionally build a narrative that positions job quality practices as growth and retention strategies. This action requires focusing messaging on how job quality investments solve immediate business problems and leveraging data that connects these practices to the company’s bottom line, like lowering turnover costs, improving productivity, and ensuring talent supply. These efforts result in an intentional narrative shift that moves the conversation from an ideological debate to practical business problem-solving, dramatically increasing employer engagement and participation.
- Incentivize job quality as a competitive business advantage. To aid in the adoption of best practices, states need a clear strategy to incentivize and reward businesses that commit to job quality. Proactively connect job quality metrics, such as paying family-sustaining wages and providing transparent career pathways, to tangible, competitive advantages. This can include benefits to employers such as priority access to state funding, procurement opportunities, increased visibility through “champion” or “ambassador” roles, and more. Ultimately, businesses begin to see how upholding job quality is an essential source of competitive advantage with rewards rather than a compliance exercise.
- Partner with local intermediaries on your job quality strategy. State agencies often lack the deep regional and local relationships and context required to effectively engage every small and medium-sized business across their diverse state. Therefore, it is critical to identify and partner with existing, local, trusted intermediaries (like Michigan Works! Agencies, industry associations, employer-led collaboratives, or economic development agencies) as the primary messengers and implementers of job quality strategies. Agencies should provide these local partners with tailored messaging and simplified engagement tools, enabling them to meet employers where they are and address specific local economic realities. This approach ensures that messaging is locally and economically relevant, significantly accelerating the widespread adoption and long-term sustainability of the statewide strategies.
Michigan’s commitment to building a high-quality workforce continues. LEO seeks to develop a job quality self-assessment tool and other resources to support businesses across the state. Our work with Michigan exemplifies how tailored messaging, leveraging trusted partners, and adaptive facilitation can support a statewide strategy to improve job quality.
To learn more, contact Jess Praphath, Managing Director, Workforce Pathways, at jpraphath@thirdsectorcap.org
