FOLLOW-UP - Green Collar Jobs Roundtable 09

2008-10-07T07:49:00.001-07:00

Green Collar Jobs Roundtable
Second General Body Meeting – September 18th, 2008

The second general body meeting of the Green Collar Jobs Roundtable was a success bringing together over 100 participants from business, community groups, organized labor, City government, workforce development organizations, environmental organizations and advocacy groups. At the meeting, we initiated a targeted Working Group process toward our goal of mobilizing the City to create a coordinated workforce development plan to prepare New Yorkers for green collar jobs. The Working Group process was developed based on feedback from the first general body Roundtable meeting in June and during subsequent planning meetings over the summer.

Participants expressed enthusiasm over the Working Group process, but also raised some concerns and ideas for moving forward. Below we identify the major recommendations and challenges offered by Roundtable participants and the steps we’ll take to improve connectivity through a Blog and more coordinated leadership. We hope you’ll continue to stay involved with this process and contribute toward the Roundtable Roadmap. The Roundtable timeline is on the last page of this document.

Recommendations and Challenges

Information Sharing and the Working Group Process – Participants said that the success of the working group process will depend on strong lines of communication. It was suggested that all of the Working Groups must share information and regularly update each other on the progress of their respective Roadmap outlines. They proposed that we establish an information-sharing structure to ensure that the Roadmap has continuity and that participation in the Roundtable doesn’t decline over time. Many participants in the later Working Groups also said that they want to play a strong role in the Roundtable process before their Working Group convenes, but expressed concern that the Working Group schedule would inhibit their input.

Direction and the Role of Leaders - Many participants indicated that they need clear direction in order to move forward with the Working Group process. They suggested that Working Group leaders provide explicit next steps while eliciting participant feedback instead of depending on the group to collectively establish a process. Although participants stressed the importance of working collaboratively, they want Working Group leaders to play a more proactive leadership role.

Roundtable Participant Bios – Participants said that they would like to tap the expertise and knowledge of others participating in the Roundtable. As the Roundtable is currently structured, participants can mostly only utilize the knowledge of those in their own Working Groups. Many indicated that they didn’t know the backgrounds of participants in other Working Groups and several suggested that we should make participant bios available. Bios should indicate explicitly how participants’ experiences relate to the Roundtable and how one could best utilize that experience to complete their Working Group’s respective Roadmap outline.

Case Studies and Resources – Many participants emphasized the importance of culling together noted resources on green collar jobs, workforce development and New York City’s emerging green economy. They stressed the need to make electronic information readily available to the Roundtable as soon as possible.

Next Steps

Green Collar Jobs Roundtable Blog

Urban Agenda has set-up a Roundtable Blog to implement these recommendations and address these challenges. The Blog can be accessed at: http://www.greenjobsroundtable.blogspot.com/. Every Working Group has their own Blog, each of which can be accessed on the Blog Homepage. Working Group Blogs will be used to post documents, communicate and share resources. Additionally, the respective notes from the September 18th meeting will be posted on each Working Group’s Blog. Everyone will be provided with access and account information to their Working Group’s Blog shortly. You will receive digested e-mail notifications of postings so as to ensure that you stay engaged with your Working Group. In addition to using the Blog, leaders are encouraged to set-up conference calls or convene in-person meetings.

Through the Blog, participants will be able to monitor the progress of Working Groups other than their own. Although you’ll only initially be given access to post and edit your own Working Group’s Blog, if you’d like to contribute to another group’s Blog, simply ask the leader for posting access – no one will be denied.

In order to ensure that all participants are aware of the progress made by Working Groups that convene before and after their own, Working Group leaders will be asked to post summaries of the Working Group Leader meetings that will take place in between each round of the sequential Roundtable process. Additionally, each Working Group outline will be made available on the Roundtable Blog homepage.

We’ve also put together a resource section of the Blog with links to reports and documents pertaining to the Roundtable. The resource page can be accessed at, http://greenjobsroundtableresources.blogspot.com/, and it is the first link on the Homepage sidebar. This page is still a work in progress, but we anticipate many more resources will be available in the coming weeks. We will also follow your suggestions and put together a comprehensive document listing Roundtable participants’ areas of expertise and contact information to encourage greater information sharing. This document will be posted on the Blog’s resource page.

Coordinated Leadership

The Roundtable is an open collaborative process and Working Group leaders were advised to be flexible facilitators. But many participants indicated that concrete directions and proactive leadership would improve the process. Accordingly, Urban Agenda will work with Working Group leaders to identify specific tasks and directions to ensure that all participants have a greater sense of how they can contribute to the Roundtable. Participants will be encouraged to weigh-in on any tasks and directions and this will in no way make the Roundtable any less collaborative. The idea is to ensure that our efforts are focused and coordinated.

We have begun to establish more coordinated leadership with the Current Landscape Working Group whose leaders put together a template with tasks and questions for participants to move forward. If the template approach works, we may duplicate it with other Working Groups.

September 18 Roundtable Follow-up

FOLLOW-UP - Green Collar Jobs Roundtable 09

Recommendations and Challenges

Green Collar Jobs Roundtable Blog