Kirkwood to survey businesses before building regional centers

Regional Education Workforce Survey will help guide the creation of the new Kirkwood centers in Johnson, Linn and Washington counties

It is very important that Washington County area businesses take a few minutes to complete this survey about their companies training needs. We only get one chance to build the right kind of facility for our needs.  Please fill out Kirkwood's survey at www.kirkwood.edu/workforcesurvey.  This is an exciting, unique opportunity to have an impact.

Businesses with questions about the survey can contact Kirkwood Washington Center director, Ms. Tera Pickens or Washington Economic Development Group director, Ed Raber.

Kirkwood Community College hopes to begin the construction process for at least one of its new regional education centers in early 2012, and is asking for input from businesses to do so. These centers will be in Johnson, Linn and Washington counties.

The regional centers are being built with the goal of preparing secondary and post-secondary students to meet the workforce needs of the local communities. In September, residents in Kirkwood's seven-county service area overwhelmingly passed a bond issue to build these centers.

Local employers are being asked to complete a short survey, provided by the college, to identify needs they may have. This data will be aggregated and analyzed in combination with a survey that was provided to the K-12 school districts related to course and career academy programming needs.

"Knowing what we do from finishing our fourth workforce Skills study, we now need to lean on businesses again with this survey, to make sure we are helping them grow in the best way possible," said Vice President of Continuing Education and Training Services Kim Johnson, in a press release. "This survey focuses on the region's employers' training needs related to their incumbent workforce as well as training that would assist job applicants to be more competitive."

Additionally, the survey focuses on the types of technology employers desire students and workers to have access to, in order to be more competitive, productive and successful.

Kirkwood is sending an employer training survey to businesses in Johnson, Linn and Washington counties to gather information that will assist the college in making programming and technology lab decisions in the regional education centers in these three counties. Depending on the size and complexity of the organization filling out the survey, it will take approximately 15-20 minutes to complete.

Companies can watch for a paper copy of the survey to arrive at their organizations, or can fill out the survey at

www.kirkwood.edu/workforcesurvey. Kirkwood is asking for companies to complete the survey online or send in the hard copy by Jan. 6.