Kerry McKittrick: Transforming State Workforce Systems

Kerry McKittrick, Co-Director of The Harvard Project on Workforce, shares research conducted in partnership with the National Governors Association on how governors are reshaping workforce development to address labor force challenges. She identifies key trends including agency mergers, stakeholder engagement, dual-customer approaches, innovative funding, and investments in wraparound supports for underrepresented populations. McKittrick highlights how states focus on industry partnerships in emerging sectors and emphasizes the importance of data-informed regional strategies. She explains how successful pilot programs using governor's reserve funds can lead to permanent state policies, offering practical guidance for practitioners to adapt research insights to local contexts.

Julian Alssid:  Welcome to Work Forces. I'm Julian Alssid.

Kaitlin LeMoine: And I'm Kaitlin LeMoine, and we speak with the innovators who shape the future of work and learning. 

Julian Alssid: Together, we unpack the complex elements of workforce and career preparation and offer practical solutions that can be scaled and sustained.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Work Forces is supported by Lumina Foundation. Lumina is an independent, private foundation in Indianapolis that is committed to making opportunities for learning beyond high school available to all. Let's dive in.  You know Julian, when we talk about and use the term workforce development, it can sound like we're talking about one system, but really it's an interconnected web, like set of systems. It's not just one thing. 

Julian Alssid: A web is a good way to put it. You've got education and training programs, employer needs, government policies, economic data, new technologies and people seeking to advance their careers. So all these different pieces, and they're all influencing each other, you can't really address one without thinking about the others.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Yeah, exactly. It requires so much collaboration. Educators need to talk to employers. Policy makers need to listen to communities. And it's not just a top down function either. It's you need to you need input from the people going through the trainings and the workers trying to navigate their careers as well.

Julian Alssid: Which is why I'm excited that we're talking with Kerry McKittrick today from the Harvard Project on Workforce. Kerry is helping to make sense of the work happening across these interconnected systems.

Kaitlin LeMoine: The Harvard Project on Workforce is an interdisciplinary applied research project between the Harvard Kennedy School, the Harvard Business School and the Harvard Graduate School of Education that examines workforce development and the future of work from these various vantage points. In Kerry's role as co-director, she leads the project's policy, research, and partnership strategy, and spearheads initiatives focused on building better pathways to economic mobility. She has co-authored multiple papers focused on education, training and career navigation, and she speaks regularly about issues at the intersection of education and work.

Julian Alssid: And prior to joining The Project on Workforce, Kerry was a senior manager at Jobs for the Future and served as a senior policy advisor on education workforce, civil rights and child welfare policy for Congressman Jim Langevin. She started her career in politics serving as a campaign manager for Massachusetts State Rep Ken Gordon. Thanks so much for joining us today. Kerry. 

Kerry McKittrick: Thanks for having me. I'm a big fan of the podcast and excited to chat.

Kaitlin LeMoine: We're excited to connect and chat with you today as well, Kerry. Thanks so much for joining us here. So as we jump in today, can you please tell us a bit more about your background and your role at The Project on Workforce?

Kerry McKittrick: Absolutely. So I come from a political policy background, and it was actually through that work, through working with a congressman from Rhode Island, Jim Langevin, who really was interested in career and technical education, that my eyes were kind of opened to the workforce development and career and technical education world. And you know, I found it really interesting, because unlike many policy areas, it's pretty bipartisan. We were able to find some great agreements across Democratic sides and Republican sides and between employers and educators. Everyone sort of agreed that this type of approach was extremely necessary to both fill what was called at the time, you know, the skills gap, but also expand equity and so, you know, I did that work in Washington, got a little bit tired, as you may imagine. My, you know, my, my heart goes out to all the folks still doing this work. It's really amazing in Washington. But wa