In early 2024, Wayne County Chamber and Wayne County IDA partnered with UGA’s Carl Vinson Institute of Government to lead our community through The Georgia Workforce Planning Guide, a resource developed through a collaboration between Carl Vinson Institute and Georgia Power’s Education & Workforce Development team to lead communities in developing a local workforce pipeline strategy. We were aware of industry leaders’ need for employees with not only technical skills but also soft skills that can make or break an employee’s career.

But before we reached the actual planning, the first step in the process was to assemble an initial planning team to go through the process of assessing our community’s capacity, readiness and our goals to see if we felt ready to move forward and carry out the program at that time. Our team completed this process in October 2023. After careful analysis of the assessment, we felt confident that we could move forward successfully.

The next step was to identify and recruit a steering committee comprised of representatives from education, business and industry, government and community to carry out the planning process, guided by Carl Vinson staff. With this committee in place, we began the process in January of this year and wrapped up in May. The culmination of our efforts resulted in the creation of our WayneWorks Workforce Development Strategy. I want to thank Rebecca Hunt, Kristen Miller and Bennett Hardee of Carl Vinson Institute for their leadership, patience and professionalism in their guidance. They made it fun, interesting and educational!

Our goal was to develop three focus areas that would serve our community uniquely. The results yielded Focus Area 1 – Adults and Awareness, Focus Area 2 – Youth and Young Adults, and Focus Area 3 – Skills and Career Readiness. It’s important to understand this is an ongoing strategic plan with endless possibilities in the coming years, not a one-shot, one-year project. It will take every person willing to help make it work now and in the future. Please consider becoming involved and encourage other community champions to do so.

We are very excited to launch this strategy! It can be accessed using the link below. Please take time to read it and see what exciting initiatives we are planning.

Candee Harris, Economic Development Coordinator