AXIOM Insights Podcast – Grant Funding for Workforce Development Training

Scott Rutherford
Hello and welcome to the AXIOM Insights Learning and Development podcast. I’m Scott Rutherford. In this series, we focus on best practices for driving performance through learning. And today we’re talking about Workforce Development grant funding to support the skills development of your workforce, more specifically, how to pursue and win government funding to support that training. And so I’m really happy to be joined by a guest who’s an expert on this topic. Krista Van Ranst is the founder of BuildingPPL. Krista, glad to have you with us.

Krysta Van Ranst
Thank you for having me, Scott.

Scott Rutherford
So, Krista, let me start by asking you explain BuildingPPL to me. What is your organization? How did you get started in this field and what do you do?

Krysta Van Ranst
Yeah, so we are a learning and development organization focused mostly around the construction industry. However, we have helped many industries, all industries, around getting the training grants. So we are, like I said, building people. We focus on building people specifically for building people.

Scott Rutherford
Right. And so you say your start was in the construction industry, but for the audience of this podcast, we’re talking about all industries really, across – I mean, we have people listening from outside the US as well. But this is more of a U.S. focused conversation. But from what I understand, some variants of workforce development grants are available for a variety of industries. And really in almost, or correct me if it isn’t, all 50 states?

Krysta Van Ranst
That is correct. So in the US, every single state has some form of what I would consider proactive unemployment. And that would, that would constitute these training grants for those that are international. I’m not as well versed there, however, I do know that there are some in some of the other countries as well. So looking up some sort of workforce incumbent training grant for those of you outside the US, cause we’ll be speaking plenty about it in here would be a great Google opportunity.

Scott Rutherford
Absolutely. But you, so you mentioned unemployment benefits, and this is something it took me a little bit to understand, I think. But how are workforce development grants, from the state’s perspective, related to unemployment benefits and unemployment funding? How does that work?

Krysta Van Ranst
I don’t want to, I want to start us off by being like, I promise this isn’t going to be boring, because we’re talking about unemployment, we’re talking about grants. Let’s just hope that this is going to be more exciting than it sounds. Right?

So all of us pay into unemployment in some way, shape or form. As long as you are a for profit business, if you are paying into payroll, you are paying unemployment. And the government has said, let’s, you know, I’ll separate those two. Right? So there’s reactive unemployment. And what I’m considering, proactive unemployment. Reactive unemployment. The reason unemployment exists as a whole is that if someone is laid off, the government is saying, we want the economy around that person to continue to exist, versus having some sort of waterfall effect of bills not being paid and other folks getting in trouble because of this one individual. So we are going to pay them something into unemployment.

That is what I consider reactive unemployment. However, the government also said, you know what? If we have a small, take a small portion of those dollars that go into unemployment and we put them over here to give back to companies, a couple of things could happen. And this money over in this bucket is specifically focused on training grants. And so they say if we give these companies some of the funds and they can train their people, one of three things will happen. One, that those employees will be trained and they will still be laid off. That is the least exciting option. Right. However, ideally, they will have gained some additional skills from those trainings so that they will be able to be hired somewhere else more quickly in the future than they were in the past. Number two, the training. The company gets funded the training grant. They train some of their people and they don’t have any layoffs. That’s great. And number three, the most advantageous would be that the company gets awarded the training funds. They train their people, the company becomes more productive, more efficient, hiring more people, thus reducing unemployment.

Scott Rutherford
Right. And of course, most companies have, have on their agenda skills development of their workforce. They want their people to develop new skills and to, like you say, become more competitive, become more productive as an organization.

Krysta Van Ranst
Exactly.

Scott Rutherford
And I know there’s nuance here. There’s levels of nuance. I’m going to try not to get lost in them. But one of the nuances is sort of the best fit. And when we’ve been chatting before coming on the podcast, my understanding is there’s kind of a sweet spot in terms of the company profile that this makes sense for. And that if you’re, you know, if you’re already, and I’m going to use an extreme example, if you’re already staring down the barrel of, you know, having to, having to do layoffs or other negative outcomes, this might not be the right Life ring for you. But if you’re, if you’re profitable and looking to grow, this might be a better fit. Is that more or less a characterization?

Krysta Van Ranst
I do think that’s a good characterization. The one thing I’ll say is that many of the states, not all of them, but many of them will say, if, you know, I would say this layoff has to be six months plus down the line because there is an aspect that it’s going to take a bit of time to write the grant, get awarded the grant, and then actually provide training. And so if you are saying, oh, you know what, we’re thinking about getting rid of our customer service department, or we’re transitioning our customer service department into Something different, we need those folks to have different responsibilities than they do now. Oftentimes companies say, well, we are left with two options. We can try and upskill the folks that we currently have in that department, or we can lay them all off and hire brand new folks and what the training grant would recommend. Their approach would be like, let’s see how we can utilize the folks that are currently there and provide them with additional skills.

However, you’ve got to think all of that through. And from a training grant perspective, you have to know enough in advance, like I said, six months in advance, four months minimum, probably, that you want to do this. And if you say to the state, hey, you know, we need to do this training so that we don’t have to lay people off, because that is the truth, what you’re saying there, that would be looked upon more advantageously from an approval perspective.

Scott Rutherford
Right. So understanding how this works then, these are grant funds. You have to, well, talk me through, I guess, the length of time and the timeline that would typically take from start to finish. You mentioned about a six month timeframe. I imagine that varies greatly, state by state or program by program. But so there’s a, there’s kind of a chicken and egg question. What comes first, the training program or the grant application or the grant award?

How does that all fit together and where do you begin?

Krysta Van Ranst
Yeah, so many great questions.

So I think from a timing perspective, it is different across every state. So every state has the control to be able to manage those unemployment dollars themselves. And every state does it a little bit differently.

Some. The state of Rhode island has this really, really easy grant, and so you can apply for it probably in 15 to 30 minutes for a course for one individual or for ten individuals or whatever number in between. And you will find out sometimes within like 48 hours, but often within a week or two, whether you’ve been awarded those funds.

New Hampshire, similar. A little bit longer, right? It’s going to take you a little longer to apply for the application. It’s going, I would say you’re going to spend at least a minimum of 4 hours just drafting up the information and could take 30 to 60 days to hear back off. But they have been pretty good. Whereas Massachusetts, I would say it’s going to take you at least a month with a lot of different data points that you’re going to need to integrate in there. And then it, once again, could take you up to 60 days. In terms of the chicken or the egg question, I think some of the biggest things that our clients, our clients often come to us and are like, hey, we heard you could get us free training money. When we say that might be the case, but we want to understand what are your business objectives? Why do you want these training funds? And so I would say from a chicken or an egg perspective, it’s understanding what the needs of the business are first. So saying, okay, like I used that example before, we are transitioning our customer service provider employees into a new role. And so this is a drastic rehaul of this department. Or you could say that we are, you know, we have a really high turnover rate and we want to reduce that turnover rate. And, or you could say something along the lines of, like, we’re rolling out a brand new technology, and if our people can’t get on board, they’re going to, you know, we won’t be able to keep them. So you could go a million different directions. Right. We want to grow and we want to promote from within all of those, but we, there needs to be some sort of metric, some way, ideally, that you are hoping to measure whether the training was successful or not.

Scott Rutherford
So you put together the objective, you put together the program. I’m sorry, go ahead.

Krysta Van Ranst
Nope, nope. Okay. So usually from there, then you can think about what training needs may allow.

Scott Rutherford
So do you have to start then, the actual delivery of that program? Or is it a matter of, you do the planning, you assess the need, you sort of prescribe your solution. And do you have to be in delivery mode of that program before you apply for the grant reimbursement or can the grant actually fund the initial delivery?

Krysta Van Ranst
Yeah, so you do as a, I’m trying to think if it’s every state, most states may not be all of them, and I honestly cannot. I don’t have a Rolodex in my brain for all 50, unfortunately.

But most states, you have to know what the training that you want is and the vendors that you want to train your folks. So you need to know the vendor, the cost that that vendor is going to charge, the number of hours, and the course description that they are going to, of the program that you would be offering to those folks based on those business goals. There are a couple of states like California, you don’t have to know as much going into the grant.

Scott Rutherford
Yeah, I was, I was going to ask because, you know, as we’re, as we’re talking into, you know, AXIOM as an organization, I know we’ve collaborated before in Massachusetts in our case is where headquarters are. But I was wondering if we could talk through sort of some of the, maybe even the larger states. You mentioned California. I know we do have folks listening in California.

You mentioned, like, Rhode island and New Hampshire as being a quick state. What’s it look like in, say, a California or a Texas?

Krysta Van Ranst
Yeah, great question.

So there are, the California grant is one of the largest as well as Texas. You ask the right questions. So California, you can get up to $500,000 for, technically you have two years to utilize the funds, but it’s around 21 months, give or take the three months that you might want, need to do to close out the grant at the end. So you have up to $500,000 for training that folks could use in California. And the same goes for Texas is also $500,000.

New York City is $400,000 as like the third largest. And then Massachusetts, I would say, is fourth largest with a maximum of $200,000. And I’m trying to look quickly here to see if there’s any others that are above that $200,000. There’s quite a few that are at the like, hundred thousand mark. I think the next largest would be Colorado. That’s around $150 [thousand].

Scott Rutherford
And these are annual amounts, though these are not total. Or are they?

Krysta Van Ranst
Texas is annual. Massachusetts is for two years, California is for two years. New York City is annual, and Colorado is annual as well.

Scott Rutherford
I think so a lot of complexity, a lot of variation, location by location. I guess localization in New York City is the example versus state by state. But I guess what I’m getting out of this is that this can be an ingredient in an organization’s sort of ongoing workforce skills development menu if it’s used strategically. Right. Because you could say, well, out of all of the learning that we’re delivering, perhaps there’s a subset of what we want to accomplish as an organization that’s eligible for workforce development grant reimbursement. And then that essentially as a strategy, could lower your cost year over year, depending on, of course, the program in the state.

Or am I painting too easy a picture?

Krysta Van Ranst
I think you’re painting the right picture. What I’ll say is, and you probably know this, too, in talking with a lot of learning and development directors or chief people officers, oftentimes learning and development is seen by the business as a cost. Right. And so it’s a spend, and when times are good, people are more willing to spend it. When times aren’t so great, they’re not as willing to spend it. But either way, it is seen as a cost, whereas our goal at building people is to try and make learning and development seen as a cost savings. Yes, there is going to be a cost associated to it, but it is going to save you money, whereas it’s not going to be as much of a cost. And one of the great things about this training grant for a lot of folks that are in those roles and are trying to get more training in front of their people to help grow them is, oh my goodness, there is a bucket of money that I may have the potential to utilize. I might take me, I might be a little bit more work, but that would allow my company to actually be able to train on some of these initiatives that we were really hoping for. So it’s not going to take the place of sexual harassment and some of the required programs that you as an organization have to complete, but it is an opportunity to build out new initiatives or bigger initiatives that you maybe wouldn’t have done before based on cost.

Scott Rutherford
Right? Yeah. And expanding your people skills. I know that you have roots in construction, as you mentioned. So something like Bluebeam, I would imagine software training would be probably within scope. I know we’ve also talked about individual professional certification programs that sort of learning can be within scope.

Krysta Van Ranst
For sure. Yeah, it’s. I mean, once again, there are some states, Connecticut has certain industries that they like have as high priorities as does Florida. California does have them as well, that they allow more from a funding perspective. There are some states that focus a little bit more on certain topics from a training perspective, but the majority of them are open. The majority of them are open to a plethora of topics that you would find most companies could find valuable. So anything from technology, technical type skills, soft skills, management skills, most of the states are going to have some capacity for that.

Scott Rutherford
So I wanted to ask you, because whenever I mention the word grant, I think that folks get skilled, scared of the word grant because you think of grant writing and you think of an immense time investment to get maybe somewhere.

It can be a really difficult economy depending on the business and the type of grant. So I think I wanted to ask you just for words of advice for a company that is listening to this and saying, well, maybe this is a fit, but I’m a little afraid of what this is going to require of me to get started. What’s been your experience with people sort of taking this on for the first time?

Krysta Van Ranst
Yeah, I think it can come. My words of advice are that, like the way that you eat an elephant, right? The saying that it’s just one bite at a time. So when you first look at those grant applications, they may look daunting. However, if you can just focus on one question at a time and seeing how you might be able to answer them, you will find that you are able to get a lot more accomplished.

I think it is something that the term grant, so I often joke my husband’s name is Grant, so the term grant for me has a very positive connotation, whereas many other folks, I hear you have a different feeling or emotion when they hear the term grant with these grants. I’ve talked with plenty of other grant writers that help with grants in all types of categories and industries. The workforce training fund grants are very different in the sense that the states want organizations to be able to access these funds, so they want you to succeed. They want to be able to give you these funds. There are other grants that are out there that there’s only, you know, there’s such limited funding that they could have 100 applications and ten are going to get it right.

Grant writers will tell you that often if you have a 20% chance of getting funding, then they go for it, but others won’t do it. If there’s less than that 20% chance, the chances of training grants getting awarded, the training grants are much, much higher as long as you do the work and put in the information that they’re asking of you.

Scott Rutherford
It’s a really interesting point, thinking about the incentive for the grant program. You alluded to this early on in the conversation, why would state Department of Labor or whoever’s administering the unemployment fund, that bucket of money, why would they be doing this? And of course, there’s a financial incentive. I’m assuming that folks who know a lot more about government funding than I do have done the math and have found that putting the money into skills development upfront probably saves them over trying to do remedial or to solve a bigger problem down the line. It does sort of make sense.

Krysta Van Ranst
Yeah. The other thing I’ll say, and it’s not here in Massachusetts, but it’s in plenty of the other states that. There are plenty of states where you have to use community colleges to help with the training, and they can customize the programs and such. But once again, if you want to think about it as to like, why do these exist and where is the money going? I’d love it here in Massachusetts that it is not required to go to community colleges, whereas in Texas at least 50% of the funds have to go to a community college. Minnesota, I think all of it has to go there because then that helps keep those community colleges alive, right? If the states are paying a portion of those community colleges to keep them going, then we’re able to kind of recycle, so to speak, some of the funds from other places to be able to put there. So once again, it has good or bad. I’m not saying I don’t have an opinion there, but that is one of the other concepts as to how some of these grants work.

Scott Rutherford
Yeah, and I know you and your team are available to help folks navigate the specific grant structure and any opportunities that they might be able to take advantage in their particular state or location. So Krista, thanks for coming on the podcast. I’ll put a link on the episode page at axiomlearningsolutions.com/podcast if anyone wants to connect with building people about workforce Development grant support for your company’s training programs. Krista, great to talk to you. Thanks for coming on the podcast.

This has been the AXIOM Insights Learning and Development podcast. This podcast is a production of AXIOM Learning solutions. AXIOM is a learning and development services firm with a network of learning professionals in the U.S. and worldwide supporting L&D teams with learning staff, augmentation and project support for instructional design, content management, content creation and more, including training, delivery and facilitation both in person and virtually. To learn more about how AXIOM can help you and your team achieve your learning goals, visit axiomlearningsolutions.com. and thanks again for listening to the AXIOM Insights podcast.