In the Works…
This morning, I just dropped my daughter off at the bus for day one of first grade. In her young and honest demeanor is a wonderful combination of excitement and nerves. She knows that diving headfirst into a new thing and being brave, can yield great rewards. I’m inspired by that nervous optimism this morning as I reflect on all the impactful long-term initiatives Invest Hamilton County currently has in development. Fortunately for me, when Invest HC recognizes the need for action, I don’t have to jump onto a new bus… we instead get to lean into my love languages… data, storytelling and research. Here are a few updates on resources, convening, and planning efforts we currently have in progress:
Community Career Ladder
Finding a job is a lot simpler than finding a career… and when interacting with successful individuals throughout our community they very rarely have a linear pathway to where they ended up today. What they do have are a solid set of foundational hard and soft skills that they find joy in and empower their journey.
As we move forward with empowering career exploration for our population programs like reentry, mental health recovery, disability employment or K-12 students it is important that individuals understand both the destination and the starting line for a meaningful career. How can the “job” you get first be part of a bigger “career” journey?
The same could be said as we work with high-demand industry sectors like child care, behavioral health, health care, hospitality, life sciences and business services. These industries have massive demand on the front of their career pathways, but very often those workers aren’t retained within the industry or within our community, because they don’t know where their skills or title can lead them next.
To that end, Invest Hamilton County, in partnership with our city and county leaders, is building a “Community Career Ladder.” We will be taking 50 occupations identified from our Talent InSight 2030 labor market forecast and breaking them up into “entry” and “destination” categories. The “entry” positions will then be mapped three steps up, showing the most frequent and most skills-aligned job transitions… into a total of 27 aligned occupational transitions per original position. “Destination” positions will be mapped three steps down in the same methodology. Through this we’ll show people “where you can go,” and “how you get there”… this will live as a live dashboard on our site and be publicly available.
Talent Pipeline Management
I’ve had the privilege this summer, alongside leaders from the Hamilton County Community Foundation and Ivy Tech Hamilton County, of being selected for a Talent Pipeline Management learning experience through the IN Chamber and U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Through this process we’ve been able to identify new, innovative and evidence-based methodologies for doing sector specific work. We’re in the middle of the experience right now… and are very excited to bring the results back to the County and drive some impactful sector-specific work starting in 2026.
InvestAbility Strategic Plan
As we look to close out the first stage in our InvestAbility program, Invest Hamilton County has hired HIRONS to help design a program plan for years 3 and 4. We’ll be engaging with community stakeholders, business leaders, schools, and civic partners to design the next stages of this impactful program, and continue to drive inclusive work-based-learning opportunities throughout Hamilton County. If you have feedback on the program or would like to engage, please reach out. Thank you to Duke Energy for helping to make this possible.