Business Resources
Cultivating Talent Through Partnerships
We’ve cultivated a rich community dedicated to talent development across education and industry sectors that promotes industry awareness, high-value jobs and career progression through educational pathways.
High-Five Industry Councils
From the manufacturing floor to corporate offices, we know that each employee contributes to your company’s success. That’s why we’re focused on preparing our local workforce to fill these high-value, high-growth positions through collaborative industry councils. Councils meet to develop talent pipeline strategies and create sustainable workforce solutions through partnerships and programming.
Our current industry councils include advanced manufacturing, construction, health care, technology and supply chain.
Want to get involved in our council work?
Advanced Manufacturing
Industry Snapshot
Construction
Industry Snapshot
Health Care
Industry Snapshot
Information Technology
Industry Snapshot
Supply Chain
Industry Snapshot
Want to know how the councils were selected? Check out our Pathways to Prosperity Asset Mapping Report. This data helps guide our decision making.
Business Solutions for Cultivating Talent
With a population of over 344,000 people, including approximately 30,000 higher education students and 56,000 K-12 learners, we’ve created a tiered talent development system that fosters employer engagement opportunities at every level. The resources below were created to build talent pipelines, fill open positions, and upskill existing talent to strengthen and sustain the workforce.
Starting early as elementary school, we’ve offered opportunities for business introductions through classroom projects and student competitions.
As students advance through middle and high school, we provide educator experiences, student career fairs, job-shadowing opportunities, work-based learning programs, and more.
Why? Because students, which are your future workforce, can’t plan to be logistics managers, quality-control technicians, civil engineers or anything else if they’ve never heard of it.
Current K-12 Programs
Career Pathways Partnership
Connect with students and educators to build job awareness, introduce skills requirements and hire students as they graduate from high school and college.
Career Pathway Fair
Introduce your industry to 8th graders during a half-day experience highlighting local career opportunities, career planning and career progression.
Work Ethic Distinction
Directly access graduating high school seniors and verify their soft skills mastery before scheduling a job interview.
College and Career Planning Night
This event is aimed at high school juniors and seniors planning their next steps after graduation. However, students of all grade levels can attend to learn about opportunities for higher education, military, trade school and employment.
Educator Externship
Create a job-aware workforce by engaging teachers in a two-week immersive job shadowing experience that translates to student understanding of soft skills, technical skills and workplace etiquette.
Tours, Job Shadowing and Field Trips
Create lasting impressions with students and educators by providing an in-building experience showcasing your facility, careers with real-world skills.
Ready to Dig In?
Register to participate in our K -12 workforce development programs.
Cultivating Adult Talent
As we all know, cultivating talent has to continue past high school. Just as you provide water for plants to grow, you have to invest in people so they advance, and business remains profitable. We work with higher education partners, training institutions and industry professionals to create opportunities for businesses to access, upskill and reskill talent.
Current Hiring, Upskilling and Retention Programs
Rutherford Works Industry Councils
Local business leaders and supervisors from high-demand industries collaborating on solutions that address local workforce challenges and opportunities.
ACT Work Ready Communities (WRC)
Employers can measure skills, train employees and match skills to jobs for recruiting and advancement via proctored tests that measure workplace skills and work readiness across industries and occupations leading to a National Career Readiness Certificate® (NCRC).
Frontline Leadership Training
A supervisor training program that focuses on coaching skills to improve retention and upskilling your current workforce.
Rutherford Works Hiring Expo
The largest one-day hiring event in Rutherford County, Tennessee. Employers can even interview and hire on-site. Higher education partners also advertise adult degree programs and certifications to assist attendees with degree attainment.
Specialized Training with Higher Education Partners
Training courses in a wide variety of industrial, high-tech, office, and health-care jobs to create career progression opportunities for current or future employees.
Who's Hiring Wednesday
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Want more information about our hiring, upskilling and retention programs?
Access Additional Employment Resources
We nurture relationships with local organizations to help businesses attract, recruit, train, prepare, upskill and reskill talent. Check out our Workforce Services Directory to start building your network of talent pipeline development partners.
