News Release

IOA Researchers Develop Jobs To Careers "How To" Briefs

April 4 , 2011

The Institute on Aging Jobs to Careers: Transforming the Front Lines of Health Care Evaluation Team has created two new practical, evidence-based briefs to help employers and educational institutions (e.g. community colleges) better understand how to design and implement programs to advance low wage frontline health and health care workers (FLWs). The Jobs to Careers evaluation project is housed at the UNC Institute on Aging, conducted in partnership with the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research, and led by Co-Principal Investigators Jennifer Craft Morgan, PhD and Thomas R. Konrad, PhD.

The first evaluation brief, "Preliminary Results for Health Care Employers," provides a menu of strategies, options, and lessons learned that health care employers should consider when planning and implementing career advancement programs for their entry-level employees. Additionally, the brief summarizes the business case for investing in their entry-level workforce through the eyes of Jobs to Careers employers. The cases illustrate that the model has value for employers and employees, and has the potential to improve a health care employer's bottom line.

The second evaluation brief, "Preliminary Results for Educational Institutions," defines the fundamental components of work-based learning (a strategy used by the Jobs to Careers grantees to enable employees to learn through work), identifies key issues that educational institutions should consider when offering programs to employee learners, and explains the benefits of incorporating work-based learning into existing educational and training strategies. In short, the brief describes the policies and practices that educational institutions should incorporate to make employee learner programs successful in their organizations.

"We've learned so much from the seventeen partnerships engaged in creating career advancement for frontline workers across the country," says Jennifer Craft Morgan, Jobs to Careers National Evaluation Team Lead Principal Investigator. "We hope that sharing these lessons with health care employers and their educational partners will help health care organizations meet their skills needs and employee learners meet their potential."

Jobs to Careers: Transforming the Front Lines of Health Care seeks to establish systems that train, develop, reward, and advance current frontline health and health care workers to improve the quality of care and ensure the quality of services provided to patients and communities. The initiative is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in collaboration with the Hitachi Foundation and the U.S. Department of Labor.

More information on the Jobs To Careers Project
More information on the Jobs To Careers Evaluation