Project Spotlight

The Next Level Now (NLN) Collaborative serves as the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) Employment and Training Administration (ETA) hub for delivering strategic, short-and long-term compliance and performance assistance to America’s public workforce system and its partners. NLN works closely with national and regional ETA leadership to help regional, state, and local workforce boards, agencies and partners improve service delivery, quality, and outcomes for job seekers and employers. In addition to developing and disseminating field-requested training tools and resources, maintaining the WorkforceGPS (WFGPS) Next Level Now Collaborative Community, the NLN Collaborative facilitates peer learning opportunities and information sharing, ensuring subject matter experts are available to workforce practitioners to increase efficacy, performance, and compliance related to the Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act (WIOA).

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Overview

State and local recipients who are receiving federal grant dollars under the WIOA are under pressure to comply with statutory requirements, improve services, and make data-driven decisions. However, knowing where to start can be overwhelming. Safal Partners utilizes in-depth needs assessments to build a clear, field-informed understanding of what’s working, what’s not, and what’s needed to improve compliance and performance.

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Our approach, leveraging extensive workforce system expertise, hands-on support, and evidence-based, tailored training, empowers teams to close gaps, streamline processes, and implement solutions that drive lasting impact.

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The Challenge

The DOL ETA faced a critical need to strengthen WIOA compliance and performance across a vast and complex national workforce system. With grantees operating at different levels of capacity and facing varied local challenges, ETA required a partner who could deliver tailored, data-informed support at scale. DOL ETA engaged Safal to:

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Provide targeted, results-driven training and support to workforce system agencies and partners based regional, state and local needs for compliance and performance requests, needs assessments, and monitoring conducted.
Triage urgent WIOA-related topics needed from a state, local, and federal perspective to prioritize order and identify the best delivery method for compliance and performance-related training.
Create and manage a tracking system for all compliance and performance-related training and resource assistance efforts.
Maintain consistent and transparent communication across a complex network of DOL ETA National Office staff, Regional Administrators, State Workforce Board/Agency Directors, and local WIOA Workforce Development Boards and their America Job Center partners to ensure consistent service delivery, eliminate duplicative support, and ensure outcomes-focused work.

The Solution

Safal ensured strategic and innovative compliance training delivery and targeted outreach to the workforce system. We also measured and monitored effectiveness and change management impacts. Our team completed these efforts through:

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Design and delivery of flexible assistance for compliance resource delivery through virtual, hybrid, and in-person methods sessions, including hands-on workshops and office hours at national conferences.
Building a central hub for learning as a nationwide Community of Practice (CoP) on WFGPS to give workforce leaders seamless access to events, training materials, and best practices.
Leveraged proven methods to track success including the Kirkpatrick and DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control) to assess the effectiveness of compliance assistance and demonstrate, as well as applying feedback and evaluation findings to inform future compliance and performance sessions.