As the Tri-County Workforce Investment Board's new executive director, Mary Salony, has some ideas for where to go in the future.

“I'm looking to take the board and the agency into more collaboration with partners in the community and be more involved in the community with workforce development,” Salony said.

Salony, who moved to the executive director position from her prior role as assistant director, said the workforce investment board already collaborates and is involved: She just wants to expand it.

Already, Salony said, the board works with a number of employers and provides training funds for which all companies are eligible.

“In addition to that, we try to partner with a lot of social service agencies because the objective that we're all trying to do is to get people working,” she said.

In the future, Salony said she hopes to partner with more community partners, such as housing agencies and labor unions.

“Some of that is still developing, but that's where I want to lead the agency to,” she said.

Salony said her role is different now than it would have been pre-COVID-19.

“Sometimes you can just get (job seekers) a job very quickly because we're lucky with the economy right now,” she said. “Sometimes, they need re-trained, and there's funding with our partner agencies for that.”

From the employee side, it's a positive: It may be easier to find a job in the current climate. But from the employer side, it's tougher.

“The employers, they need employees. It's that simple,” Salony said. “I'm sure you've seen that there's places that close early and stuff now because of the lack of employees.”

While the raw number of people looking for work or working hasn't changed tremendously, Salony said at least part of the issue stems from people seeking work away from where they've had jobs in the past.

“We have some people switching careers now because of COVID,” she said. “Maybe they don't want to work in retail now like they did before. Health care is a double-edged sword because there's always people that want to go into health care, but the burnout level is very high, unfortunately.”

It's a short-term issue, Salony said, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be addressed.

“There's no easy answers, or we would have used them already,” she said. “Having said that, that doesn't mean there aren't things we can do.”

Once the COVID-19 employment climate has ended, Salony said, she hopes to look at how to expand the workforce investment board in a more typical employment world.

This includes working with schools on the “future of the workforce,” primarily through providing exposure to students of what different careers look like. It's something schools already do, and something in which the board is already involved, and Salony said she hopes to expand it.

“Future of the workplace” programs can help “to provide those career awareness opportunities so people can make good decisions,” she said.

Weifenbaugh to assist

With Salony's promotion to executive director, Paul Weifenbaugh will replace her as assistant director.

Weifenbaugh was most recently with CareerTRACK from January 2018 through his signing on to the development board, but for 13 years before that he had already worked with the board.

Much of his work will be with helping businesses find employees, helping employees find skills to earn sustainable wages and with consortia, such as the three counties' health care and manufacturing consortia.

Consortia “help those companies in those areas to do training for them, for their employees, and also they talk about problems they might be having across the spectrum within that industry,” he said.

One example he gave of consortia working is the Butler County Health Care Consortium's Jan. 27 recognition event for outstanding health care employees in the county, an annual event.

While Weifenbaugh's new role includes many responsibilities, he said his prior experience with the board will help him with being an assistant director.

“Workforce innovation and opportunity is still the bulk of what we do, so having a background of that is an advantage as I move in to this role,” he said.