NJBIA recently held a joint Education & Workforce Development/Employment & Labor Policy Committee meeting with the following guest speakers:
- Scott Altieri – Director of Labor, Office of Gov. Mikie Sherrill
- Andrea Hetling – Director, Heldrich Center for Workforce Development
- Althea D. Ford – Vice President of Government Affairs, NJBIA
- Jack Kelly – Policy Analyst, NJBIA
Here are some excerpts from the meeting:
Scott Altieri (on State Workforce Summary findings): “Career advancement and retention are important opportunities for improvement. Approximately 16% of employees are considering leaving their jobs within the next year, and another 23% is uncertain. Advancement opportunities, compensation, and workplace culture were all cited as the most frequent factors in these responses.
“Among employees who interact with residents daily, about 85% say serving residents motivates them, although these employees also report greater challenges with resources and opportunities to influence decisions on what they’re working on.
“The findings reinforce something fundamental: New Jersey doesn’t have a workforce that needs to be convinced of the importance of public service. We have employees that already believe in this mission – our responsibility now is to make sure they have the support and the opportunities to deliver on it.
“The survey identified three particularly important areas for future workforce improvements. These are strengthening career pathways, expanding employee recognition, and improving access to training and professional development. These findings are going to help inform our broader workforce modernization efforts.”
Scott Altieri (on the Sherrill Administration’s current work): “Improving the employee experience and improving the resident experience goes hand-in-hand… the survey is just a starting point, it’s not the end point.
“Our goal is now to use these findings to prioritize improvements that can be made. We’re going to continue listening to employees… We’re going to continue measuring progress over time as we work to make the state government one of the best places to work and one of the best places to receive services in the country.
“Our team has also been hard at work on the rest of the New Jersey workforce. One of the areas we’ve been doing this in is making sure individuals have the tools they need to respond to evolving markets, focusing on companies that have been here with people that have grown with them over time.
“We’re really trying to keep an eye on anything that could impact the workforce and workers in the state. I know there’s legislation out there that the AFL-CIO is leading to protect workers against AI… I know there’s a few bills out there, some on unionizing rideshare workers or autonomous vehicles. All these bills could have the potential to impact the workforce here in New Jersey and that landscape.”
Andrea Hetling (on the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development): “The center has grown over the past 30 years into one of the largest research centers at the Bloustein School focused on translating research to practice and understanding the programs in education, workforce, and social policy that can advance economic mobility.
“We manage the New Jersey statewide data system, which is a centralized longitudinal platform for state administrative data from four different agencies… This means that we are able to link individual-level longitudinal files and look at questions related to the returns to education.
“The work is guided by not decisions at the Heldrich Center, but by a governance body made up of these agencies. The four agencies have representatives that sit on the Executive Leadership Council.
“They set out a research agenda with research questions, and the Heldrich Center researchers produce those reports… Any research that’s done needs to serve the purposes of New Jersey. It needs to have a public benefit and something that hopefully the agencies would use in making decisions for their constituents.”
Althea D. Ford (on priority education bills): “The Assembly considered A-1315, which would allow for a more seamless recognition of transfer credits across two-year and four-year institutions.
“We are strong supporters of legislation to ensure there are ample opportunities for students to continue their education and receive credit for the credits they have earned. We do recognize that there’s a cost component to that and we want to make sure students are not having to unnecessarily repeat courses that they’ve already paid for.”
“At BIA we are one of the members that sits on the Public School Funding Formula Steering Committee. We have a vested interest in ensuring that the system is doing what it needs to do in order to prepare young folks who are entering into post-secondary and the work world.
“One of the big sticking points has been around a local fair share, how that is calculated, and also the 2% tax cap. As those conversations continue, there’s always a rising conversation about the need for local districts to perhaps exceed that cap. At BIA, our position has been that the 2% tax cap is an important stopgap to ensure that taxes are not increasing at a rate that is unsustainable.”
Althea D. Ford (on priority consumer affairs bills): “There are a couple of bills in the consumer affairs and workforce development spaces that we continue to monitor. One is A-3389, which establishes quorum standards for professional licensing entities.
“The goal there is to make sure that the inability for the board to meet quorum is not a bottleneck for the necessary business of some of these boards.”
“The last bill I’ll highlight is A-3390, which requires the division of consumer affairs to create an open data portal and provide certain data sets online. This bill is important to us in the sense that it’s providing a certain level of transparency for certain information that we should have access to.
“We think it pairs very well with the Governor’s ‘Saving You Time and Money’ agenda because, as we’re thinking about workforce shortages, the state should not be one of those challenges.”
Jack Kelly (on priority labor bills): “The AFL-CIO is pushing AI in the workplace bills, trying to crack down on artificial intelligence making employment-related decisions. The definition of AI is currently overly broad, so we’re looking at it through the lens of it possibly capturing routine workplace software like scheduling, payroll, and employee monitoring that’s not invasive.
“Another bill I want to highlight is A-5535… That is a UI unemployment insurance employer contribution reporting requirement, and there are a few of them currently pending in the Legislature.
“Most employers in the state use third-party payroll parties. The issue is that the employer will be penalized for non-compliance, not the payroll party that is submitting those reports, so a little troublesome on that front.”
“S-2782 and A-1511 carve out finance, insurance, and different kinds of brokers from the ABC independent contractor rule. You’re going to see a world where certain industries are considered employees under one statute or considered independent contractors under the next.
“Most employers in New Jersey want to comply with the law across all fronts, but sometimes the law is almost impossible to satisfy. You see that in ABC, you see that on heat stress – you’re penalizing businesses for doing day-to-day operations that their workers have signed up to do.”
To join an NJBIA Policy Committees, click NJBIA’s advocacy page here and scroll down to the middle of the page.