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Taking Recruitment on the Road with the High Wage Highway Program

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In an effort to directly reach people who may have never considered a career in trucking, the High Wage Highway program bring new trucks to county fairs, car shows, and car races. The program, put together by non-profit, Northwest Wisconsin CEP, invites men, women and children to climb into trucks to break down the incorrect stereotypes that are commonly associated with careers in the transportation field, according to Northwest Wisconsin CEP, employer resource consultant, Tasha Hagberg.

“The biggest difference with High Wage Highway is that it allows people to envision themselves in the role of a truck driver by climbing inside of the cabs of the new trucks, and getting to see really how beautiful they are and how livable they are,” Hagberg said. Read more

Family-Owned Business Adjusts Hiring Process to Meet Needs of Changing Workforce

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Ozinga, a fourth-generation, family-owned business that provides concrete, materials, energy and logistics solutions, reinvented their hiring process from the ground up starting in 2014 in order to best serve a rapidly changing workforce.

The company, founded in 1928, launched their Born to Build campaign in the spring of 2015, which quickly spread through social media. The original post of the video has already received roughly 3,600 likes, 280 comments, 1,700 shares and nearly 260,000 views. Those numbers continue to grow. Read more

Mentoring Young People in Michigan: DeAnte Thompkins Shares His Experiences

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DeAnte Thompkins has hired and mentored more than 600 high school students as director of MDOT’s Metro Region Youth Development and Mentoring Program (YDMP), a program he was once in himself. MDOT’s twelve-week program provides summer job training as a foundation for entering transportation-related careers. We recently asked him some questions about his experience with mentorship programs.

What’s a typical work week for the students in the program?

Participants in the program work a standard forty-hour work week. The week is generally broken down into three days of work in the field and two days of mentoring activities. Over the last several years, we have partnered with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources so that the students could help in the beautification efforts of Belle Isle State Park. This provides a very safe work environment for students while still making an impact on a gem of Metro Detroit.

What are some actual student paths after finishing the program?

We have a number of success stories that have come as a result of being exposed to our Youth Development and Mentoring program.  After being exposed to the opportunities in transportation, we have kids go on to major in civil engineering. We have a gentleman that has been with YDMP since roughly 2009 who decided to become an aircraft mechanic because of what he saw during our mentoring event at MDOT’s Aeronautics garage in Lansing. We have other students that went on to get skilled trades certifications because of exposure to that career path. Read more