Employers
Finally, something you can do about your workforce!
Employers across New Mexico are clamoring for workers with High Performance skills like strong quantitative reasoning, learning agility, an intention to excel, attention to detail, persistence, and problem-solving mindsets and strategies -- these are skills that employers value very highly, but don't know how to asses, hire for, or train. This lack of High Performance skills is both an issue for the current workforce, as well as for the future workforce currently in school or college. Excel Together New Mexico is an initiative to address these issues, in unprecedented scale.
Excel Together West Virginia is building a new, highly-qualified pipeline of potential employees through schools, adult education, colleges and workforce development. Moreover, we are currently in planning stages with NM Workforce Solutions to be able to offer free training and upskilling services for your employees.
There are two different ways that a company can participate in Excel Together NM.
You can recognize CSM in your hiring process
This recognition signals to students, to education and training organizations, to job candidates, and to people in the workforce considering upskilling, that your company values High Performance skills. Most people and eduation/training programs focus on academic or job specific skills, and your voice can most effectively be expressed in the ways that you hire.
In return for this recognition, Excel Together New Mexico will direct potential job candidates with High Performance skills to your company -- at no cost to you!
You can use CSM to upskill your workforce
CSM will take most employees 15-60 hours to complete. You can use this upskilling:
- in onboarding
- to prepare frontline workers for supervisory positions -- many potential supervisor candidates have "the right stuff" but not the right skills
- to prepare workers for advanced training - they'll learn more quickly and effectively, and you'll get a better ROI on the training
Excel Together West Virginia partners include:
- WorkForce West Virginia
- The WV Office of Adult Education
- WV Community and Technical College System
- WVU, Concord University, Glenville State University
- WV Manufacturers Association
- WV Hospital Association
- WV Society of Human Resource Management Council
- Chemical Alliance Zone
Excel Together West Virginia is a non-profit initiative.
The High Performance skills of a 21st Century workforce
Excel Together West Virginia builds High Performance skills:
- college-level quantitative reasoning
- informational literacy
- problem-solving mindsets and strategies
- learning agility
- intention to excel, supported by attention to detail and persistence
- deep, earned self-confidence
In survey after survey, these are skills that employers mention that they want, and often lack in their workforce or job candidates.
CSM builds High Performance skills
Excel Together New Mexico uses CSM, a next-generation adaptive learning course. to personalize instruction not only in practical quantitative reasoning and information literacy needed in the workplace, but also in how-you-learn, -act and -feel domains, where it builds the other skills of High Performance.
CSM is flexible enough to be taken both by frontline workers lacking a high school as well as senior managers with college degrees.
Applications and Benefits
General Employee Upskilling
Upgrade performance in addition to skills
High Performance is critical across job titles and levels. Build competencies like learning agility, persistence, and attention to detail to ensure that ensure that everyone performs at the highest level.
Supervisor and Manager Development
Grow your own with career skills
Transitions up from frontline positions are often challenging for both employees and employers. CSM builds the most critical skills for promotions and growth, and can increase your pipeline and make it more diverse.
Workforce Development
Create a broader, more diverse pipeline
Share the CSM Course with your workforce development partners to ensure that new hires have the skills and competencies that you require. The CSM Course can also boost completion rates in sophisticated sector-specific workforce development programs by ensuring foundational skills and learning agility.
Tuition Assistance
Improve access and ROI
CSM improves utilization of tuition assistance programs as employees "test the waters" with an extremely inexpensive course that gains them key college math credit, improves their ability to learn and succeed at college, and builds their confidence to take on the larger college commitment.
Culture Transformation
Build a performance culture
When employees at many levels of a company take CSM together, people can collaborate from a foundation of shared knowledge, and managers have new-found respect for the people that they supervise. There's magic in achieving a shared goal.
Case Study: Health Insurance
A major health insurance company implemented CSM for upskilling across all positions -- frontline to managers. Employee education levels were nearly evenly distributed across high school diplomas, associate degrees, bachelor's degrees and postgraduate degrees.
I found parts of CSM challenging
100%
I found CSM motivating
100%
There are more task I can handle at work
97%
I feel more prepared for further education
93%
I feel more excited about further education
100%
"So what did [CSM] teach me? That I can overcome fear and anxiety, that I'm not a quitter when the going gets tough...I learned about math, but I also learned about my own personality. I learned about logic, but I also learned about my own patience (or lack of at times). It's not about smarts - it's about utilizing our skills and trusting that we can slug our way through a tough spot."
— Roxolana T., Manager of Compliance Audit
Back of the CSM Certificate
The back of the CSM Certificate lays out what a person has demonstrated by completing CSM-- these are the characteristics that employers value in all their employees. We encourage you to view the sections About the CSM Certificate and High Performance, and imagine a current employee or potential job candidate who had learned practical, college-level math on their own and what this says about their ability to learn other skills on the job. Imagine how the attention to detail needed to complete every lesson with100% on mainly fill-in-the-blank questions would help in your workplace. The section on High Performance Competencies outlines these and other characteristics that Excel Together NM can build in your current and future workforce.
Lynn White, SVP Education, National Oilwell Varco (Fortune 500 manufacturer)
Remarks about CSM made at the White House
"Our pilot group has indicated that CSM teaches in a manner that is non-threatening and less frustrating with a strong focus on persistence, attention to detail and improved knowledge retention. In short, it teaches our workers how to learn. ...CSM will result in a more confident, self-reliant workforce that ...has a changed mindset from 'Getting the job done' to 'Getting the job done more effectively and efficiently'..."
CEO, Firehouse Subs (1200 restaurants) and CSM Certificate holder
"CSM provides a valuable tool for assessing and strengthening the proficiency of employees at all levels of the organization. As an employer, one can have absolute confidence that a team member who has successfully completed the CSM course will have a solid foundation upon which to build their job-specific knowledge and skills."
Senior Workforce Development Strategist, University Hospitals (Cleveland)
"I was incredibly skeptical of the learning program, but when I saw what our employees were doing and witnessed their success in not only the mastery of the skills of CSM, but then saw their completion of their High School Diploma, after multiple failures of the GED, I was hooked! Seriously, not to be too dramatic, but our employees have changed since doing this program."
Participate in Excel Together West Virginia
Become an Employer Partner
Recognizing the CSM Certificate in hiring
The CSM Certificate certifies the High Performance competencies that you want in your workforce. It is a valuable labor market signal that can help you find employees for all positions who are ready to thrive with great math and literacy skills, persistence, high personal expectations, learning agility, and self-efficacy.
To participate in Excel Together West Virginia as employer, the only requirement is that you allow us to list in our Excel Together WV database and in the WorkForce West Virginia state jobs database (MACC) that you recognize the value of the CSM Certificate in your hiring. How you express that recognition is entirely up to you: you can inform hiring managers of the value of the certificate; you can guarantee job interviews to anyone who both met the job qualifications and had a CSM Certificate; you can indicate the CSM Certificate as a preferred credential in job ads; etc.
Excel Together West Virginia provides employer participants with resources to promote their participation, including language for job ads, images, flyers, logos and more, found in the Participant Resources page.
By indicating your interest in the CSM Certificate, not only will this drive high quality candidates to your company's positions, this also encourages training providers in your community (schools, adult education, workforce development, etc.) to offer the CSM Course, and people in your community to take the CSM Course and improve their skills. All at no cost to you!
Work with us in your community
As an employer partner, Excel Together West Virginia can help you sponsor CSM summer or after school programs for high school students or young adults in your community, or design internships for students who have earned their CSM Certificate. Excel Together West Virginia can also work with your local school district on implementing CSM to provide a pipeline of local students graduating ready for work.
Upskill your workforce
CSM helps employees at all positions and levels (frontline or managerial, in production, HR, logistics, marketing, sales, finances, administration, etc.) build the High Performance competencies they need to thrive and grow in their careers.
Excel Together West Virginia provides participating employers with help in designing upskilling programs for their workers. These programs can be voluntary (with or without incentives) or required for certain employees, and can be part of onboarding, promotion pathways, or prerequisites for advanced training. Many of these programs are free to employers through a partnership with the West Virginia Office of Adult Education.
In a survey of WV Manufacturers Association members, over 80% said that they would encourage employees to take CSM, and 58% said they would provide incentives (such as extra personal days, points towards promotion, cash bonuses, pay raises, or time during the work week to take CSM).
Case Study: Pre-Apprenticeship
Pepco/Exelon (the Washington, DC electric utility) was struggling with low passing rates on the CAST (Construction And Skills Trades) test in their pre-apprenticeship program. To remedy this, participants earned their CSM Certificates in an intensive 3-week program before progressing to other training. They found that:
- Passing rates on the CAST test rose from 20% to 67%
- 90% of participants agreed that the CSM Course helped them learn how to fix mistakes, that they are more careful in their work, and that they spend longer trying hard problems
“I was very pleased with the results of the CSM pilot program. We observed that individuals that progressed to the Pathway to Energy training (only those who earned their CSM High Performance Certificates), were better prepared and had an extra boost of confidence.”
— Conrad Samuels, Manager, Talent Acquisition, Pepco Holdingsa
Become an Employer Partner!
Free Benefits
- Excel Together New Mexico will provide free talent acquisition services such as directing people in your community who are taking or who have completed the CSM Course to your company and webpages.
- Excel Together New Mexico can help you connect to community programs in your area that involve schools, adult education, and workforce development -- these programs are developing your future High Performance future workforce.
- Excel Together New Mexico can assist you in designing an internal upskilling program, and connect you with free services from the state.
