Volume 7, No.1
Spring 2001

Feature Articles:
The READY Retail Learning Center:
A new way of training students for tomorrow's jobs today

Women Moving Into Non-Traditional Jobs

The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN)

Archives

An Education-To-Careers Initiative
The READY Retail Learning Center: a new way of training students for tomorrow's jobs today
By: Lee Hubbell

In recent years, retail job growth in many suburban areas has exceeded that of inner cities. A comparison of the city of Chicago with surrounding suburbs confirms this trend (see the table below). Adding to the challenge of retail employers is the lack of candidates applying for suburban employment. This disparity led Target Group to the idea of creating the READY Retail Learning Center, which focuses on balancing employers’ needs and job seekers’ interests. As a complement to the two-years of training students in the READY Program receive, the Center is used to intensify student exploration of retail career paths and to connect work-ready students to employment. In turn, the READY Retail Learning Center helps to stabilize the economic future of the students and the retail industry of Illinois.

ABOUT TARGET GROUP

Target Group, a human capital development consulting firm, promotes workforce diversity and creates economic opportunities for minorities, youth and women through programs including: Education-to-Careers, Workforce Diversity and Development, Economic Development and Compliance Monitoring and Community Empowerment. To date, more than 9,000 students have received career training exposure through Target Group’s Education-to-Careers programs.

MEETS REQUIREMENTS OF RETAILERS

Target Group’s READY Program (The Retail and Education Alliance for Development of Youth) is an Education-to-Careers program created in 1997. Funding for the program was made possible by a joint grant from the Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES) and the Illinois Department of Commerce and Community Affairs (DCCA). READY was created with the specific intention of bringing together schools and the retail industry. The program includes a curriculum based on skills standards designed in association with retailers and teacher training that includes spending time working at a retail outlet, and a contract— signed by parents—committing their children to the full two-year program. Students receive in-school training, unsubsidized work experiences the summer before and during their senior year and, upon graduation, a certificate of achievement attesting to their readiness to go to work in this important and growing industry.

Created with support from the National Retail Federation (NRF) and the Illinois Retail Merchants Association (IRMA), the READY Retail Learning Center brings together the retail industry and schools in a learning facility located in the Oakbrook Center Mall in Oak Brook, Illinois. The Center enhances the existing components of the READY Program by giving students and teachers first-hand exposure to retail employers’ operations. This enables the students and teachers to use an electronic version of the READY Program curriculum and expands students’ employment options to include suburban retailers.

Data collected from 50 percent of the READY program graduates, who attended Chicago Public High Schools in the first three phases of the program (1997-99), yielded these results

The Retail Learning Center features a high technology learning environment known as a smart classroom, which allows the instructor to broaden students’ learning experiences. The Learning Center is equipped with a variety of technically sophisticated presentation media that enhance student instruction. The Center includes an instructor’s computer connected to a local area network and 23 student-networked workstations recessed in Nova desks with Internet access, word processing and PC Anywhere software, a SMART board, a projector, laser printers and a TV/VCR with cable connection. In addition, students have access to the revised, online, interactive READY curriculum.

READY students visit the Center regularly during the school year. Since its opening, 585 students have used the Center. While at the Center, students participate in an environmental learning process that strengthens their employability skills and industry knowledge. Student activities include:

• tours of retail sites
• learning about urban/suburban transportation modes
• meeting with human resources representatives
• participating in mock in-person interviews with retailers
• learning how to excel in their retail positions
• receiving mentoring and guidance with work-related questions or problems
• collaborating with classmates on problem-based learning projects
• participating in online interactive mock employment interviews with instant feedback
• learning employability skills based on retail skills standards through READY’s curriculum
• researching data for projects
• increasing their technology knowledge and skills
• exploring career opportunities in retail trade.

Employers at the Oakbrook Shopping Center have the opportunity to train and motivate the students at the Center. Twelve retail companies have provided the following:

• tours of retail locations to augment the students’ knowledge on how businesses are operated
• mock interviews
• mentoring
• participation in the development of a transportation exercise designed to make students comfortable with urban/suburban transportation modes
• assistance in developing problem-based learning projects.

The creation of the READY Learning Center benefits both the retail industry and students. The Center provides retailers with trained students who want to explore retail career paths and, at the same time, build partnerships between suburban retailers and urban schools. The Oakbrook Shopping Center merchants have the opportunity to participate in the hands-on training of READY students. READY students, through their participation in an environmental learning process, strengthen their employability skills, overcome trepidations and perceived barriers of working for suburban employers and receive an increased number of employment options.