Every September, workforce development organizations across the country share success stories, recognize the professionals behind programs, engage community leaders, and shine a light on the work that connects people with opportunity.
But Workforce Development Month did not simply appear on the calendar.
It began with the National Association of Workforce Development Professionals® (NAWDP) and a belief that the people and programs strengthening America’s workforce deserved greater recognition.
Creating a Month for Workforce Development
In 2005, NAWDP® created Workforce Development Month with a clear purpose: to raise awareness about the importance of the workforce development industry to a growing national economy.
The idea addressed a challenge that remains familiar to many workforce professionals today. Workforce development touches nearly every community and plays an essential role in connecting jobseekers, employers, education, training, and support services. Yet much of that work happens outside the public spotlight.
A jobseeker gaining the skills to begin a new career. An employer finding the talent needed to expand. A young person discovering a pathway they did not know existed. A worker overcoming barriers to employment. A community responding to changing economic conditions.
Behind each of these outcomes is a workforce system, and behind that system are professionals building connections between people, resources, businesses, and opportunity.
Workforce Development Month gave the field a dedicated opportunity to tell that story.
Turning Recognition Into Action
From the beginning, Workforce Development Month has been about more than recognition. It has also been an opportunity for workforce professionals to help others understand what workforce development makes possible.
NAWDP encourages organizations to use the month of September to communicate with elected officials, businesses, partners, community organizations, customers, and the public about the programs and services supporting their local economies.
That matters because workforce development is inherently a story of connections.
Workforce professionals connect businesses with talent and connect jobseekers with careers. They connect individuals with education, training, and supportive services, and bring together partners that might otherwise operate separately and help communities respond to evolving workforce needs.
Workforce Development Month provides an opportunity to make those connections, and the professionals creating them, more visible.
Over time, NAWDP has developed resources to help organizations participate in the celebration, including a Workforce Development Month Toolkit with ideas and sample materials and a logo that organizations can use throughout the month.
Celebrating the People Behind the Work
As Workforce Development Month evolved, NAWDP also placed greater emphasis on recognizing the people whose work gives the profession its impact.
Through the Workforce Heroes initiative, workforce professionals from across the country can be nominated by their peers and colleagues for outstanding contributions to their programs and communities. The recognition puts names and stories behind a field that can sometimes be described through funding streams, programs, legislation, and performance measures.
Those stories reveal what workforce development looks like at the human level. These are the people Workforce Development Month was created to recognize.
The Story Continues
More than 20 years after NAWDP created Workforce Development Month, the workforce itself looks very different.
Technology is reshaping occupations. Employers are navigating changing talent needs. Workers are adapting to new skills and career pathways. Communities are confronting demographic and economic shifts. The ways people learn, work, and build careers continue to evolve.
That makes the original vision behind Workforce Development Month as relevant as ever.
Each Workforce Development Month offers the workforce development community another opportunity to tell its story: not simply what programs do, but what changes because those programs and professionals exist.
A career begins. A business finds the talent it needs. A family gains greater economic stability. A partnership opens a new pathway. A community becomes stronger. Those individual stories add up to something much larger. They are the story of workforce development.
