MIC'D
HR News brought to you by the Northeast Indiana Human Resource Association (NIHRA).
MIC'D
Empowering Future Generations through Junior Achievement
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Discover the transformative power of education as we're joined by the passionate team from Junior Achievement of Northern Indiana, including Haley Beck, Sue Jackson, Karen Cooper, Pat Morello, Sarah Garrison, and Ashley Adamson. Through their stories, we unlock the doors to career readiness, financial literacy, and entrepreneurship programs that are shaping the future workforce right from the playground to graduation. With nearly 185,000 students impacted in 29 counties, we uncover the real-life experiences and volunteer-driven initiatives that fuel a generation of savvy upcoming adults and the indispensable role of education in fostering HR excellence.
Step into the world of JA BizTown and JA Finance Park, where students don't just learn about business and finance—they live it. Our guests share the ins and outs of these capstone programs, where young minds take on roles in a simulated town, and older students master the art of budgeting in a supportive, dynamic environment. Hear personal accounts, like the eye-opening experience of my own daughter, that illustrate the lasting effects of these immersive educational adventures. It's not just about teaching kids; it's about preparing them for the responsibilities and opportunities that await in adulthood.
As we round off this enlightening conversation, we spotlight the remarkable outcomes of JA's career readiness initiatives and the 3DE by JA program, known for significantly improving attendance and graduation rates. Listen as we delve into the stories of student empowerment and the upcoming Inspire to Hire event.
Welcome to MICE, the podcast where we empower.
Speaker 2HR excellence. One conversation at a time.
Speaker 3On this month's episode of MICE. I will be interviewing several members of Junior Achievement of Northern Indiana, who is our Diamond partner with NYRA, and we'll be discussing a little bit about their work and career readiness programs. A little bit about their work and career readiness programs. So today we have Haley Beck, the Vice President of In-School Programs, sue Jackson, ja JobSpark, senior Program Manager. Karen Cooper, vp of Capstone Experiences. Pat Morello he's in charge of 3DE. He's a market lead. Sarah Garrison, she's the VP of Program Innovation and then Ashley Adamson, she is the Senior Program Manager on the Innovation Team. So thank you all for being here today.
Speaker 4Thanks so much for having us, brittany. We're excited to be here. I wanted to share a little bit about JAA just overall as we get started here. About JAA just overall as we get started here. Junior Achievement is actually a worldwide organization. Nationally in the United States, we have 102 offices across the country. Here locally, our office in Northern Indiana was founded back in 1953, which we were the very first office in the state of Indiana, which is really exciting. As far as our service territory goes, we serve 29 counties 27 in northern Indiana and then two in the southern part of Michigan, so a big reach. Last year we served nearly 185,000 student experiences in the 2023 school year throughout that 29 counties. So we reach a lot of different students through a variety of our work and readiness programs and resources, which we're going to talk a little bit about today our financial literacy programs and then our entrepreneurship programs too. So with that to get us kick-started, I'm going to pass it over to Haley Beck to tell us a little bit about our in-school programs.
Speaker 5Thanks, Ashley. So I would say that our in-school programs are probably what people are going to be the most familiar with as of right now outside of Fiztown and Finance Park. But we, our in-school programs, are the programs that go in, that have volunteers, go into the classroom and teach our program. So they're all pre-written lessons that start in pre-K and go all the way up to 12th grade and go all the way up to 12th grade and really the volunteers go in and share the programs. But most importantly they go in and share their life experiences, whether it's through their work experiences or just general life experiences that students can really connect to.
Speaker 5And Ashley said, all of our elementary or all of our in-school programs hit on our three pillars a little bit at a time, depending on what grade level they are, so that financial literacy, working, career readiness and entrepreneurship. And they build upon each other every year. So they're really the foundation of all of our programming as students learn about spending and saving, so they can understand that as they get older they need to save their money and spend their money wisely and smart. And then, as they get into middle school, it's more about the budgeting. And then in high school we have career and work readiness programs for those students as well, so that they are ready to go that day after graduation. So it is all volunteer-led.
Speaker 5We do have some programs that the educators lead alongside a volunteer video, but for the most part all of our programs on the in-school side are volunteer led. So it really does take a whole community to provide those programs to the students and it's just a really unique way for businesses you don't have to be a business person to go into the classroom but a really unique way for someone to see really what's going on in the elementary or at all levels, but really to see what's going on in school and be that really positive light for students that some might not have in their lives. But yeah, that's really the main overall focus of our in-school programming here at JA. And do I have any questions to answer after that? And do I?
Speaker 3have any questions to answer after that. I was going to ask how many schools, or the percentage of schools in northern Indiana participate in these programs.
Speaker 5That's a really good question Over in northern India, across northern Indiana, Wino and Allen County, around 72 percent of the students receive in school programming. I don't know if anybody else has the exact percentage overall of our entire network, but I think it's somewhere around like 42%. Does that sound right?
Speaker 4Anybody. That sounds about right. And to piggyback off of Haley, so her team, especially at Allen County. They serve over 2,000 classes in Allen County alone just with these programs, so really high involvement. But also as far as our reach goes for our whole territory we're the number two J office in the country. So to put that in perspective, as far as student reach goes out of 102 offices we're number two.
Speaker 5Yeah that's a good point and regionally we serve. We have a little over 4,400 classes in our 29 county service area.
Speaker 3Are all the programs the same across the board when it comes to elementary and then middle school and high school, or are they different depending on the area of the state you're in?
Speaker 5So they're all the same, the elementary. So if we did a preschool class here in Allen County and, sorry, a kindergarten class here in Allen County and a kindergarten class in DeKalb County, they're going to be the same. Where it gets a little bit different is in the middle school level, where we have a little bit more option. Or middle school and high school. You just have a little bit more options really, depending on what the school schools are looking for. If they want to be a little bit more focused on budgeting and saving and that sort of financial literacy, we have programs for that. Or if they want to do a little bit more work and career ready programming, we have options for that. So at the middle school, high school levels, where it will vary a little bit, but we have all the program offerings across the board are the same.
JA Capstone Programs
Speaker 5So we really try to be that solution provider to the schools. To see, a lot of times there's teachers that maybe are thrown into a class that they don't have. They don't have opportunity to find curriculum. So we really play a part in. Here's something that can help you with your curriculum as you're planning, so you don't have to do as much planning and preparing so that you have that sort of thing. But collectively they get pretty much the same offering across the board. Okay, good question, thank you. Yeah, with that, I'll pass it off to Karen Cooper to talk to us about our capstone programs.
Speaker 6All right, thank you, haley. I think the first place to start when we talk about capstone programming is to differentiate it from what in-school programming just was described as being and what the JA BizTown and JA Finance Park programs are, which is the two programs that are part of what we call capstone programming. And the difference is in the capstone experience. The educator in the classroom is. In the capstone experience. The educator in the classroom is the one that is responsible for teaching that curriculum to their students and then it is paired with those weeks of lessons in the classroom with an on-site visit to one of our capstone facilities. And in our territory we happen to have a JA BizTown facility and a JA Finance Park facility within our home office here on Wallen Road. And then we also have a JA BizTown. We opened a year, two years ago now, I guess. It is up in Elkhart County and we have what we call a flex facility in Lafayette. It's actually in a YMCA shared space facility in Lafayette. It's actually in a YMCA shared space and they operate half of the year as a JA BizTown and half of the year as JA Finance Park. These programs are so incredibly experiential, they are impactful, they are one of the things that kids will always remember. Anybody who's been to JA BizTown remembers what their job was. It doesn't matter how many years have passed since they've been here. It is just that impactful that they will remember so many minute details of their experience.
Speaker 6Ja BizTown is for fourth, fifth, sixth graders. Usually we see fifth and sixth. That program is going to allow students to operate their own business. They're going to work a job. They may have written resumes or done job interviews prior to coming on site and they're so just full of excitement when they walk through those doors and they see a town with 18 storefronts, 18 businesses set up for them to own and operate for the day. They have an entire community that they're operating.
Speaker 6Parents are there to help. I'll say volunteers. They're not always parents, but we do ask for a volunteer component in all of our programming. So for Capstone that means the on-site simulation is where we get our volunteers to help us out, and the volunteers usually are a parent volunteer, unless some of our older kids don't always want to give that permission slip to mom and dad. So we do rely a little bit on community volunteers for our JA Finance Park program, but at BizTown it's usually a parent volunteer and they'll work with a small group of students throughout the day, helping to answer some questions, maybe to give them a little guidance, to keep them on track, to help them keep and stay organized.
Speaker 6But, honestly, that town, the success of the businesses that they're running, how they spend their personal time because they'll get personal break time through the day just like any worker would get and all of those decisions that they make throughout the day about how to operate those businesses and such, really are their own. They are the ones that are running that town and, as you can imagine, 120 kids, fifth graders, on their first day of work. It can be a little overwhelming in the first hour or so of the experience but, man, by the time that they get through that first setup period of the day, they are just completely on track to run that town. They are so proud of what they accomplish when they pay those loans back for their businesses at the end of the day. Lots of celebrations. We have really amazing staff that make sure that those kids are able to learn and sometimes fail, in a very safe environment and help to guide them so that they really get to taste success in working their job for the day. They'll learn things like how to manage their own debit card spending. They'll get opportunities to spend their paychecks that they've earned in their jobs by buying retail products or shopping for an experience, or they might spend it all at the restaurant buying pop and popcorn. I've seen that happen. But they will leave that day not only having a greater appreciation for what their parents do every day going to work, but they'll certainly have had just an incredible, impactful day learning what it takes to be a citizen in the community and to run their own business and be a contributing member of a work team.
Speaker 6So that's our JA BizTown program, and then we also have a JA Finance Park. That is for our older budgeting, and they also are educator taught and those lessons at school prior to coming for an on-site visit. But when they come on site, they're really truly connecting the dots between what they learned in the classroom and what they'll experience in the real world, as they're actually managing their own and creating their own personal budget. And so that space also has 18 storefronts in it. Each one of those storefronts, though, represents a different expense category on their budget. A total all told, there's 27 expense categories at the moment, but they are able to really do some research into what each of these expense categories is.
Speaker 6I always love to give the example of my daughter. When she went to Finance Park she really believed that purchasing and eating organic food was the way to go. But when she got in there and realized that her budget didn't support that, she suddenly had a little greater appreciation for mom not always buying anything more than the store brands. So that was a life lesson for her that she appreciated me a bit for. But they'll create these personal budgets.
Speaker 6They start the day off with being given a persona. It tells them what their job is, if they're married or single, how many children they might have. They'll talk to them about their educational debt. Do they have? What their credit score is? And again, they're being led by a volunteer who's there giving them some guidance on figuring out how to create a good savings plan for emergency funds. Or where do you want to spend your money, your discretionary money, talking about needs and wants Do you want to have your spouse with a bus pass or do you want to buy them a car and the expenses that go along with those types of decisions. Every kid leaves that experience understanding better how expensive kids can be in child care Always a great learning lesson and also with a greater appreciation of their parents and when they have to sometimes be told no, when they're asking for a new pair of shoes or something.
Speaker 6But our advanced level program I'm so excited about because those upper level high school students so 10th, 11th, 12th grade perhaps are getting a chance to choose their persona. So instead of being told that they're going to be an account executive for the day, they can say you know what I really want? To be a welder? Can I make it and live on that kind of salary? And so they can choose their particular career path and they get to create their budget based on that. They get to choose if they want to have a spouse, or they want to have children or even pets, and do they want to take vacations later on. And so they get to actually create budgets at different phases of their life also. So they'll budget from just starting out as a young adult all the way up through nearing retirement. So it gives them a much greater perspective on how your income changes over the course of your working career. And that was a whole lot, wasn't it?
Speaker 3I think it's funny that you say anybody who's been to BizTown remembers everything about it, because I remember my visit in fifth grade I think it was, and I worked in the bank and I was so mad that I wasn't a cop and it was back in the old facility behind Kohl's Yep, behind North Crest. Yes, and I've been in your new facility. I was there last summer I think, and it's so big. I don't remember J Finance Park when I was in middle school. I remember doing something like in school similar to what you're talking about. So when you say they have a budget, they have a career and children and all that, do they get to pick all of that or is it like preset for them?
Speaker 6Yeah, at the entry level all of those details are preset for them and it will depend just as a random selection of which iPad they happen to pick up that day In the advanced level. That's when they get to make those actual choices and where it really starts to become real for them and those kids. By the time they get to the advanced level, they're about to graduate, they're about to make big decisions. They might have a job at that point. So are they saving for retirement? Yet All of those types of topics are discussed as a part of that program.
Speaker 3Awesome. Thank you so much for that information.
Speaker 6All right, so I'm going to turn it over to Sue Jackson to talk a little bit about JA Jobs Spark.
Speaker 2Hi everyone, sue Jackson here and I am going to talk to you about JA Jobs Spark. That is one of our career and workforce readiness initiatives here at Junior Achievement in Northern Indiana and it is an immersive career exploration program for students in eighth and ninth grade. Here in our region we have thousands of students that connect with businesses and organizations here in not only Allen County but we actually have 11 counties that we work with, and businesses will come and work with the students and provide an opportunity for them to get a sneak peek at what a career is like in those industries. So we have eight industries that we focus on or industry clusters. So we've got advanced manufacturing, engineering and construction, agriculture, food and natural resources, government law and public service, business, finance, marketing, health and life sciences, hospitality, tourism and arts, information technology. Oh, I hope I'm not forgetting any. I think I covered them all but I'm trying to remember by heart. But the students will, they'll do some lessons prior to coming to JA Jobs Park and then they will arrive. It's a two-day event and we hold it at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum, so there's plenty of space and we use about 120,000 square feet where we have 100 businesses and organizations coming together to really mentor students about what career possibilities are like here in our region.
Speaker 2We want to keep our kids local. We don't want them moving off to another state. We want to keep them here so that we can keep our communities thriving and growing, and so by educating them about the opportunities that we have here in our region, we'll hopefully let them know that hey, I can work in IT and stay here. I don't have to go off to another state to have a successful career, and it's just a great way to spark their interest. I'm not sure if a lot of people understand that in the state of Indiana you have to pick a pathway in high school, and a lot of these kids just don't understand or really haven't even been exposed to careers in eighth grade and ninth grade, and they're being told they have to choose a direction that they want to go, and it's really not fair to them if we don't help educate them early on about all the different pathways and opportunities that we have here.
Speaker 2And so that's where JA Jobs Park comes in. It's so fun, it's two days, it goes from nine to two, and we have 50 schools that participated last fall where they come in and they spend two hours at the event where they're touring the different industry clusters and they've done and as I mentioned, they did that curriculum or those lessons ahead of time. So they've narrowed down hey, I'm interested in health or I really like IT, or maybe I want to go into business in health, or I really like IT, or maybe I want to go into business. So they're doing that coursework ahead of time. That helps take their personality and match it to different industries. Otherwise it might be a little overwhelming for them to come to the event and see all these wonderful things to do. But it definitely helps them kind of hone in on different industries that they might want to explore and take a little deeper dive into and check out. So businesses are able to go to JA Jobs Spark and partner with us and provide experiences for the students.
Speaker 2So in advanced manufacturing we have people that are making molten coins with students and that they can take with them with a sandcast.
Speaker 2And then we have maybe over in government law and public service they might be trying on the equipment and checking out the equipment that a SWAT team member would be using, or touring the FBI's on-site vehicle, or maybe in construction they're learning about just basic hand tools and how to operate some hand tools or wire a fire alarm. We have our health and life sciences area that students really enjoy. They work on intubating mannequins and there was one activity last fall where the kids were having to solve an emergency room medical mystery. So they had a mannequin that had come into the ER and they had to figure out. It was unconscious so they didn't know what was wrong with it and they had to take all the clues from the mannequin to figure out what had happened to that individual. So it's a lot of fun they get to do these hands-on experiences that help educate them and get their interest in different industry clusters that they maybe hadn't known about in the past.
Speaker 3We, my company Master Spas we've been doing job or JA, job spark for the last couple of years and I was actually one of the Master Spas volunteers to work at our area a couple of years ago and I, when I had my break, I was walking around and I was like I don't even want to go back to my area, I just play with everybody.
Speaker 2Yeah, it is really fun. You can get distracted if you don't stay focused, for sure. But we have kids that come out of that experience. They're like I didn't even know that was a career, like you can do that for a living. Because I think kids they can't be what they can't see. What they know is that what they've been exposed to around them in their circle. They know what their parents or their guardians do, or their aunt, their uncle, their neighbor, but they really don't know the hundreds of career opportunities that we have right here in Northern Indiana. And so that's where JA Jobs Park comes in. It's just we have that immersive, hands-on experience and, like Karen was talking about anything experiential, where you're doing, and it helps students really learn better as they learn. As studies show, students learn better by participating in doing activities and so by immersing them in something like this it really helps get the wheels turning as to what they might want to do with their life.
Speaker 2The in-person event is really cool, it's really fun, and I always tell businesses don't get hung up on the activity that you do. We'll help you and coach you and walk alongside you to help develop an activity. But it's really more about that. Activity is a gateway to the conversation that you're going to have with that student, being able to tell them about your business and what you do and why you like to work there and all the opportunities that maybe are at your business that you don't do, and so it's just a great way to engage with students.
Speaker 2Jobs Park we have that in-person event, but we also have a virtual event that we do in March over Zoom webinars. So not all schools can attend the in-person event. Maybe it's transportation that's keeping them from coming, or maybe it's just they're too far away. We do serve schools all the way on the west side of the state, so we have a virtual experience that schools can take part in as well, and so what we do for that is we schedule about 126 webinars over Zoom that we do over two days and business partners are able to talk to kids and say this is my career, this is what I did, this is the pathway I chose, these are the careers in my company that you might be interested in, and it gives the kids an opportunity to ask questions and a chat feature that we have to the business professional and find out more about careers.
Speaker 2We have a whole JA Jaspark platform that they're able to explore while they're in between the webinars that we have local businesses and companies that will put videos on there for them to see opportunities within their business and that's another great opportunity for businesses to get involved. That's a 20 minute webinar. It's not real extensive and it doesn't take a whole lot of time to be able to present your company and career opportunities to students. And that one, the virtual event, it goes grades 7 through 12. Because it's virtual, we have the ability to have a lot more kids involved. So those are our JAI JobSpark programs and they're pretty exciting and we would love to have local and regional companies take part in it with us.
Speaker 3And you guys are launching a new program, right? We?
Speaker 2are? Yes, we are. So we have a new program that we'll be doing that is housed under that career and workforce readiness initiative of ours and that is called JA Career Ignite and that is a it's more of a career fair type learning experience for students that are in 11th and 12th grade. Ja JobSpark, that's the eighth and ninth graders, and then we have JA Career Ignite, which is focusing on 11th and 12th graders. So it is more career fair-esque and not so much all the hands-on activities that we have at Jobs Park, but it's really a great opportunity for them to connect with local and regional businesses, because those students are needing to make decisions about what they're going to do that next year or in two years, and so that event is really based on the four E's, which is employment, enlistment, enrollment and entrepreneurship. The event will be styled around those four E's and then we will have like an employment area. We will have that broken into the different industry clusters, like we do at Jobspark.
Speaker 2So if someone's interested in health, they can go to the health section or manufacturing. In health, they can go to the health section. Or manufacturing, they can go to the manufacturing section and really talk with business professionals about career opportunities or internship opportunities that might be available to them. They could have the opportunity to give them their resume and then we will also provide a space for on-site interviews that companies can do right there and then with these students. It's pretty exciting. We have all four of the school districts in Allen County already interested in attending, and I think we were researching the high school programs in Allen County. There's 20 of them, so I didn't even know there were 20 high school programs in Allen County, but we intend to invite them all. We're looking at probably around 9,000 or more students that will be invited to participate. That will be in April of 2025.
Speaker 3OK, awesome. Are you going to do that at the Memorial Museum as well?
Speaker 2Yeah, at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum we will have that the career night as well, because it will be huge and we will need the space.
Speaker 3All right, thank you so much for all that information. I definitely put the plug out there for DropSpark because I really enjoyed attending that.
Speaker 2Oh, it's a lot of fun and we always enjoy having you there as well. Thank you, I think. Next I think I'm going to hand this over to Pat he's going to talk a little bit about our 3DE program.
Transformative Model Improving Education Engagement
Speaker 8Thank you so much, sue, and really appreciate it. I always love hearing all of the amazing programming we have here and it is just an honor and a privilege to be here to speak with everybody. 3de by Junior Achievement is the newest addition to this amazing family, or this amazing suite of experiential K-12 business partner engaging programming and experiences that we have at JA. So I always like to start with 3DE in talking about why and the impact and really the impact on the student Since 2015,. We've launched this in about 50 high schools, so we've been at it almost 10 years now and over those 10 years we've moved the needle with every major metric that matters. The three keys that matter the most are number one we are driving down chronic absenteeism by 24%. So the key element of you hear Dr Katie Jenner talk about this all the time is getting students to school, getting students to school. So when you get students to school, you can engage them. We can leverage the great teaching that we have. We can leverage the great curriculum that we have. So, reducing chronic absenteeism by 24%, we vote with our presence and we're seeing that across the enterprise, graduation rates are improving by 34. When you see, when you get students there. They're learning and they are graduating at a higher rate. That is amazing Across Fort Wayne Community Schools where we have 3DE by JA. When we deliver that kind of a metric, we will impact about 70 students a year and what I always like to say is, if one more graduate because of it, it's worth it. So think about that. That's 70 more students on the right path for the four E's like Sue talked about. And then the third key thing is persistence rates when they go on to the next level. The persistence rate in first year of college is over 94%. That's amazing. That's an improvement from like 65% the national average. So every metric improving we are at all five Fort Wayne community schools, high schools this fall, and the way that we're able to do that is consistent with what you've heard from Haley all the way to Sue.
Speaker 8It's anytime you make anything relevant, interesting and fun, you drive up engagement and you drive up engagement. And when you drive up engagement, kids learn more. And when our young adults learn more, opportunity knocks. And so they are ready the Monday after they graduate for whatever career path that is to set for, either employment or enrollment, or entrepreneurship or enlistment. That's the why and the way we do this is very unique to 3DE, so it's a very transformative model, and so the way we do this is just think about two Cs If you think about cases and competencies.
Speaker 8So case challenges this is where the business communities come in. So case challenges are the great connectors. So they run for about six weeks and the local business case we will co-author with that local business where we do all the heavy lifting. Like Sue said, don't get hung up on the activity. I always tell the businesses, don't get hung up on what the case challenge needs to be. We do all the heavy lifting, but the case challenge in so many ways is what makes it relevant, interesting and fun. The challenge is authentic with a partner like Parkview or Steel Dynamics or maybe one day like a MasterSpots, where we put the student at the center of the problem to solve, and so that makes it very relevant and that makes it very interesting. All of the students always say, wow, they need me to solve this problem for them. We better pay attention, we better learn. So over six weeks they're intently focused on that business and that business case challenge and then we turn it into a challenge. So they all break up into teams of five. They get to compete and, honestly, that's what makes it fun. This past two weeks ago, northside sent one of their teams all the way to the final four with one of their national case challenges. And you know what? We won the national championship In the second year of 3DE by JA Northside won a national championship, competing against 6,000 other students across the United States. So that's how we make it relevant, interesting and fun.
Speaker 8And, as a former CEO, what got me really excited about 3DE when I saw it for the very first time was that every case challenge is anchored in a competency. So I started with General Electric Company. At GE, we paid billions of dollars to develop our people with programming, and this programming was all about teaching us how to collaborate, how to communicate, how to think critically, how to get a self-direction, how to have cultural agility also known as emotional intelligence and also how to be creative and innovative and innovative. And you know what? Now we are teaching our 14-year-olds, our 15-year-olds, we're teaching our high school students how to have these competencies which will deliver, eventually, credentialing, which will deliver badging, which will have our students ready with 2X, the learning, the diploma and then the 21st century skills. That's really how we do it. It's really a transformative model, if there's nothing like it across the United States.
Speaker 8We're in 50 high schools this fall. We will be in all five Fort Wayne community schools by the year 27-28,. All five will be at all four grades and we will be graduating 2,000 students per year ready for the Monday after they graduate. And, as we say, one of our core values at 3DE is when they win, we win. And I'm telling you we are in this community, brittany, about to win huge. So what an amazing, very proud new model we have that continues this JA continuum. It's different than some of the others you heard about in that it's a model. It's all four years. It's not six weeks during the year, it's not a day during the year, it is all four years all through high school.
Speaker 8So if you're interested in getting engaged, there's two ways you can do it, like all the other folks you heard from. There's volunteer opportunities where you can go in and coach for a day and do small group coaching like you do in your boardroom. Today. Someone asks you hey, this is what we're thinking, what do you think we should do? You use your business expertise to coach and guide and the students look at you as someone who really cares about them because you're there. You're not there yelling at them, you're there to help them and that's a huge deal. And then if you're a business out there and you really want to start to think about how can I passively recruit on my terms, on my narrative, how can I do that? This is a great opportunity. You can get in front of 600 students. If you go to Northrop, you can get in front of 400 students and the key thing here is they're studying about your business.
Speaker 8All we ask of you is really two days of engagement one day to coach and one day to judge. And the one day to judge is a half a day. So, as we always say, it's really low effort and high impact. So we've got over 30 businesses now engaged doing this. 30 businesses wouldn't do it if it was hard to do. We make it super easy to do business, we make it super easy to engage and businesses love it.
Speaker 8The two things I hear the most are number one I got so much out of it. So it's the notion of givers get it's grace that you get it's grace that you receive when you give and you're helping. That's like the number one. And the number two is man. I wish I had this when I was in high school. So with that, we're just having a blast here loving this new addition to Junior Achievement, and now I'll throw it over to my boss, who will tell you about how, here to career ties all of our career and workforce readiness programs together. Unless, of course, you have a couple of questions for me.
Speaker 3I was going to ask what does 3DE stand for?
Speaker 8It's an acronym. It doesn't really stand for anything, but if you were to twist my arm, brittany, I'd tell you it's three dimensions of education. So it's really all about combining the district with the business community and with 3DE. So it's three dimensions of education. It solves a lot of the problems that we've had in public schools and public high schools and have been known, but this model since 2015 has really gotten in and solves a lot of those problems. So three dimensions of education.
JA Here to Career
Speaker 3Yeah, I do wish I had that in high school. Last year I sat in on one of the presentations that you guys did about 3DE, where the students were giving their like. This is how. This is what I've experienced, this is what we've done, and I remember one of the students saying I used to be very quiet and shy and I just didn't like to talk in front of people. But now I have no issue with that. I still don't like talking in front of large groups of people. So if I would have had that experience when high school, I probably wouldn't be as timid now. But I think that's great.
Speaker 8No, it's so true, and thank you for coming. That was our Inspire to Hire event that you came to and that was an amazing event. We have the exact same one on May 15th. So if anybody looks at this podcast before then, come on out to the Miro part Miro Conference Center and we'll give you some free breakfast and fun networking and get a chance to see what we do and how you can be a part of it.
Speaker 3Thank you so much.
Speaker 8Yeah, with that, I'll throw it over to Sarah, sarah, hey thanks, pat.
Speaker 1So, like Pat said, our JA here to Career is really a wraparound resource for all of our programs our in-school, our capstone, all the experiential learning with J Jobs, bark and Career Ignite and 3DE. So it's as we shared a lot. It's one of our pillars is work and career readiness, and we really understand how important it is for students to be equipped with to make great decisions about career pathways, like Sue alluded to. They have to start making those decisions so much earlier than they used to, and so we developed what we call JA here to Career, which is an online career exploration resource. So we have, we're thrilled to say, over 30,000 middle and high school students across northern Indiana exploring our regional careers each year using JA here to Career. Students have the access to the same information. It's not just a few students, but it's everybody that has a JA middle and high school work and career ready focused program. So what students do first off when they engage with this platform is they take a personality interest inventory and it's based on the Holland Code, and the system generates 50 careers that best align with their interests and their personalities, based on how they answer the question. There are over 900 careers that are represented on this platform and they represent the 16 career clusters. So there's a lot of information there for students and all of the careers have localized wages and represent the wages that folks in our region in northern Indiana actually earn.
Speaker 1The list the 50 careers is just a starting point for the students. The students can investigate all 900 careers if they would like, but any career that they would like to. But those 50 careers are the ones that the system says to them hey, these are the ones that really align best to your interests and your personality. So through their exploration the students learn a lot of information about the specific careers. They learn about the work expectations, the tasks that they would be expected to perform in those careers, and then there's even a short maybe one and a half minute video that goes a little bit deeper into each of those careers. So it's pretty in-depth career exploration for these students. And each of the careers also lists, in addition to those tasks, the education and training needed to be successful in the careers, and where in Indiana can they get that education and training?
Speaker 1What's really awesome about this resource is that all of the careers at all of the education levels are represented. So we have careers that don't require any specific education or training at all. You could just graduate high school and go and get a career that doesn't have any specific education training requirement. Or there may be careers that have a specific certification requirement or a training requirement and what we do is we connect the students with where they can get that local education and training maybe a regional apprenticeship program or a local apprenticeship program and if the career has a post-secondary education requirement maybe an associate, a bachelor's or even master's or beyond then all of our Indiana colleges and universities are connected to the careers that they provide that training and education for. So there's a lot of really great information about. You're interested in a career, you know what that career is about because you've researched it, and now where can I get the education and training? And we go into information about how much does it cost for the education and training, and students are usually really surprised about the cost of a post-secondary education too. That requires some planning. So it's really good information for them to have.
Speaker 1And I think one of the things I really like about JA here to Career besides the whole platform is how we feature our regional employers. All employers representing all career clusters have the opportunity to be a featured employer on this platform. They can highlight the careers that they most hire for and then also highlight like why would students want to come to work for you? You need to make your case for why they would want to go to work for you versus another employer. Students take that career interest inventory. They're provided with their list of best fit careers, the detailed information on the careers, the education and training and where they can get that education and training, as well as the secret sauce, I think, is where they can work locally. We, as adults, we all know that our region has tremendous opportunities to work, to live and to raise a family. We say that all the time, but we need to make sure that our students know that as well. I think that's why the JA here to Career is such an amazing platform, because you can tell your story to your students and you can share all the careers that you offer and we know that you say all the time. As employers, you need to build a pipeline for you of students that are eager and that are prepared to come and be your next future employees.
Speaker 1We also say all the time students see logos, they drive around, they see businesses, they see logos. They think they know what the positions are at those businesses. For example, they might see a fast food restaurant and think I don't want to be a cook or just a fast food preparation worker or a food service manager. So they might discount working in that industry because they think that's all there is to it, when in actuality we know that they could maybe work in marketing, they could work in IT, they could work in finance.
Speaker 1There are a lot of different careers. They say the same thing maybe for some of the manufacturing companies. They might see a manufacturing plant and think I wouldn't want to work there because I'm not really interested in being in production or being a machinist. But we know as adults and as business owners and workers that most manufacturing companies and most other companies in different industries have a broader variety of careers than just maybe the finance career that they, if they're in the finance industry or the manufacturing industry or the construction industry, it takes all kinds of careers to support that industry and that specific business. So what the JA here to career does really well is to show these students just what kind of careers your industry and your company could provide if they're interested. So they don't have to just have a job if they're looking at a manufacturing facility as a production worker or a machinist, but they could work in IT, they can work in finance, they could work in business, they could work in marketing, stem careers all kinds of different careers that support those businesses.
Speaker 1So this is where we need you. We currently have about 200 featured businesses on JA here to Career and those represent companies from all over northern Indiana, because we have students all across our region that utilize this resource. But there are a lot more than 200 companies out there and we want to make sure that our students who are utilizing this resource. We've done the hard work of getting these kids on this platform and to giving them a tool to really research career pathways and opportunities and regional opportunities. But we need to highlight your companies. We want them to know that they have opportunities to stay local, to live local, to create really great lives here, and that they could do really well here working at our companies. If you are interested in learning more, you can reach out to me, but we would invite you to become a featured employer on the JA here to Career website.
Speaker 3I wonder if I said I should still be in HR if I took that test.
Speaker 1No, it's really funny, I actually had a superintendent, a local superintendent like I'm just going to take this. We were on a phone call. She did, and it said she should be an education administrator. Mine aligns perfectly with what I'm supposed to be doing. It's just really interesting. I've taken it several times and it says the same thing every time, so it's really pretty accurate. I think it's. It just gives the students an opportunity to investigate and see what's out there, awesome, thank you.
Speaker 3Is there anything else we want to touch on?
Speaker 4I think for me, brittany, what I wanted to make sure that we said is I know, throughout all of these experiences, throughout their school career, which is super important because the more that we layer these opportunities, the more that they start to think about themselves and what their role is after they graduate from high school, the better positioned that they're going to be for that future career.
Speaker 4But the other big piece is all throughout all of these opportunities, it truly is a community-wide initiative. We can't do this without our education partners and we can't do this without our local businesses and our local peers to be able to make this available. I know Sue mentioned earlier about you can't be what you can't see and we truly believe that, whether it's in-school programming, whether it is volunteering for in-school programming, whether it is being a mentor and helping to facilitate in our capstone spaces, or doing hands-on activities with students in JA Jobs Park or featuring your company on JA Career to Career, it's just so important to help wrap your arms around this because this is our future talent pipeline and these are the people that we're going to get to work with in the future.
Speaker 3And JA has a booth at the Naira conference in May and you will be at our workforce readiness luncheon in June, correct?
Speaker 4Yes, definitely, we will definitely be there. Feel free to come see us at those places. We're happy to talk to you. We're also happy to set up meetings and get more information about how you personally or your company can get involved, and we also have some contact information here too, about everybody who's talked today. We'd love to continue these conversations in the future.
Speaker 3Awesome. We're super appreciative of JA being our diamond, one of our diamond partners, and thank you so much for everybody taking the time today and discussing all things JA and how we can dive into the community Coming up next a member spotlight interview.
Speaker 9Today's podcast I have featuring Jana Ricker, who is our human resource business partner with Brunswick, and we have her as our member spotlight this time. Welcome, jana, hi, thank you. Thank you for being willing to join on this spotlight. Yeah, thank you for having me, so I'm glad to talk with you today. Tell us again you are a new member, so it's correct, you just joined this year I did.
Speaker 7I just joined officially this year. I'm beginning of January.
Speaker 9Awesome, awesome. And for I don't know if we had the opportunity but for the SHRM membership. Are you currently a member of SHRM?
Speaker 7the SHRM membership. Are you currently a member of SHRM? Not yet. I am hopeful that will come soon. I am working towards my employer to hopefully sponsor me for that membership. I'm excited and eager to join, hopefully later this year.
Speaker 9Excellent. And also keep in mind we have resources as well for you. We can assist with how to encourage that from your employer standpoint, as well as all of which. I'm sure you're learning all of the things that SHRM offers, so we will really want to help you with that, of course. So, jana, tell us about your journey and how you got into human resources or what your path spent.
Speaker 7Yes. So I started education in psychology and I loved it. I quickly realized to really go far in that field you need to have a lot of education, a lot of years put into that. I realized I did not want to do that, so I jumped over to the business. That realized I did not want to do that, so jumped over to business, the business world, and I did love it. I missed the people aspect and I also learned the quickly that I was not a math guru. So I did talk to my advisor and they had talked to me and asked me if I thought about human resources and I was like, well, what is that? And they told me, and it sounded like the perfect blend of both. And so then I changed my degree again to human resources. Thankfully, at that point I only had a few years invested and was able to transfer everything and have been in HR ever since. And ironically, my dad is in human resources. He was before he retired, so it must be in my genes I was bound to be in HR, okay.
Speaker 9Is there a certain area that you enjoy the most about it, or there were just anything in general?
Speaker 7Yeah. So I would say a few areas. What got me there was wanting to be a liaison between everyday workers and business and how can we blend the two and how can I help employees feel heard and seen, and also how can I put a face to a worker for the business. And then, now that I've been in it going on my seventh year, I have realized that I've really love giving the resources and tools and training development. So that is where I spend a lot of my time. Apart from the general duties of HR, I really focus a lot on the projects for the training and resources.
Speaker 9Okay, what would you say are your top three things that you consider so far? I know it's new to you, but being beneficial, or what stood out to you as being beneficial for being a NIRAM member?
Speaker 7So I believe, networking my first breakfast, my first time there you came right up to me. I went by myself I don't come from a large HR department, so it was just me and really getting out of that comfort zone. I wanted to talk to someone, but maybe not eager to myself to go up to someone yet. So I was in the networking but then also in having that connection with other HR minded individuals. And then I love that they offer the online webinars. Sometimes it's hard to break away from the office and so that's great. And then I am very excited about the onsite events that you hold each month and each quarter.
Speaker 9Great. We have some exciting things coming up for the rest of the year, so definitely looking forward to those things and meeting or meeting others and, of course, engaging with you again. So, jana, tell me about a fun thing here, fun fact about you If you could choose any song to walk into a room for the rest of your life, what would that be and why?
Speaker 7Okay. So that's a tough one, but I would say I really like the heart of glass by Blondie. I think every time that song comes on it's just fun. It makes you feel a little lighter. You can't help. But if you're in the car, roll the windows down, turn it up and just play it. I would say, probably that one, especially the rest of your life. That's all I hope.
Speaker 9it's a long time, so I would choose that that's a good one, a good tune, and I think they say I'm like HR people we have fun, we have good taste in music too. So you are, of course, we've said, your new member I like to ask about do you have a favorite or memorable speaker? So I'm going to put a little twist on it, because there's only probably been one or two maybe that you had attended. But if there was if nothing was money or anything do you have someone in mind that you think would be like an amazing speaker to have at a monthly luncheon, and why?
Speaker 7Anyone at all. So I just actually got done, I say reading, but it was an audible book with Matthew McConaughey and he is an intelligent individual and a very good speaker. So I think if money wasn't an issue, I would love to go to a seminar where he's talking about leadership or being confident or something along those lines.
Speaker 9That would be amazing. We'll put that on our Naira list. All right, I'll be there, and so another fun question here if you could choose any three apps to have on your phone, which ones would you choose?
Speaker 7Amazon number one. Okay, I would also say photos. I am always going back to photos. I try very hard to live in the moment, but I also try to capture photos and just remind myself. I have a couple little kids, I have three, and so I will always go back and look at the photos from when they were smaller. And yeah, and then I would say the Yucca app. So I it. The Yucca app scans food for hazards that's in it. So if you see me at the grocery store and I have my phone out, I'm scanning everything that goes into my cart.
Speaker 9Okay, you've enlightened me. I was not familiar with what Yucca was, so now I've learned something new. So that's amazing. Yeah, what would we do without those apps?
Speaker 7That's yeah, it's eye opening, to say the least.
Speaker 9For sure, Jana, do you have a favorite quote or a motto that you know, maybe not necessarily live by daily, but like just something you go back to, that you'd like to share?
Speaker 7Yeah. So I talked about how I'm really getting into the training within my position and trying to help others grow and develop, and so I came across this quote a few months back and it says if you're a leader and no one's following you, then you're just taking a walk. And that one has just stuck with me because you need to be a leader every day and the actions that you're doing, whether it's wearing your correct PPE, being friendly, smiling so that quote has stuck with me.
Speaker 9That's a real powerful one, I think. So, as we wrap up, do you have any encouraging words so far? Or even if we have a new listener, or maybe we encourage a new listener to listen in our podcast or check us out, what would you like to share with them or say to them?
Speaker 7I'll just say that you can't go wrong with joining Naira. There are so many resources available online, as well as the community that you're going to meet if you go to an on-site event. And if you're not sure that you can go to an on-site event, get started and start with the online webinars. It's a great step in the right direction just to keep you current with the ever-changing environment that we have in HR and just getting connected with other individuals who have the same mindset as you. It's a great step in building your professional portfolio and just building those relationships.
Speaker 9So important and I am so glad that I got to meet you at the membership breakfast and that, me reaching out, you were so willing especially new to do this spotlight. I think it's important to spotlight our new members as well as our members that have been with NYRA for quite a while, but we're glad that you've joined NYRA, jana. I definitely look forward to more opportunities to get to talk with you and for you to expand your networking too. So thanks again for joining me on the podcast today. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1Thank you for listening.
Speaker 2Stay tuned for our next episode.