Career Path Services professionals focus on transformational business engagement
Benton-Franklin County, PacMtn
Career Path Services continue to add professional certifications. In addition to team members earning their Certified Workforce Development Professional (CWDP) credential, several members from Benton-Franklin County and PacMtn are now equipped to develop business relationships as Certified Business Engagement Professionals (CBEP). The credential was attained through a highly interactive program offered by Business U, the only institutionally accredited national organization that guides stronger business-to-business engagement through transformational relationships.
Before dedicating time to complete the online learnings and demonstrations, the team felt the 8-week program seemed too short to earn an accredited CBEP credential. But with excitement and motivation to refresh its engagement with the local business community, the team grew curious about each module. “Before we got started, I felt like it was something (we) really needed to add”, says Jessie Cardwell, the Employment Specialist at the Juvenile Justice Center in Benton-Franklin County. “Being able to better engage businesses and market the services I can provide became a bigger role for me”, she adds. The modules include a business engagement framework, expanding engagement opportunities, workforce development strategies, one-to-one & one-to-many engagement, and identifying the value presented to overcome objectives.
Katie Engel displays her new CBEP Certificate. She and six others are the first to attain this accredited credential.
It wasn’t an easy accomplishment to achieve. Though it was perceived to be a short duration training, the team quickly learned how each week’s assignments challenged their understanding of business engagement. “The Business Engagement Action Planner (BEAP, capstone project) was a challenging assignment”, said Katie Engel, Employment Specialist at WorkSource Columbia Basin. Her teammate Vanessa Cedergreen, added, “creating time to be intentional on completing the BEAP, we had to collaborate as a team in order to be rewarded with the certification.”
The team will work toward transformational relationships with the CBEP credential by earning the trust of local area employers and ensuring that each interaction isn’t transactional, or “what do you need today?” Instead, businesses can expect to benefit from the refreshed engagement approach to matching qualified candidates with the business’s open positions or develop a strategy that can be implemented in the near or distant future. Cardwell says, “our portfolio is designed to develop relationships of competency and support to businesses that may not need us today, but maybe in the future.” Engel adds, “we have a better understanding of the value we provide to employers and are prepared to speak the language that recruiters and human resources professionals can relate to.”
Congratulations and thank you for your commitment toward achieving excellence and guiding Career Path Services through the dignity of work!
If you’re an employer interested in working with one of our business-to-business experts in Washington state, please contact Victor Rapez-Betty at VRapezBetty@careerpathservices.org.
The following Career Path Services employees are now Certified Business Engagement Professionals:
Benton-Franklin County – Jessie Cardwell; Vanessa Cedergreen, Employment Specialist; Katie Engel; Kayci Loftus, Director of Workforce; Marla McMackin, Employment Specialist; Ricardo Valdez, Supervisor; and Heather Woodruff, Program Manager.
PacMtn – Jessica Brasher, Program Manager
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