Resource
Launch & Design Sector Strategies: Building the Foundation for Success
About
The early stages of a sector partnership lay the foundation for long-term success. Activities include engaging partners, establishing roles and responsibilities, identifying priority industries, and reviewing data to understand the industry’s challenges and workers’ needs. On this page, decision-makers can assess readiness and understand the organizational resources needed to operationalize sector strategies, while practitioners can explore best practices to drive day-to-day success.
Where to Start:
The Sector Strategies Implementation Guide serves as your roadmap to action. The guide provides practical steps, tools, and resources to support each phase of sector strategies implementation. ·
- LAUNCH Phase – Prepare to launch your sector partnership: identify target sectors and geographic scope, select partners and define roles, and create a vision. This section of the implementation guide includes key considerations, stakeholder engagement strategies, and essential first actions. Start on page 15.
- DESIGN Phase – Take a structured approach to shaping your strategy: gather and validate data to understand the sector’s challenges and worker needs. This section of the implementation guide covers best practices, decision-making prompts, and actionable templates to refine your plan. Start on page 28.
For a guided journey through the Launch and Design phases, watch the Sector Strategies: Launching Partnerships and Designing Solutions webinar recording (90 mins).
Next Steps:
After reviewing the Implementation Guide, explore additional resources on key content areas. Each of the links below brings you to a Workforce GPS page with additional context and resources on the topic.
Data-Driven Decision Making
- Deeper Dive into Demand-Side Data: Identifying Target Sectors – Resources on using various data sources to identify targeted industry sectors to launch a sector partnership.
- Using and Communicating Data to Drive High-Performing Sector Strategies – Webinar on using labor market information (LMI) to build strong sector partnerships.
Leadership and Capacity
- Changing Roles for Workforce Systems in Carrying Out Sector Strategies – Brief on the workforce system’s role in sector strategies and how sector strategies can drive regional workforce system change.
- Workforce Development Boards as Intermediaries – Brief that describes the role of workforce boards as sector partnership intermediaries.
Business Engagement
- Industry Engagement: An Overview – Briefs and a peer learning group recording that offer general guidance on building relationships with industry partners.
- Assessing Business Engagement – A toolkit and brief to guide discussions about the effectiveness of existing partnerships with employers.
- Business Engagement Self-Assessment Tool – A self-assessment tool designed to help states and regions understand the effectiveness of current business engagement services and where enhancements can be made.
Funding
- Funding Innovations – Briefs and an online workshop recording that identify effective strategies to fund sector strategies.
Materials
Comments
Content Details
Topics:
Target Populations:
Programs:
Geographic Locations:
Industry Sectors:
- Last Updated:
- Created:
- Resource Publication Date: 2025
- Posted by: Germell Hosch
- Posted in: Business Engagement Collaborative