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Workforce Potential
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Workforce Potential Â
Workforce Potential
SM
The Workforce Potential is the number of additional individuals your community might be able to pull into the local labor force. The workforce potential has 40 different components, specifically, the number of new employees in each of the nearly 40 different types of individuals (Workforce Elements). For example, the workforce potential for your county will estimate how many more veterans you might be able to pull into the local workforce, how many individuals with a disability you might be able to hire, the number of males 25-54 years old, etc.
To create the Workforce Potential, we compare your county with the 3,143 U.S. counties and the District of Columbia. Below is one of 40 workforce potential graphs, each representing a different subset of the labor force. The 3,000+ counties are ranked from the worst (rank = 0) to the best (rank = 1) in terms of the fraction of individuals either working or not working. In this example, the fraction of Individuals with a Disability who are not in the labor force varies from about 90% for the lowest-performing counties to about 10% for the best counties.
This data can be used to compare your county with your aspirational peers - the counties that look like yours regarding the fraction of individuals working but that have a slightly higher labor force participation rate. For the case of Individuals with a Disability, we can use the estimate of an improved participation rate for this subset of individuals, together with the number of individuals with a disability in your county, to calculate a reasonable number of additional individuals with a disability you might be able to pull into the local workforce. This process is repeated for the 39 other workforce elements.
A 10% improvement in rank (from the median value) is used for all 40 elements to allow better comparisons between workforce elements. This information can then be used with other local information to decide which labor pools are likely the largest and which pools you may be best equipped to attract to your organization.
Since all potentials are relative, they can be scaled up or down. If your organization employs 1% of all individuals in the county, multiplying the values by 1% will give a better estimate of possibilities. Of course, your efforts versus your competitions' efforts also affect the outcomes you achieve.
Keep in mind that there are variations in the potential between categories. Some are annualized numbers, while others are totals. Also, the time to make changes can vary from months to years. It is best to begin by comparing potentials within each category.
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The next step in the process is to understand and address the various constraints preventing the different types of individuals from working for you. The Workforce Root Cause Matrix links the 40 Workforce Elements to the 25 root causes that can limit hiring success and retention.​