The Conversation Continues: What’s Next for Workforce: Leading in the ‘New Ab-Normal’

Posted Sep 30, 2025 by Rick

My conversation with workforce system leaders continued last week at the Pennsylvania Workforce Development Association’s (PWDA) Workforce Leaders Symposium in Scranton, PA.

The room was full on folks from a wide variety of system partners, from One Stop Operators to Community College and training pros, and community-based organizations (CBO’s) – all there to find out what the new ab-normal was all about!

We started with an objective scan of our current condition – one that has found us survive a pandemic and it’s “new normal” only to make it to today’s ab-normal level of chronic uncertainty and change! And this new ab-normal is being shaped by a number of factors, including:

• New technologies that have the power to improve system service delivery and productivity, but that also are reshaping labor-markets

• A new administration in Washington and shifting policy and budgetary trends;

• Uncertainty in the economy, driven by tariffs and all the above, that very well may increase demand for system services even while system resources and staffing levels are insufficient to meet current demand.

We examined how this level of uncertainty is impacting system productivity and staff turn-over, and the leader’s role in cultivating a hopeful future vision that professional staff can find energizing. 

So many leaders I encounter, empathizing with the level of stress professional staff are exposed to daily, feel compelled to press “PAUSE” – to restrain from asking staff to do anything more – choosing to breathe and hold things in place as Congress decides on future funding and policy directions. But PAUSE is exactly the wrong leadership approach for these times!

Leaders need to embrace their role as “culture curators” – introducing a call for innovation and new approaches to build customer value and improve productivity for professional staff. Leaders need to set a vision for a better future – even if we can only take baby steps forward toward that vision – to give staff a reminder of their ‘why’ and challenge them to move forward in the direction of their dreams.

Last week in Scranton, folks rallied to this call for action, just as a group I worked with at Maryland’s Raising the Bar 2025 Conference earlier in September did. Folks seemed to accept my reminder that the status quo is not going to get this system where it needs to go and embrace the idea of moving toward “fast forward” rather than “pause.”

The conversation will continue next month when I visit my friends at New Jersey’s @Garden State Employment and Training Association (GESETA) Annual Conference in Atlantic City, and I can’t wait to engage with another group of system leaders!