Creating more responsive and equitable workforce development tools and services requires a clarity of purpose and intentional planning, outreach, and development of tools and services. To achieve this,

• Develop a dynamic, ever-evolving, and open planning process through continuous feedback from multiple stakeholders over the length of the initiative.

• Place equity at the center of the planning process with a constant focus on structural inequities that should be addressed in the current workforce development system.

• Identify who you are aiming to support with better workforce development and training tools and services.  If your target audience is broad, determine if it can be segmented and prioritized initially for planning purposes, understanding that there will be various intersectionalities among subgroups and how you approach different individuals and groups will change over time.

• Ensure your planning and advisory groups include broad representation including those you are aiming to support as well as partners who work regularly with those individuals either in the workforce development area or other related areas.

• Use human-centered design principles from the outset by working with users to understand their needs, perceptions, and aspirations and to inform tool design and service development. Include the target audience in testing.

• Assess how traditional ways of planning may be biased and perpetuate a deficit model of thinking that can replicate economic marginalization and structural racism. This may require including outside partners to help organizations facilitate honest organizational assessment.

• Establish reciprocal accountability where partners ensure that work is being completed efficiently and that the voices of all stakeholders are listened to.

• Integrate tools and services into cross-agency programs and systems or with other organizational partners to help ensure sustainability.