Director of Workforce, Data and Analytics

Major Duties:

Leads talent attraction programs for the Greater Cedar Rapids area, leveraging and coordinating public and private sector resources to implement strategies that grow the area’s workforce population. Supervises workforce functions and serves on the Leadership Team.

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Leverage and coordinate area and statewide talent attraction initiatives
• Lead the area’s talent attraction program, overseeing digital marketing strategies, championing the area to prospects, ensuring positive candidate experiences and facilitating connections between prospects and area employers
• Lead Workforce Innovation Council of area stakeholders invested in the success of talent attraction strategies to advise on implementation of growth strategies
• Use area growth plans as guides to build consensus among stakeholders around additional elements of a coordinated growth strategy
• Participate with the Economic Alliance’s leadership team, effectively coordinating with other programs, events and services for efficiency and effectiveness, especially within the Economic Development core function
• Regularly consult, communicate and collaborate with the City Councils and key City staff of Cedar Rapids, Hiawatha and Marion, and with key private sector supporters of any shared initiatives
• Build and maintain relationships with HR directors, recruiters, career services divisions
• Serve as key representative at workforce functions at state and local levels (i.e. fairs)
• Use internal/external data to advance workforce strategies, communicate to members and stakeholders and make adjustments, when necessary, to the talent attraction messages, geographies and target industries
• Collects, analyzes and presents community and regional data to show and forecast business and economic trends to Economic Alliance members
• Collects, analyzes and presents internal data to support organizational and operational goals and strategies, and strategic planning exercises
• Creates and maintains databases containing information related to community demographics, economic indicators, community development, and other related areas
• Reviews and analyzes information from Chmura, LOIS, COLI and other databases
• Gathers and provides information to support EA business attraction and retention
• Researches and applies new or best practice methods to emerging trends and technologies and communicates this knowledge clearly and concisely.
•  Supports research and data requests from internal customers and certain Economic Alliance members
• Designs and administers surveys; analyzes and compiles collected data to assess customer opinions and preferences
• Supports development of dashboards and other data visualizations to report metrics
• Mentor and lead staff members, establishing a clear line of sight between the organization’s goals and objectives and the organization’s mission, vision, and purpose
• Observe, monitor, and evaluate staff performance, recognizing strong performance or addressing performance problems through corrective action

Education & Experience Required:

• Bachelor’s degree required, master’s degree preferred from an accredited college or university with the most relevant degrees being marketing, business administration or similar / related fields
• 8-10 years of senior level experience developing and leading workforce recruitment initiatives; marketing management experience preferred

Required Skills and Abilities:

• Demonstrates ability to contribute to organizational and community transformation
• Dynamic, agile, energetic, and creative leader with proven results 
• Builds strong working relationships with internal and/or external stakeholders
• Anticipates and plans for opportunities or threats that may impact talent attraction and workforce growth strategies
• Champions collaboration over competition
• Requires that decisions and direction from stakeholders and partners in area workforce growth strategies be based on data and sound reasoning
• Clearly communicates successes, challenges, objective data points and other key information to stakeholders.  
• Has industry-wide perspective and broad knowledge of the disciplines most important to the success of talent attraction strategies.
• Ability to use good judgement
• Ability to speak in front of a large audience – strong presentation skills
• Self-Starter with a strong ability to learn (i.e. databases, platforms)