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Work Forces

Work Forces

By: Work Forces
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 Seeking to optimize your organization for the future of work and learning? Join workforce and education strategists Julian Alssid and Kaitlin LeMoine as they speak with the innovators who are shaping the future of workforce and career preparation. Together, they will unpack the big problems these individuals are solving and discuss the strategies and tactics that really work. This bi-weekly show is for practitioners and policymakers looking for practical workforce and learning solutions that can be scaled and sustained.2025 Economics
Episodes
  • Dr. Joy Coates On Designing Systems for Economic Mobility

    Dr. Joy Coates On Designing Systems for Economic Mobility
    Apr 2 2026
    Dr. Joy Coates, Managing Director of Post-Secondary Opportunity at Third Sector, discusses how to build systems that prioritize real-world results, such as higher wages and better careers, for all learners. Drawing on a 20-year career spanning business and government, she explains how to move beyond good intentions to actually change how public programs and budgets are used to support people navigating life transitions, including those returning home after incarceration or managing mental health challenges. The conversation explores how to make sure a worker's certifications and skills count wherever they go, putting more power into the hands of the individual rather than the institution. Dr. Joy discusses the Nexus Method, a practical approach she co-authored with Nick Beadle, that leverages the regulatory concept of "advanced standing" to bridge the gap between skills-first hiring and traditional registered apprenticeships. Using examples from states like Alabama and Massachusetts, she highlights how businesses in industries like manufacturing can find and keep talent by making small, strategic changes to their hiring rules, such as removing unnecessary degree requirements. Finally, she outlines the vital role of local community colleges in connecting people in the community to the careers of the future. Transcript Julian: Welcome to the Work Forces podcast. I'm Julian Alssid. Kaitlin: And I'm Kaitlin LeMoine, and we speak with innovators who are shaping the future of work and learning. Together, we unpack the complex elements of workforce and career preparation and offer practical solutions that can be scaled and sustained. Julian: Kaitlin, one of the recurring themes on this podcast lately has been the need for a credential system that is transparent and easy to navigate—one where the skills you earn in one place actually count in another. And we've talked quite a lot about this recently with folks like Scott Cheney from Credential Engine and Amber Garrison Duncan from C-BEN. Kaitlin: We have. And today we're exploring additional strategies for moving from establishing the technical foundation to make these credentials portable to engaging different organizations and funding sources to build a credential landscape that puts these ideas into action for all learners. Julian: Exactly. And our guest today has spent her career making sure these systems actually work for everyone. Dr. Joy Coates is the Managing Director of Post-Secondary Opportunity at Third Sector. She specializes in taking different parts of our world—like schools, state agencies, colleges, employers—and helping them change how they use their resources so they can focus on what really matters: helping adult learners get into better careers. Kaitlin: Dr. Joy brings over 20 years of experience to this work, including senior roles at the Markle Foundation and the Tennessee Department of Education. She is also behind a new approach called the Nexus Method, which is really a practical way to bridge the gap between hiring based on skills and traditional apprenticeships. Julian: Welcome to Work Forces, Dr. Joy, and we're thrilled to have you with us today. Dr. Joy Coates: Good morning! I'm so excited to be here with you both. Julian: Well, we've given a little bit of your background, but we'd love to hear you tell us about your background and the journey that led you to your work at Third Sector. Dr. Joy Coates: What's wonderful about the experiences that I'm now having at Third Sector is it really was an opportunity—a culmination, if you will—of everything I've worked on for the past 20 years. Everything I've been fortunate enough to be in the room with as these key decisions are made in terms of education, economic development. So, a lot of my earlier work, when I was still in corporate even, I spent some time in investor relations for a real estate organization that was focused on what we were calling back then "triple bottom line," which meant the return on investor, green development, and then also the return for the community. As part of that work, I was over corporate social responsibility. So I was working with all these organizations around their compliance to make sure that women, vendors of color, and others who were underrepresented were actually getting these really lucrative development contracts in Boston. And that experience shaped me so much. And different board appointments I had as a result of that really helped me shift completely my focus into the nonprofit sector and really try to path in terms of constantly coming back to outcomes, constantly coming back to what outcomes and equity mean together. And so at Third Sector, we're always thinking about that. We're thinking about how everyone who has a seat in the ecosystem can not only be brought to the table, but roll that expertise up to the government so the government can make better decisions for their constituents and so that we can really see lasting ...
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    27 mins
  • Work Forces Rewind: Amber Garrison Duncan: Advancing Competency-Based Education

    Work Forces Rewind: Amber Garrison Duncan: Advancing Competency-Based Education
    Mar 17 2026
    Amber Garrison Duncan, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the Competency-Based Education Network (C-BEN), discusses the evolution of competency-based education from seven pioneering institutions in 2013 to over 600 institutions and 1,000 programs today. Drawing from her experience assessing co-curricular learning outcomes in traditional higher education and later as a grantmaker at Lumina Foundation, Garrison Duncan explains how CBE restores the promise of economic mobility by focusing on mastery of skills rather than seat time. She details C-BEN's systems-level work through initiatives like the Center for Skills and the Partnership for Skills Validation, which build consensus across K-12, higher education, and employers on quality standards for skills assessment and validation. The conversation explores how policy shifts like Workforce Pell and state-level innovations in Alabama, Arkansas, and Texas are accelerating the movement toward skills-based credentials, financial aid, and talent management systems. Garrison Duncan emphasizes the urgency of iterative innovation, comparing the current moment to the iPhone era where institutions must test and adapt quickly rather than waiting for lengthy pilot programs, and offers practical guidance for institutions to begin their CBE journey using C-BEN's Quality Framework while building authentic connections between learning outcomes and employer needs. Transcript Julian Alssid: Welcome to the Work Forces Podcast. I'm Julian Alssid. Kaitlin LeMoine: And I'm Kaitlin LeMoine, and we speak with innovators who are shaping the future of work and learning. Julian Alssid: Together, we unpack the complex elements of workforce and career preparation and offer practical solutions that can be scaled and sustained. Kaitlin LeMoine: This podcast is an outgrowth of our Work Forces Consulting practice. Through weekly discussions, we seek to share the trends and themes we see in our work and amplify impactful efforts happening in higher education industry and workforce development all across the country. We are grateful to Lumina Foundation for its past support during the initial development and launch of this podcast, and invite future sponsors of this effort, please check out our workforces podcast website to learn more. And so with that, let's dive in. Julian: Today, we are sharing a Work Forces Rewind of our interview with Amber Garrison Duncan, Executive Vice President and COO of the Competency-Based Education Network, or C-BEN. We decided to revisit this conversation following C-BEN's recent release of "Governing Talent Marketplaces: A Guide for State Leaders" which C-BEN developed in partnership with the National Governor's Association. This is a milestone for C-BEN, providing a roadmap for how states can build the governance and data systems necessary to make skills-based hiring a reality. Amber has long been a leader in this space, and our podcast discussion explores the critical role competency-based education plays in creating more equitable pathways to opportunity. It felt like the perfect time to bring these insights back to the forefront. We will be back in two weeks with our next episode. For now, let's go back to our conversation with Amber. Julian Alssid: You know, Kaitlin, it feels like just yesterday, but it was actually over a dozen years ago now that we were helping to launch College for America at Southern New Hampshire University, which was one of the very first competency-based education models. And back then CBE, it felt like a radical experiment, you know, trying to prove that demonstrating mastery of competencies and not seat time in a course was the key metric to helping people advance their education and careers. Kaitlin LeMoine: Yeah, it's true. And while it does feel like that was just yesterday, the competency based movement has come so far in so many years. While CBE is still viewed as an alternative, non traditional approach by some in the field of education and training, many institutions have and are continuing to holistically implement competency based models to go beyond the traditional credit hour and ensure a curricular emphasis on what learners can do with what they know, and as we think about the intersection of work and learning in which we're all operating, this movement has only been further strengthened as employers further focus on skills based hiring and learners seek to clearly communicate their skills and abilities in a competitive job market. Julian Alssid: Yes, and our guest today is with an organization that's been central to growing the CBE field, Amber Garrison Duncan is Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the Competency-Based Education Network, or C-BEN. In her role, Amber spearheads initiatives to strengthen collaboration between education and workforce partners with a focus on competency and skill taxonomies and quality assurance before C-BEN, Amber spent eight years as a grant...
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    30 mins
  • Scott Cheney: Making Sense of the Credential Landscape

    Scott Cheney: Making Sense of the Credential Landscape
    Mar 3 2026
    Scott Cheney, Chief Executive Officer of Credential Engine, discusses bringing transparency to a credential marketplace that has grown to over 1.85 million unique credentials representing $2.3-2.4 trillion annually—a tenth of the U.S. economy. Drawing on over 30 years at the intersection of workforce development and education, Cheney describes how the explosive growth in micro-credentials and digital badges creates navigation challenges for learners and employers. He explains Credential Engine's Credential Transparency Description Language (CTDL), a data format enabling disconnected systems to communicate like travel booking platforms do for airlines and hotels. The conversation explores state-level implementations in Arkansas, Alabama, Tennessee, Texas, and Florida, where credential registries help workers compare programs, costs, and outcomes, and innovative work with AACRAO to credential the skills of 40 million Americans with some college but no degree through verified digital badges. Cheney emphasizes that digitization empowers learners to own and share credentials rather than relying on paper transcripts, urging learners to request digital formats, educators to issue them proactively, and highlighting federal support for talent marketplaces that will transform credential navigation. Transcript Julian Alssid: Welcome to the Work Forces podcast. I'm Julian Alssid. Kaitlin LeMoine: And I'm Kaitlin LeMoine, and we speak with innovators who are shaping the future of work and learning. Julian Alssid: Together, we unpack the complex elements of workforce and career preparation and offer practical solutions that can be scaled and sustained. Kaitlin LeMoine: This podcast is an outgrowth of our workforce consulting practice. Through weekly discussions, we seek to share the trends and themes we see in our work and amplify impactful efforts happening in higher education, industry, and workforce development all across the country. We are grateful to Lumina Foundation for its past support during the initial development and launch of this podcast, and invite future sponsors of this effort. Please check out our Work Forces podcast website to learn more. And so with that, let's dive in. Julian Alssid: Kaitlin, we talk a lot on this podcast about skills-based hiring, competency-based education and helping learners translate what they know into career opportunities. But there's a fundamental infrastructure challenge underneath all of that. How do we actually make sense of the credential landscape? Kaitlin LeMoine: It's true. The ecosystem is incredibly fragmented. We have traditional degrees, certificates, badges, licenses, apprenticeships, and industry certifications. And those are just the formal credentials. Many of these systems don't effectively speak to one another and learners and employers alike struggle to understand what different credentials actually represent in terms of skills and competencies. Julian Alssid: Right. And it's not just about quantity, though the numbers are staggering. It's about transparency and comparability. If I earn a credential in cybersecurity from one provider, how does that compare to a similar sounding credential from another? What skills does it actually represent? And how do employers make sense of all this when they're trying to hire? Kaitlin LeMoine: And those types of questions bring us to our guest today. We're joined by Scott Cheney, Chief Executive Officer of Credential Engine, the organization working to bring transparency to the credentials marketplace. Scott has spent over 30 years at the intersection of workforce development, post-secondary education, and economic development. Before founding Credential Engine, he served as Policy Director for Workforce, Economic Development, and Pensions for Senator Patty Murray and the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. Prior to his work on Capitol Hill, Scott formed his own consulting firm working with states, companies, foundations, and think tanks on education, training, and employment issues. He has also held positions with the National Alliance of Business, the American Society for Training and Development, and the US Chamber of Commerce. Scott has also been involved in learner and worker mobility efforts globally, including serving on the Board of Directors of the Velocity Network Foundation and on the Strategic Advisory Committee of the Groningen Declaration Network. Julian Alssid: Scott, welcome to Work Forces, we're thrilled to have you with us today. Scott Cheney: Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here. Appreciate the opportunity. Kaitlin LeMoine: So as we dive in today, Scott, I know we gave your bio, but please tell us a bit more about your background and what led you to Credential Engine. Scott Cheney: Yeah, the background is not necessarily a clean line. So, you know, we talk about pathways, we talk about how do people find their way to certain places. I can't at all guarantee that ...
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    37 mins
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