Workers at the Center: How Our Workforce Development Practices are Changing Lives

At H-CAP, we’ve always operated from a worker-centered orientation.  

Workers are a driving force behind the development of our labor-management training partnerships, our apprenticeship model, and workers sit squarely at the center of our narrative building and policy work.  

Our commitment to listening and learning from workers - primarily women of color - in the healthcare sector is one of the things that sets us apart. Our holistic approach to supporting workers’ needs and aspirations is central to our operating model.  

Who We Are

Our mission at H-CAP is to transform healthcare workforce development and to support highly-trained, highly-valued professionals to better meet the need for quality care.  

Together and alongside employers, unions, and workers H-CAP has pioneered and supported the growth of  labor/management training partnerships as a model workforce approach for centering workers and balancing employer interests in the design, development, implementation, and evaluation of training needs and significant workplace issues within the healthcare industry. Our apprenticeship models are worker-centered and grounded in equity and inclusion.  

These training programs seek to lift up workers, create a pipeline of well-trained staff for employers, and ensure that healthcare continues to fulfill its promise as a primary engine of the economy, both nationally and locally. These partnerships provide wrap-around services and support to workers, center workers’ interests, customize training solutions to meet workers and employer needs, balance interests across workers and employers, and support job placement, promotion, and retention.  

These programs have been cited as a model training approach as part of the workforce development ecosystem rooted in principles of equity and focused on balancing worker and employer interests. 

Voices of Workers  

We recently sat down with a few workers who have participated in our apprenticeship and labor-management training programs. What we heard was a reminder of how powerful these program strategies can be.  

For example, Teniah shared with us that working in traditional medicine had always been a dream for her. The opportunity to transition to a registered apprenticeship where she could earn wages, learn new skills, earn a certification, and develop a network and mentorship opportunities, was unfathomable. “The thought of earning a certification while being paid seemed so foreign,”she shared with us. More than that, she felt that her employer was investing in her and that made her more eager to contribute and excited about the future possibilities.  

Morgani’s apprenticeship combined on the job training with classroom training.  This dual training model reinforced her classroom learning in the work setting, ensuring that theoretical ideas were transferred in real time for on-the-job application, testing, and learning-through-doing. Mogani was in a cohort model for her apprenticeship program which allowed her to build friendships and peer mentors and networks. Especially for adult student learners, the ability to have a built in network of support was life changing for her “We became like family to each other” she told us.  

We are also watching, in real time, workers gain confidence in their skills and abilities as a result of apprenticeship opportunities. For example, Imelda felt like there was so much more she could do but didn’t know where to start to achieve her goals. When the opportunity for a new coding apprenticeship became available, she jumped at the opportunity. Today, she’s a full time Medical Coder which allows her flexibility to manage home and work responsibilities. In her words: “The apprenticeship experience gave me confidence. I gained confidence, and I now know that I can accomplish anything that comes my way.” 

National Reach and Person-Level Impacts

Nationally, our partnerships span 16 states plus Washington, DC, including more than 1,000 employers and 700,000 workers across every setting of healthcare – from home care, to skilled nursing facilities, to clinics and hospitals. In total, we and our partners interact with tens of thousands of healthcare workers every year.  

These are just three stories from our collection of stories from workers who tell us how labor management training partnerships and apprenticeships are positively impacting them every day. The combination of centering the person and worker - holistically - through real-work, pay, on-the-job learning and skill development alongside mentorship - has transformed lives and opened up doors to career opportunities.  

For us, centering workers is a way of working. We know when we do that, we can design and operationalize workforce development models that truly do work.