Rini Parekh - Gainful Employment & Family-Sustaining Wages

​Hi, my name is Rini Parekh and I’m an MNA VISTA who serves with Corporation for a Skilled Workforce (CSW). CSW conducts occupational research and consulting with the goal of helping people find gainful employment and earn family-sustaining wages.

Currently, my major focus at CSW is a research project aimed at understanding local food systems in Michigan. As part of this project, I have developed a stakeholder database, and I am currently interviewing stakeholders from different organizations such as MSU’s Center for Regional Food Systems. This effort is part of a larger project to take inventory of key people and organizations in Michigan’s food industry. Data from this work will be used to promote the purchase and consumption of Michigan-grown foods. This project will have a twofold impact: first, it will connect communities to local food sources, and second, it will support local food growers and distributors, thereby increasing their income and viability.

My work at CSW has also helped illuminate the ways that organizations can help prepare job seekers for meaningful work. For example, I am currently helping a coworker develop competency profiles for different occupations (e.g., CNA, medical assistant). This research will help CSW develop an app that employers will use to assess what competencies to look for in potential applicants, and that job seekers will use to determine if they have the right credentials for a job. Similarly, I have also researched the different occupational training models offered by Goodwill in different states. My work will be used to evaluate the pros and cons of different approaches and make recommendations for future job trainings.

Finally, I am working on a project to streamline CSW’s client relations. I am collecting contacts from all CSW staff members and then integrating them into a customer relationship management tool called Salesforce. By moving contacts to Salesforce, CSW will gain a better understanding of its external stakeholders and be able to communicate with them more effectively.

Serving at Corporation for a Skilled Workforce has been an eye-opening experience for me, and I feel like I have gained a valuable new perspective into how organizations can help reduce barriers to employment. I hope to further my research skills by learning how to utilize labor market information, and I also hope to gain deeper knowledge about the field of workforce development.