The Clay County JobSight is helping one of eastern Kentucky’s largest employers recover from a recent fire that destroyed its Jackson County factory.

The JobSight is providing a special workshop centered around the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) Work Experience Program to help Mid-South Electronics streamline tedious human resources processes, hire qualified new employees, and recover from the Jan. 16 fire that gutted its 240,000-square-foot Annville facility, said Lee Jones, manager of the Clay County JobSight.

The WIA Work Experience Program allows participants to work in full-time paid positions while training. The program gives the company time to evaluate prospective employees before hiring them, and gives the job seekers a chance to earn while they learn.

“It makes me feel really good that we’re doing something that is directly helping both job seekers and an employer at the same time,” Jones said of the partnership. “I think it’s wonderful.”

The program is delivered through the Clay County JobSight, a one-stop workforce center located in the Daniel Boone Development Council in Manchester and operated by the Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program, Inc. (EKCEP). The JobSight provides access to a variety of employer services and more than a dozen state and federal employment and training programs, all under one roof.

Mid-South Electronics produces ice makers, dispensers, and other refrigerator components for companies like Frigidaire and General Electric. It employed 700 workers before the fire.

Jones said the JobSight and EKCEP already had plans to partner with Mid-South Electronics in various WIA services before the company was idled by the massive fire.

Soon after the fire, state economic development officials approved a series of tax abatements for the company that allowed it to purchase a facility in the Jackson County Regional Industrial Park. Production resumed in late January, and in early February Mid-South opened its fifth production line since the fire.

Jones said she and EKCEP Business Solutions Manager Crawford Blakeman met with Mid-South Electronics managers Mark Weaver and Mitchell Ball soon after the fire to see how the JobSight could best assist the company in its recovery.

Jones said the JobSight would help the company find and train new employees through the WIA Work Experience Program, workshops, and other employer services. The JobSight also set up a classroom to assist the company in training new employees as it re-establishes its workforce.

As part of the cooperative effort, some potential new employees for the company’s renascent operation in Annville or its sister plant in Manchester are sent to the JobSight’s WIA Work Experience workshops. In the workshops, company representatives give applicants detailed information on Mid-South Electronics and its expectations concerning on-the-job behavior, attendance, attitudes, workplace communication, productivity, and quality.

Through the workshops, Mid-South and its applicants also use JobFit, EKCEP’s on-line profiling and job-matching service. JobFit matches job seekers with the precise requirements of a job. Employers assess their best-performing employees to develop a profile of the thinking styles, behavioral patters, and occupational interests that best match the job. Jobseekers then take an on-line survey that identifies their thinking styles, behavioral patterns, and occupational interests.

“Our company sees a lot of turnover in those first two weeks after new employees are hired, and we’ve found that some people are good employees but just don’t match the job,” Mitchell Ball said. “That’s where JobFit seems to help us out the most.”

In the workshop, applicants also receive training in how to behave and perform in job interviews. The three-day workshop concludes with participants actually interviewing for a job with a Mid-South Electronics representative.

Applicants who successfully complete the workshop enter into the WIA Work Experience Program and go directly to work. Two recent workshops at the JobSight have yielded eight applicants who went directly to work at Mid-South Electronics through the program. They will remain in the program—working full-time for the company—for six weeks. At the end of that period, the company has the option to hire the participants.

Jones said that although some of the applicants may have had employment difficulties in the past, the current cooperative effort gives them a real chance to succeed.

“We give them the opportunity, and what they do with that opportunity is up to them,” she said. “But when they take part in these workshops, there is a better chance that they will be successful Work Experience placements. Then we are investing in people that will work out both for us and the employer.”

Ball agreed.

“The Work Experience Program gets people back in workforce, and by the time they’re on as full-time employees, they’re experienced and the rough edges are worn off,” Ball said. He added that Mid-South Electronics “definitely” plans to continue its partnership with the JobSight because of the success of the initial workshops.

“For us, the fire has certainly been a blessing in disguise, because we now have someone to help us in our job recruiting processes,” Ball said. “It has turned into a win-win situation all the way around.”