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Work-Based Learning

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​​​​​​​​​​​​​Work-Based Learning (WBL) can assist your company with growing and developing talent using flexible, employer driven skill-upgrading work based learning strategies. WBL also provides career seekers with the opportunity to engage and interact with employers, while learning to demonstrate essential employability and technical skills necessary for today’s workforce.​​  For more information, please see the Kentucky Worked Based Learning Manua​l​.

​Service learning is a teaching and learning strategy that integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility and strengthen communities.​

​​Mentoring is one component of work-based learning. A mentor is a volunteer from the business/industrial community that helps the career seeker become aware of career opportunities and work ethics in a one-to-one relationship beyond the formal obligations of a teaching or supervisory role.​

Shadowing is learning through observation and is a way to form partnerships between employer and career seekers. Shadowing is an opportunity for a career seeker to spend a limited amount of time with an individual in a chosen occupation to become familiar with the duties associated with that occupation, the physical setting of the work, and the compatibility of the job with his or her own career goals.​​

​​Entrepreneurship education allows the career seeker to develop a deeper understanding of economic principles and apply classroom learning by organizing and operating a business enterprise. An entrepreneurship training program should involve career seekers developing individual entrepreneurship projects in which they assume all risks in the expectation of gaining a profit or further knowledge. An entrepreneurship program may be a component of a specific course within the curriculum or be a stand-alone course for credit.​

​​A career seeker work experience or internship is a type of "Work-Based Experience Learning Program" for a participant who has completed extensive preparation relating to an identified career area. These are planned, structured learning experiences in a workplace for a limited period. Work experiences or internships may be paid or unpaid, as appropriate and consistent with other laws, such as the Fair Labor Standards Act. Work experiences or internships may be within the private for-profit, non-profit, or public sectors.​

​​Cooperative education is a paid educational program consisting of in-school instruction combined with program-related on-the-job work experience in a business or industrial establishment. These are planned experiences supervised by the school and the employer to ensure that each phase contributes to the student's Individual Learning Plan (ILP) and Career Pathway.​

Transitional jobs are a type of work experience local boards may provide under WIOA and are considered an individualized career service. Transitional jobs are time-limited and wage-paid work experiences that can be subsidized up to 100 percent. These jobs are in the public, private, or non-profit sectors.​

On the Job Training (OJT) provides reimbursements to employers to help compensate for the costs associated with skills upgrade training for newly hired employees and the lost production of current employees providing the training (including management staff). OJT training can assist employers looking to expand their businesses and need additional staff trained with specialized skills. OJT employers may receive up to 50% reimbursement of the wage rate (in certain circumstances, up to 75%) of OJT trainees to help defray personnel training costs. Under some programs, such as those funded by H-1B fees, OJT reimbursement may be as high as 90%, depending on employer size.​

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​​Customized training is designed to meet the specific requirements of an employer or group of employers with the commitment that the business or businesses employ an individual(s) upon successful completion of the training. In most instances, the business must pay for a significant portion of the cost of training, as determined by the Local Workforce Development Board (WDB).​

Training is designed to meet the needs of an employer or group of employers to retain a skilled workforce or avert layoffs. T​raining can be used to either:

  • Help avert potential layoffs of employees; or
  • Obtain the skills necessary to retain employment, such as increasing the skill levels of employees so they can be promoted within the company and create backfill opportunities for new or less-skilled employees.

Unlike other trainings, employers, instead of individuals, must meet the local eligibility criteria to receive funds for training their workforce. In most circumstances, incumbent workers being trained must have been employed with the company for at least six months. Employers who receive these funds are required to meet requirements for providing the non-federal share of the cost of the training.

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