Field GUide Chapter 4:
building mobility pathways
How do we turn opportunity into lasting mobility?
Chapter 4
Building Mobility Pathways
Chapter 1
The Workforce Challenge
What problem are we actually trying to solve?
Chapter 3 explored how communities can recognize where economic mobility is already emerging. By looking beyond simple measures of job growth, we found that the strongest opportunities appear where accessibility, wages, employer demand, workforce scale, and local context begin to reinforce one another.
That understanding naturally leads to the next question: How do communities turn opportunity into lasting economic mobility?
Recognizing opportunity is an essential first step. But opportunity alone does not change lives.
An industry may offer strong wages, employers may be hiring, and workers may be eager to enter the field. The opportunity may even be large enough to justify significant investment. Yet none of those conditions, by themselves, guarantee economic mobility. People still need a way in. They need opportunities to gain experience, build skills, navigate career transitions, continue learning as industries evolve, and advance throughout their working lives.
Communities face a similar challenge. Employers must be willing to partner. Education providers must adapt to changing workforce needs. Workforce organizations must help people navigate opportunities rather than simply access services. Public and private investments must reinforce one another instead of operating in isolation.
Opportunity becomes economic mobility only when it is connected through intentional pathways. Throughout Season One, we found that the most promising workforce investments shared a common characteristic. They did not simply create new programs. They strengthened the connections between people, employers, education, workforce organizations, and communities.
Those connections transformed isolated opportunities into pathways that people could enter, navigate, and continue building throughout their careers. This is an important shift in perspective. Communities do not need to build an entirely new workforce system from scratch. More often, they need to better connect the one they already have.
The result is not a blueprint for a single workforce program. It is a framework for building mobility pathways—one that helps communities connect existing assets, strengthen critical partnerships, improve the flow of information, and create more coordinated systems of opportunity.
Together, the evidence from Season One suggests four building blocks for designing workforce pathways that help more people learn, work, and thrive in Hawaiʻi.
Chapter 2
Access to opportunity
How is opportunity experienced across Hawaiʻi’s workforce?
Chapter 3
Recognizing opportunity
Where should communities focus their efforts?
Chapter 5
NEXT Questions
What questions remain unanswered? What do we need to know to learn more?
Building block 1:
Design around people, not programs
People experience pathways. Organizations experience programs.
Communities naturally organize workforce development around programs. Education providers offer courses. Workforce organizations provide services. Employers create internships and apprenticeships. Government funds initiatives. Philanthropy invests in projects. Each organization focuses on the part of the workforce system it is responsible for delivering.
From an organizational perspective, this makes perfect sense. Season One suggests that people experience the workforce system very differently. Workers are not trying to navigate programs. They are trying to build careers.
A high school student is not looking for an internship simply to complete a graduation requirement. They are looking for a meaningful first step into the world of work. An adult returning to education is not pursuing a credential for its own sake. They are trying to create new opportunities for themselves and their families. An incumbent worker seeking additional training is not enrolling in another program. They are trying to advance.
Although these experiences occur at different stages of life, they share something important. They often involve multiple employers, educators, workforce organizations, and community partners over many years. From a person’s perspective, these experiences are all connected. The workforce system should be, too.
Throughout Season One, we repeatedly found that the strongest workforce investments helped people continue moving rather than simply complete a single program. Paid internships opened doors to future employment. Career-connected education created opportunities for advancement. Good Jobs Hawaiʻi demonstrated how short-term training could help incumbent workers move into higher-quality careers. Our growing understanding of Hawaiʻi’s STARs workforce reinforced that learning and advancement occur throughout a person’s career—not only through traditional educational pathways.
Viewed separately, these appear to be different workforce initiatives. Viewed together, they become one journey. This leads to the first building block for creating mobility pathways: Design around people’s journeys—not organizational programs.
The guiding question becomes: “What journey is someone trying to make, and how can we help them continue moving?”
Evidence from the Workforce Understory Data
Paid internships can create entry points into longer-term careers when they connect learners to continued education, employment, and advancement.
Most Hawaiʻi workers are STARs, developing skills through multiple educational, workplace, military, and life experiences rather than a single traditional pathway
Many STAR workers are already close to a living wage and may be positioned for advancement when continued learning and career opportunities are available.
Completing college does not automatically lead to a living-wage or well-matched career, reinforcing the need to support people beyond program completion.
Together, these findings suggest that workforce investments create the greatest value when they are connected into pathways that support continued advancement rather than isolated services.
Why This Matters
Communities often organize workforce systems around institutions. People organize their lives around goals. Those perspectives are rarely the same.
A learner may need career advising from one organization, training from another, work-based learning through an employer, supportive services from a community organization, and continued education years later as their career evolves. When these experiences are disconnected, individuals must navigate the gaps themselves. When they are intentionally connected, the pathway becomes clearer, more accessible, and far more likely to result in long-term economic mobility.
Season One suggests that successful workforce systems should not be evaluated simply by the number of programs they operate. They should be evaluated by how effectively they help people keep moving.
This changes how communities think about workforce design. Rather than asking how to strengthen individual programs, communities begin asking how existing employers, educators, workforce organizations, and community partners can work together to support a person’s journey over time.
The goal is not better programs in isolation. The goal is a better journey. That shift transforms workforce development from a collection of services into a coordinated system of opportunity.
Questions This Evidence Raises
For Workers
What career journey am I trying to build—not just what program do I need today?
Where are the biggest gaps that make it difficult to continue advancing?
What support would make it easier to move from one opportunity to the next?
For Communities
If we mapped a person’s journey rather than our organizations, where would the pathway break down?
Which organizations need to work more closely together to create smoother transitions between learning and work?
How can existing programs be better connected into a coherent pathway rather than expanded independently?
For Decision Makers
Are workforce investments designed around organizational responsibilities or around the experiences of the people they are intended to serve?
Where are people most likely to fall through the gaps between education, workforce development, employers, and community services?
How should success be measured if the goal is to help people continue advancing rather than simply completing individual programs?
building block 2:
connect the pathway before expanding it
Strong workforce systems are built by connecting opportunities—not simply creating more of them. Disconnected programs rarely produce lasting economic mobility.
Once communities begin designing around people’s journeys, another challenge quickly becomes apparent. Most workforce systems were not intentionally built as pathways. They evolved over time as individual organizations responded to specific needs. Schools developed academic programs. Community colleges created workforce training. Employers launched internships and apprenticeships. Workforce organizations provided career coaching and supportive services. Philanthropy funded promising initiatives. Government invested in individual programs.
Each investment may be valuable on its own. But from a worker’s perspective, they are only valuable if they connect. A student who completes an internship still needs a clear next step into education or employment. An adult who finishes short-term training still needs an employer ready to hire. An incumbent worker who earns a new credential still needs opportunities for advancement. Without those connections, even successful programs can leave people wondering what comes next.
Throughout Season One, we repeatedly found that the greatest opportunities for economic mobility emerged when these experiences reinforced one another rather than operating independently. Internships became entry points into careers. Career navigation helped learners connect education with employment. Short-term training opened doors to better jobs. Community colleges supported continued learning. Employers invested in advancement instead of simply filling vacancies.
Viewed separately, these appear to be different workforce investments. Viewed together, they become one pathway. This leads to the second building block for creating mobility pathways: Connect the pathway before expanding it.
The guiding question becomes: “Where are people getting stuck between opportunities, and how can we strengthen those connections?”
Evidence from the Workforce Understory Data
Internships create the greatest value when they connect learners to continued education, employment, and career advancement.
Durable pathways require coordinated investment across employers, education, workforce organizations, philanthropy, and government.
Many workers may be positioned to advance when continued education, employer partnerships, and career transitions are intentionally connected.
Career navigation and short-term, career-connected training can help people bridge the transitions between learning, employment, and advancement.
Together, these findings suggest that workforce investments create the greatest value when they reinforce one another as parts of a connected pathway rather than functioning as isolated programs.
Why This Matters
Communities often respond to workforce challenges by creating new programs. Sometimes that is exactly what’s needed. More often, however, the greater opportunity lies in strengthening the connections between investments that already exist.
Many communities already have employers willing to hire, educators preparing learners, workforce organizations providing support, community colleges delivering training, career navigation services, and organizations helping people overcome barriers to employment. The challenge is that these efforts are frequently designed, funded, and evaluated independently. As a result, people experience the transitions between them as disconnected handoffs rather than as parts of a coherent journey.
Season One suggests that one of the most valuable forms of workforce infrastructure is not a new program. It is the connective tissue that helps people keep moving. Increasingly, that connective infrastructure also depends on shared workforce intelligence. Communities need ways to understand how learners move into employment, how workers advance over time, where pathways break down, and which transitions consistently lead to economic mobility. That kind of visibility requires stronger partnerships, more intentional data sharing, and a shared commitment to learning across education, workforce development, employers, and community organizations.
Without that visibility, communities risk optimizing individual programs without ever knowing whether the pathway itself is working. This changes how we think about workforce investment. Rather than asking what new program should be created, communities begin asking how existing organizations, investments, relationships, and information can be better connected into a pathway that people can actually navigate.
The goal is not more programs. The goal is a better-connected system.
Questions This Evidence Raises
For Workers
Where does my pathway become difficult to navigate?
What support would make it easier to move from one opportunity to the next?
Who can help me understand my options for continued advancement?
For Communities
Where do learners and workers most often fall between organizations or programs?
Which existing partnerships could be strengthened before creating something new?
What information would help us better understand how people actually move through local workforce pathways?
For Decision Makers
Where are workforce investments operating in parallel rather than reinforcing one another?
What partnerships, governance structures, and shared data are needed to understand how people move through pathways over time?
How can communities strengthen the connective infrastructure that links education, workforce development, employers, and community organizations into a coherent workforce system?
building block 3:
coordinate around shared outcomes
By the time communities have designed pathways around people’s journeys and connected the experiences that help them continue advancing, another challenge becomes clear. No single organization controls the pathway.
Schools prepare learners. Community colleges build skills. Employers create jobs and advancement opportunities. Workforce organizations provide coaching and support. Community organizations help people overcome barriers. Government invests in public priorities. Philanthropy helps communities test new ideas and strengthen local capacity. Each organization plays an essential role. None can create lasting economic mobility on its own.
Throughout Season One, this pattern appeared again and again. Paid internships required employers, educators, and funders to work together. Good Jobs Hawaiʻi depended on education providers, employers, and workforce organizations aligning around the needs of incumbent workers. County workforce strategies emerged through collaboration among employers, education partners, workforce organizations, philanthropy, and local leadership. The Hawaiʻi Generational Workforce Commitment likewise recognizes that long-term workforce success depends on sustained collaboration across sectors rather than isolated initiatives.
At first glance, these appear to be different workforce efforts. Viewed together, they reveal the same lesson. No organization builds a workforce pathway alone. This leads to the third building block for creating mobility pathways: Coordinate around shared outcomes.
The guiding question becomes: “Who needs to work together to help more people successfully navigate this pathway?”
No single organization builds a workforce pathway alone. Economic mobility is created through coordinated action.
Evidence from the Workforce Understory Data
Expanding paid work-based learning requires employers, educators, workforce partners, and funders to work toward a shared participation goal.
Shared investment models can distribute responsibility across employers, education, philanthropy, and government while supporting the infrastructure needed to sustain pathways.
Because the strongest mobility opportunities differ by county, shared statewide outcomes must be pursued through locally coordinated strategies involving employers, educators, workforce organizations, philanthropy, and community leadership.
Together, these examples suggest that successful workforce pathways emerge not from isolated excellence, but from sustained coordination around shared outcomes.
Why This Matters
Many workforce initiatives struggle not because individual organizations are ineffective, but because the connections between them are weak. A learner may successfully complete training without an employer prepared to hire. An employer may struggle to fill positions despite education providers offering relevant programs. Workforce organizations may help people prepare for careers that are disconnected from advancement opportunities. Each organization may achieve its own objectives while the pathway itself remains fragmented.
Season One suggests that strengthening workforce pathways is fundamentally a coordination challenge. That does not mean creating a single organization to oversee the system. It does not mean asking every organization to perform the same role. Coordination is not control. It is a shared commitment to improving the pathway people experience as they move between organizations.
That kind of coordination requires organizations to align around shared outcomes rather than individual programs. It depends on strong relationships, clear roles, and increasingly, shared workforce intelligence that helps partners understand whether people are actually progressing through the pathway.
When organizations coordinate around the success of the learner rather than the success of their individual initiative, new possibilities emerge. Resources reinforce one another. Gaps become easier to identify. Investments become more strategic. Communities become better equipped to adapt as workforce needs change.
The goal is not organizational alignment for its own sake. The goal is better outcomes for people. That shift transforms workforce development from a collection of independent programs into a community working together to expand economic mobility.
Questions This Evidence Raises
For Workers
Which organizations are helping me move from one opportunity to the next?
Where do I have to navigate the system on my own?
What partnerships would make my pathway easier to follow?
For Communities
Which organizations need to be working together around this pathway?
Where are responsibilities fragmented across institutions?
What shared outcomes could unite partners that currently operate independently?
For Decision Makers
Are organizations coordinating around the success of their own programs or around the success of the people moving through the pathway?
What governance, relationships, and shared workforce intelligence are needed to support long-term collaboration?
Who is responsible for stewarding the pathway when no single organization owns it?
Building Block 4:
Build systems that continue learning
The strongest workforce pathways are never finished. They continually adapt as people, employers, and communities change.
By the time communities have designed pathways around people, connected the experiences that support career progression, and coordinated partners around shared outcomes, one final challenge remains. How do we ensure today’s pathway still works tomorrow?
No workforce strategy remains perfectly aligned forever. Industries evolve. Technology changes. Employers adopt new business models. Workers develop new aspirations. Young people make different career choices. Communities experience economic shifts, demographic change, and new opportunities. A pathway that creates economic mobility today may become less effective tomorrow if it is never revisited.
Throughout Season One, we found that the strongest workforce systems were not the ones that attempted to predict the future with certainty. They were the ones that continually learned from experience. County comparisons revealed that workforce opportunities differ across Hawaiʻi and change over time. Employer conversations helped explain emerging hiring needs before they became visible in statewide statistics. Workers and learners identified barriers that quantitative data alone could never reveal. Community organizations, educators, and workforce partners added context that transformed labor market signals into actionable workforce intelligence.
Each new conversation became another opportunity to improve the pathway. Viewed together, these findings suggest that workforce pathways should not be designed as fixed solutions. They should be designed as systems capable of learning and adapting as conditions change. This leads to the fourth building block for creating mobility pathways: Build systems that continue learning.
The guiding question becomes: “How will we know when this pathway needs to evolve?”
Evidence from the Workforce Understory Data
Mobility opportunities differ across counties, and industry conditions can strengthen or weaken over time as wages, demand, and hiring momentum change.
Employer engagement helps communities understand whether emerging demand reflects growth, turnover, changing skill requirements, or other workforce pressures hidden behind the data.
Workers, learners, families, and community partners reveal barriers, aspirations, and job-quality concerns that labor-market statistics cannot capture on their own.
Workforce intelligence combines changing labor-market evidence with local knowledge so partners can assess progress, adapt pathways, and focus coordinated action where it is most needed.
Together, these findings suggest that effective workforce systems depend not only on good data, but on continuous learning that allows communities to recognize change, test assumptions, and adapt before challenges become crises.
Why This Matters
Many workforce plans are designed as though success comes from producing the right strategy. Season One points toward a different goal. The goal is to build the community’s capacity to keep learning.
No workforce strategy will anticipate every economic shift, technological change, or evolving community need. What distinguishes successful workforce systems is not that they avoid change. It is that they recognize change early, learn from it together, and adjust before small problems become larger ones.
This changes how we think about workforce leadership. Rather than asking whether a pathway is complete, communities begin asking whether they have the relationships, routines, and information needed to continuously improve it. That requires more than publishing labor market reports every few years. It requires ongoing workforce intelligence. Employers sharing what they are seeing. Workers describing the barriers they experience. Educators identifying emerging skill needs. Community organizations recognizing changing conditions. Public agencies, philanthropy, and workforce partners using shared evidence to understand whether investments are actually improving outcomes.
When these feedback loops become part of how a community works together, workforce pathways become more resilient, more responsive, and more effective over time. The goal is not to build a perfect workforce system. The goal is to build one that keeps getting better.
That shift transforms workforce development from implementing static solutions into stewarding an adaptive system capable of supporting generations of learners, workers, employers, and communities. Communities that continue learning are better equipped to continue improving. That, in turn, raises the final question explored in this Field Guide: what workforce intelligence will Hawaiʻi need to keep learning together?
Questions This Evidence Raises
For Workers
How can my experiences help improve workforce pathways for others?
What opportunities exist to provide feedback about the barriers and successes I encounter throughout my career?
How can I continue adapting as industries and careers evolve?
For Communities
How will we know when our workforce pathways need to change?
What regular conversations should employers, educators, workforce organizations, workers, and community partners continue having?
How can learning become an ongoing part of workforce strategy rather than something that happens only during formal planning efforts?
For Decision Makers
What workforce intelligence is needed to understand whether pathways are improving over time?
How should communities organize themselves to regularly review evidence, learn together, and adjust strategy?
What governance, partnerships, and shared data infrastructure are needed to support continuous improvement rather than periodic planning?
Looking ahead
Throughout this chapter, we explored what it takes to turn opportunity into lasting economic mobility. We found that strong workforce pathways are designed around people’s journeys, strengthened through better connections, sustained by coordinated action, and improved through continuous learning.
Together, these building blocks offer more than a collection of promising practices. They provide a practical framework that communities can use to strengthen the workforce systems they already have. But they also reveal a new challenge. How do we know whether these pathways are actually working?
Communities need to know whether more people are successfully moving from education into employment, whether employer partnerships are producing better outcomes, whether pathways are becoming easier to navigate, and whether coordination is creating lasting improvements in economic mobility.
Just as importantly, they need to recognize when conditions begin to change. No workforce pathway remains effective forever. Industries evolve, employer needs shift, technologies emerge, and communities change. Workforce strategies must be able to evolve with them. Answering these questions requires more than good intentions or occasional labor market reports. It requires a different kind of workforce intelligence. Not workforce intelligence that simply describes today’s labor market, but workforce intelligence that helps communities understand whether their investments are creating stronger pathways over time—and what they should learn next.
Building better pathways is only part of the challenge. Communities also need the ability to understand, improve, and adapt those pathways over time. The final chapter explores the questions Hawaiʻi still needs to answer—and the workforce intelligence that can help communities continue learning, strengthening workforce pathways, and expanding economic mobility for generations to come.
What is the Workforce Understory Field Guide and how do I use it?
What problem are we actually trying to solve?
How is opportunity experienced across Hawaiʻi’s workforce?
How do communities recognize where economic mobility is already emerging?
Chapter 4: Building Mobility Pathways
You are here!
What questions remain unanswered, and what workforce intelligence will Hawaiʻi need to continue learning together?
