Tech and Tactics for Thriving Through Funding Cuts
As workforce funding tightens, innovation is no longer optional—it’s essential. Watch a candid discussion with representatives from three organizations that partner directly with workforce development programs nationwide. Transcript below.
[0:00] Max Schelkopf: Welcome! Welcome, everyone! Alright, we'll give it a couple of minutes here and let everybody trickle in. Happy… what is today? Today is… Wednesday? Yep. Nailed it. I am excited about today's session topics. As everybody trickles in, if you want to put in the chat window where you're joining us from, and maybe what organization you're with… I'll start it off… From Central Illinois. There we go, got some Davenport, Iowa, love to see it. This is an exciting panel today, because we are international, representing across the Atlantic. Thank you for joining us, Mr. Steven Rice. And I am also joined by Scott Hotard. Scott, where are you joining from?
[1:00] Scott Hotard: Biloxi, Mississippi, sir.
[1:02] Max Schelkopf: Love it. Little Las Vegas, right?
[1:04] Scott Hotard: That's right.
[1:05] Max Schelkopf: Alright, fantastic. We'll give it a couple more minutes here, maybe about 30 seconds to a minute, and then we'll go ahead and dive in and get started. But in the meantime, I believe, my colleague Anna behind the scenes, there we are, a little workforce poll. While we're all trickling in, if you wouldn't mind filling out this little bit of a poll we have set up. Unfortunately, hosts and panelists, we don't get to participate, we just get to stare at it, our job is to look at what people said, make calculated decisions on that, right? That's what we're here to do. After noon, we got Jody from Tampa, welcome. Got a little bit of all over the place. Love to see it. All right, well, we will go ahead and get started. We're 2 minutes after here. I'll introduce myself. My name is Max Shelkoff. I am a Senior Solutions Consultant at Engage by Sell. I spend 90% of my day working with folks in workforce development across the country, and I am joined, I'm very excited, a panel of esteemed gentlemen here. I'll let Scott introduce himself first. Go ahead, Scott.
[2:27] Scott Hotard: Hey guys, thanks for joining us. My name is Scott Hotard, I'm with Cirrus Workforce, I'm the Vice President of Sales. We partner with staffing providers that are in charge of work experience programs. We are an employer of record services.
[2:46] Max Schelkopf: Fantastic, and Mr. Rice, go ahead.
[2:49] Stephen Rice: Hello everybody, my name is Stephen Rice, I'm the Chief Executive of Talent Census, and hopefully Max has some closed captions that'll come up underneath me in case you can't understand what I'm saying, but we are a workforce development technology company, and our aim is to be the global leading architect of intelligent workforce systems. It's lovely to be here, and looking forward to being part of this panel.
[3:18] Max Schelkopf: I love it. Thank you again for joining me, gentlemen. Today's topics—Tech and Tactics for Thriving Through Funding Cuts. Kind of a doom and gloom title, right? But we're going to do our very best to navigate around that and talk real. These funding cuts are here. We hear about it all the time, and today's goals are to review the current landscape, discuss tools available, share practices we've seen, and brainstorm around some of these challenges. What are your biggest concerns at the moment? With these funding cuts, what are the things you're most concerned about? What challenges are you trying to overcome? The three of us are going to discuss tools that our companies offer, but also what we've seen through practical solutions and new process implementation in the past 6 to 12 months. Perfect. And here are some results—participant outcomes are the majority, which isn't surprising because we're all here to help people get resources, get back into employment, and complete your job. And all of the above—who isn't concerned about all of it? Funding cuts bring challenges: less staff, hopefully still having the tools to maintain jobs and programs. And all simultaneously, your demand for services is increasing.
[3:30] Stephen Rice: My background is in peacekeeping, workforce-related growth, and labor market development. I later moved to a Sector Skills Council covering Ireland, the UK, and Europe, focusing on connecting education, government, and the labor market. The catalyst for starting my company 10 years ago was frustration with systems and processes that caused inertia, preventing people from effectively accessing services or entering the labor market. We design intelligent workforce systems differently from others. Some of you may have used case management systems before—some positive experiences, some negative. Usually, systems are pushed from the top down, and we have to adapt our work to fit them. These systems often focus on gathering information and generating performance reports. We believe the most important person is you—and your clients. Our work spans multiple countries, and in the U.S. over the past six years we've focused on improving systems and processes. Examples of our work include soft skills training through gamification for United Nations peacekeepers worldwide, joint training programs for emergency services, and workforce development case management. We centralize multi-stakeholder data into a single, easy-to-use system, integrating with existing tools to avoid duplicate data entry. We implement enhanced automation and use AI not just for simple features like resume building, but for deeper functions like skills forecasting, labor market forecasting, and advanced matching—always with data privacy in mind. Our approach is human-centered: we work from the bottom up, automating processes where possible, and integrating what already works instead of replacing everything. This means quicker, more enjoyable participant and staff interactions, compliance confidence, real-time insights, and freeing staff to focus on helping people instead of being bogged down by data entry.
[37:33] Max Schelkopf: I love that. The biggest gap I see—after hearing both Scott and Stephen—is time management and efficiency. Technology can fill that gap, enabling staff to actually do the jobs they signed up for. Stephen, what processes in your platform have made the biggest difference?
[39:02] Stephen Rice: Pre-intake is a great example. Often, information gathering is still done on paper. We've automated this process while framing questions in ways that are clear to the people we serve, especially those in vulnerable situations. This approach helps ensure they get matched to the right support services. We've also built in automation to reduce human error, making sure no one misses out on opportunities because of how a question was asked.
[40:50] Max Schelkopf: That's fascinating. Scott, have you seen any examples where your work saved a client significant time or effort?
[42:27] Scott Hotard: Definitely. For new service providers launching a grant in a new state, unexpected reporting requirements can come up. We can pivot quickly and produce custom reports for states, boards, or the DOL. We also use a tool called Aviante 24-7 that makes onboarding much easier, allowing mass onboarding via an app that works on phones or tablets, with all documents sized for the screen.
[43:58] Max Schelkopf: Another growing challenge is finding new funding sources beyond WIOA. For example, I've seen clients secure state grants or special projects funding from the DOL, which allowed them to launch our platform across multiple states. Stephen, have you seen other creative funding approaches?
[45:17] Stephen Rice: Yes. Some clients use WIOA as only part of their funding, supplementing it with private or local grants. The challenge is measuring the impact of multiple funding sources within one system. We help track and tell the story—capturing qualitative impact alongside metrics. Funders often want both.
[46:53] Max Schelkopf: Exactly. Quantitative data is important, but the qualitative stories—how someone's life changed—help secure funding. Let's open up for questions.
[49:16] Stephen Rice: Thanks again for the opportunity to be here.
[49:23] Scott Hotard: Agreed. It's great to connect not just nationally but internationally, and to have a smaller, more personal setting for conversation.
[49:48] Max Schelkopf: Thanks to everyone for attending. We'll send out the recording and look forward to hearing from you soon.
[50:12] Stephen Rice: Thank you.
