HONOLULU — The state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism and state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations through the Workforce Development Council, along with Hawai‘i’s four county Workforce Development Boards, announced Remote Ready Hawai‘i’, a remote-work project powered by MadSkills, dba, Instant Teams.
A Hawai‘i based start-up, Instant Teams is a remote-workforce space industry that focuses on improving Hawai‘i’s unemployed workforce’s employment prospects, especially those affected by the COVID-19 outbreak.
This program provides Hawai‘i’s unemployed residents with the opportunity to obtain:
• Intensive training for a role as either a remote-business-development representative or a remote-customer-service professional;
• A paid remote internship through Instant Teams, in line with the training received;
• Job placement assistance after course and internship completion.
Applicants will be contacted by the American Job Centers beginning Tuesday, Feb. 16, and must meet the following criteria:
• Ability to commit to a 20-hour-per-week, paid internship, after completing training;.
• Complete a written application;
• Submit a video interview.
“As Governor Ige stated in his State of the State address, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the rise of the digital economy,” said Mike McCartney, DBEDT director.
”In the digital economy, it doesn’t matter where your workstation is located. Hawai‘i’s workers can compete globally from our island home, allowing them a higher quality of life,” said McCartney.
“This pilot project, along with other projects that make up Hawai‘i’s Remote Work Pilot Program, represents true collaboration between DBEDT, the state of Hawai‘i WDC, all four county WDBs and American Job Centers to expand remote-work opportunities and take these initial steps to increase Hawai‘i’s competitiveness in the global digital economy,” McCartney added.
“Remote work for local residents is one important way we can keep families together here in Hawai‘i and stop the export of our talent,” said Leslie Wilkins, chair of the State of Hawai‘i Workforce Development Council.
”Creating remote-worker opportunities by connecting our residents to global employment possibilities is one of the keys to opening doors to economic resiliency,” said Wilkins.
Liza Rodewald, Instant Teams CEO and ‘Ewa Beach resident, said, “We’ve built a successful model in working with mainland companies to build teams of remote workers from military spouses. We are excited to now expand that model and create job opportunities for the residents here in Hawai‘i.”
Program participants will be selected based on:
• Completed applications;
• Goal alignment;
• Technical readiness;
• Commitment to the program requirements.
The American Job Centers will contact possible candidates for these remote work positions beginning Tuesday, Feb. 16.
Now our state workers can sleep on the job in the comforts of their own home rather than under a shady tree. Sign me up!!
There are very, very few people currently working in the tourist industry that will be able to find a remote job that pays well enough to sustain them in Hawaii. You are competing with workers in Kansas or Nebraska for the relatively unskilled remote jobs, and you are not going to be successful attempting to retrain the tourist industry employees for the truly skilled jobs.