5 - Why Does Having the Work Ready Designation Matter for McDonald County
Q: What is a "Work Ready Community," and why should local businesses care?
A Work Ready Community is a county-level certification from ACT, the same organization behind the ACT college entrance exam, that measures and verifies the skill level of the local workforce using the National Career Readiness Certificate (NCRC). In plain terms, it's a standardized test of core workplace skills like applied math, reading for information, and locating information, and it gives employers a data-backed way to know what they're getting before they hire.
For a county like McDonald, that certification is more than a plaque on the wall. It's a recruiting tool for employers already here, and it's a selling point when the Chamber or the county is trying to attract a new employer to relocate.
Q: Is McDonald County currently certified?
Yes. Led by the Chambers efforts, McDonald County first earned Work Ready Community certification in May 2016, and it was last maintained in December 2024. Certification isn't a one-time achievement. ACT requires counties to keep earning points to stay current, and right now McDonald County is sitting at 4 of the 5 points needed for its next maintenance cycle. That means the county is one documented goal away from staying fully current.
Q: How does a county earn and keep this certification?
ACT breaks the maintenance requirement into three buckets:
- Traditional workforce testing goals. The county has to keep hitting NCRC testing targets across three groups: the emerging workforce (high school and college students), the current workforce (people already employed), and the transitioning workforce (unemployed residents, adult education students, and veterans). McDonald County already has 3 of its points here, earned through ongoing testing at Crowder College's McDonald County campus, the Job Centers in Monett and Neosho, and McDonald County High School.
- Employer engagement. ACT also tracks how many local employers recognize or actively recommend the NCRC when they hire. McDonald County already lists 34 employers who recognize the certificate, including Cooper Gear and the Chamber itself. The county has earned 1 point here for growing that employer engagement, and there's room to earn more by moving employers from simply "recognizing" the NCRC to actively "recommending" it in their hiring process.
- Optional activities. These are additional, ACT-approved ways to round out the point total: things like WorkKeys job or curriculum profiles, the WorkKeys Estimator tool, upgraded certificate options, employer testimonials and case studies, hosting a boot camp, presenting at a state workforce event, or offering college credit tied to the NCRC.
Q: What does the county need to do right now?
Close that fifth point before the current maintenance window ends. The most realistic paths are:
- Another employer engagement bump, moving more businesses from "recognize" to "recommend"
- Completing a new WorkKeys job profile with a local employer
- A fresh wave of NCRC testing through the existing partners
Beyond that single point, the ongoing work is straightforward: keep the testing pipeline open at Crowder McDonald County, the Job Centers, and the high school, and keep recruiting employers to publicly stand behind the certificate. The county's workforce development office logs these goals directly in the ACT WRC dashboard, and the Arkansas Job Center in Joplin (417-629-3000) is the listed local contact for questions on the process.
Q: Why does this matter to a company thinking about moving into the county?
When a business is evaluating a new location, one of the hardest things to assess from the outside is whether the local workforce can actually do the job. Work Ready Community certification gives that answer in advance. It tells a prospective employer that the county has a tested, documented pipeline of workers with verified skill levels, and that local employers already trust the system enough to build their own hiring around it.
That's a genuine competitive advantage in economic development conversations, and it's one McDonald County can point to directly rather than relying on general reassurances about its workforce.
Q: What can local employers do to help?
The single most valuable thing an employer can do is start using the NCRC in their own hiring process, and then say so publicly. That's exactly what Cooper Gear & Manufacturing has done:
"McDonald County being Work Ready certified isn't just a plaque on the wall, it's a real hiring tool. At Cooper Gear we use the ACT WorkKeys National Career Readiness Certificate to evaluate candidates before we bring them on. It's been an excellent, accurate predictor of who will succeed on the shop floor. Hire right the first time. We recognize the NCRC, and Cooper Gear is listed as a supporting employer because we believe in it." — Shawn Cooper, President/CEO, Cooper Gear & Manufacturing
Every employer who adopts that same approach, and every one who agrees to be listed as a recognizing or recommending employer, moves the county closer to its next certification milestone and strengthens the case for the next company considering a move here.
Q: What's the Chamber's role in all of this?
The Chamber sits at the center of the employer side of the equation. It's already listed among the recognizing organizations, and it's positioned to keep recruiting other local businesses into the program, coordinate with Crowder College, the Job Centers, and the high school on testing access, and make sure the story of McDonald County's Work Ready status gets told to site selectors and prospective employers, not just filed away in a workforce dashboard.
