WORKFORCE CENTRAL FLORIDA (WCF) presented its fourth annual Workforce Champion Award to Orange County Mayor Richard Crotty, along with WCF Awards of Excellence to seven Central Florida employers at its State of the Workforce Summit, held in late October.

“During nearly a decade in this role, Mayor Richard Crotty’s efforts have significantly affected our workforce,” said Gary Earl, president and chief executive officer of WORKFORCE CENTRAL FLORIDA. “To name of few of his initiatives, Mayor Crotty has helped create more than 4,000 high-wage jobs in Orange County, he called for an Orange County Economic Stimulus Package to keep the county’s businesses growing, and he has been instrumental in making the introductions that have lead the National Center for Simulation to take a leadership role in bringing more federal government defense dollars to Central Florida, thus increasing jobs and growing our simulation industry.”

Five WCF Awards of Excellence were presented to the region’s employers for adopting new, best practices in workforce development. Award winners were as follows:

• WCF honored the Orange County Library System with an Award of Excellence for “management practices that recognize the value of employees” for developing a blog on the staff intranet for team members to submit ideas and requiring those employees to recommend how they can become a part of the process and to estimate the total cost to implement the idea.

• Universal Orlando was presented with a WCF Award of Excellence for “putting policies and practices in plan to encourage staff advancement,” because it developed a leadership talent program to have a ready-pool of talented team members with the skills and knowledge needed to move into a front-line level supervisory role.

• Fairwinds Credit Union received a WCF Award of Excellence for “adopting new approaches to training” for designing two virtual training classrooms, which are delivered by web access to its 37 branches and two administrative centers.

• Lake County Health Department received a WCF Award of Excellence for “linking learning with business strategy” for its healthcare internship program in multiple disciplines that specifically target the county’s needs, such as midwifery, nursing, physician assistants and dentistry.

• WCF presented the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin with a WCF Award of Excellence for “adopting new approaches to recruitment” for adopting online interviewing via Skype in order to reach out and connect with its nationwide applicant pool.

WORKFORCE CENTRAL FLORIDA also presented two area companies with Awards of Excellence for their outstanding participation in WORKFORCE CENTRAL FLORIDA Programs.

• Invision Industries was given a WCF Award of Excellence for its outstanding participation in the Re-Employment Connection, a program that provides employability skills and valuable work experience for adults, age 22 and up, in local jobs.

• Sumter County Youth Center received a WCF Award of Excellence for its outstanding participation in the Summer Job Connection, an employment program held in during summer 2010 that provided valuable summer work experience in local jobs for 750 young adults ages 16-21.

Awards were presented in front of 400 attendees at WORKFORCE CENTRAL FLORIDA’s State of the Workforce Summit, a professional development event of one dozen breakout sessions and a keynote luncheon for CEOs, human resource professionals, business owners, elected officials and managers.