Corporate Voices Featured in Anthology on Workforce Management Issues

By Dorian Friedman

Corporate Voices is proud to have contributed two important chapters to a new thought-leadership anthology on workforce management issues, published this week by our friends at The Workforce Institute^™ at Kronos.

Elements of Successful Organizations: Achieving Strong Leadership, Smart Management, and an Engaged Workforce, is a rich collection of articles by some of the nation’s most distinguished human capital management practitioners. The book looks at the similarities that successful organizations share and provides actionable advice on how to replicate this success.

In three complementary sections—Strong Leadership, Smart Management, and Engaged Employees—authors were asked to tap into their own experience to deliver anecdotes and advice on how to achieve success.  Kronos looked to Corporate Voices for our expertise on workplace flexibility and workforce readiness issues to round out the chapter on Engaged Employees.

• In a chapter on Innovative Workplace Flexibility and Scheduling, Donna Klein of Corporate Voices joins Amy Richman of WFD Consulting in an eloquent argument for work/family balance as a talent management strategy.  “Progressive personnel policies and a work culture that supports occasional flexibility and gives workers…more control over their work schedules…are powerful drivers of business success,” they assert, and offer an impressive array of research findings from their two organizations and others to support the case.

• And in a chapter on Business and Education Partnerships: Creating Pathways to Employment, John-Anthony Meza of Corporate Voices lays out an equally compelling imperative for American companies to collaborate with schools and community colleges to support their employees. Notwithstanding the nation’s economic challenges, he writes, forward-looking employers “recognize the value of investing today to shape the best possible workforce of tomorrow.”  By embracing innovative partnerships with educational institutions, these companies can “provide a new generation of workers the immeasurable value associated with higher education, a rewarding career, and the skills they will need to thrive in the uncertain global economy of the future”—all while serving their bottom-line business needs and earning a measurable return on the investment.

We thank Joyce Maroney, the anthology’s editor, and our partners at Kronos for their commitment to these important issues, and for inviting us to share Corporate Voices’ unique perspective.  (We thank them as well for their very generous plug of our work in the book’s introduction!)  Elements of Successful Organizations is available on Amazon.com for $21.95.

 

Corporate Voices and Partner Companies Featured at White House Event Launching Summer Jobs Plus Initiative

Corporate Voices and a number of our partner companies played a key role in a White House event  held January 5 to launch the Summer Jobs Plus Initiative.

“Corporate Voices for Working Families supports the Obama administration in launching the Summer Jobs Plus initiative, which recognizes that there are a number of ways that employers can provide pathways to success for our nation’s low-income young adults, including Life Skills, Work Skills and Learn and Earn initiatives along with summer jobs,” said Stephen M. Wing, who represented Corporate Voices.

Wing made his remarks as part of the White House Summer Jobs Plus Summit. He participated on a panel that explored the moral imperative, economic need and potential value of connecting low-income and disconnected youth to employment opportunities, both in the short and long term. The panel, titled “The Case for Summer Jobs+ 2012,” consisted of Alan Krueger, Chairman, Council of Economic Advisers; Alma Powell, America’s Promise Alliance; James White, CEO, Jamba Juice; R.T. Rybak, Mayor, Minneapolis, MN; Janet Murguia, President and CEO, National Council of La Raza; and John Bridgeland, CEO, Civic Enterprises/ White House Council for Community Solutions.

The event marked the launch of President Obama’s challenge to businesses to commit to provide low-income youth with summer employment and other pathways to success. Recognizing that in a difficult economy not every business is in a position to hire, the administration’s new Summer Jobs Plus initiative will support not only businesses that hire youth, but also those companies that provide additional pathways for youth, such as internships, mentoring and other programs.  Summer Jobs Plus identifies three key ways for companies to help connect youth to a better future while simultaneously deriving benefits for their businesses, such as increased employee engagement, customer loyalty and employee retention.

Businesses can accept the president’s challenge and make a “Pathways Pledge” by choosing at least one of the following three pathways to employment for low-income youth: Life Skills, Work Skills and Learn and Earn.

Corporate Voices’ Senior Workforce Readiness Consultant, Elyse Rosenblum, served as a content expert at one of the featured breakout sessions: “Creating Pathways to Employment for Youth.”

“More than five million young people in the United States are disconnected from education and employment,” Rosenblum said. “Corporate Voices is encouraged that the Obama administration has brought together leaders from the public and private sectors to find solutions that will enable young people to succeed, help employers tap new sources of skilled talent and strengthen our nation’s economic prosperity.”

A number of businesses committed to providing our nation’s young adults with jobs, internships and other pathways to opportunity, including the following Corporate Voices’ partner companies: Bank of America, Baxter International, Inc., CVS Caremark, Deloitte, Goodwill Industries International, H-E-B, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo.

Over the last five years, Corporate Voices, in partnership with the New Options Project, and with support from the WK Kellogg Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has been deeply focused on ways companies can provide low-income young adults with pathways to employment and education.

Most recently, Corporate Voices has worked with Gap Inc. and McKinsey by providing content and information for a toolkit being released today by the Corporation for National Service. The toolkit provides employers with a roadmap for how they can use different strategies, such as Life Skills, Work Skills and Learn and Earn initiatives to provide opportunities to America’s young adults. The toolkit entitled “A Toolkit for Employers: Connecting Youth & Business” is available at no cost and can be accessed here

 

Investing in a Skilled Workforce: Employers Enjoy Real and Lasting Returns

by Dorian Friedman

As business leaders and politicians alike lament the skills gap that has slowed America’s economic recovery, employers who embrace training for their current workers are finding promising results and an impressive return on their investment.  That is the main conclusion of Why Companies Invest in ‘Grow Your Own’ Talent Development Models, a new report published this week by Corporate Voices for Working Families.

Through case studies and concrete metrics, the report carefully details how several respected American employers invest in education, training, and the basic workforce readiness of their employees, with a particular focus on the needs of entry-level and lower-skilled associates. The companies studied—including CVS/Caremark, the Johns Hopkins Hospital, and Pacific Gas and Electric Company—took different approaches to their training programs, but their investments have paid off in a range of valuable dividends.

• The most direct and tangible benefit is a cost saving linked to improved retention of program participants, and avoidance of associated turnover and rehiring costs.  Among the programs highlighted in the report, the return on investment (ROI) ranged from a small first-year loss to a net gain of at least 179 percent.

• But employers found other important benefits that, while harder to monetize, were equally important. These include greater workplace diversity, enhanced customer and client loyalty, and an improved reputation in the communities these companies serve.

The paper is accompanied by a user-friendly, online Return-on-Investment tool for any employer eager to calculate the costs and benefits associated with workforce readiness programs. Together, the report and tool are intended as a roadmap for other companies to guide a similar strategy of “growing talent” from within—with the promise of real and lasting returns over time.

“These forward-looking companies have shown that investing in the workforce of tomorrow is a smart decision for today,” said Stephen M. Wing, managing director of Corporate Voices Consulting, a new division of Corporate Voices. “By leveraging partnerships with the public Workforce Investment system and other experts in their communities, these employers are improving the odds of success for their valued employees and strengthening their own bottom line.”

“Engaging the business community, nationally and locally, is a key aspect of ensuring that the nation’s young people are prepared for college, work and life,” added Karen Pittman, President and CEO of the Forum for Youth Investment, which oversees the Ready by 21® initiative to get all young people ready for college, work and life. “We are pleased to partner with Corporate Voices on this timely new report to advance that important goal.”

The publication is the latest addition to a unique suite of tools offered by Corporate Voices, based on a decade of experience studying the workforce needs and expectations of employers nationwide. The report was generously supported by the Ready by 21® National Partnership (which includes Corporate Voices) and the Altria operating companies, as well as by New Options, a project of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

The report and Return-on-Investment tool may be accessed on Corporate Voices’ website here.