Corporate Voices for Working Families

As America struggles to recover from the Great Recession, policymakers are setting their sights on a strategy for future growth based on investing in research, education and innovation to help ensure our country’s continued global economic competitiveness. Against this background, outlined by President Obama in his State of the Union Address, we would be wise to also recognize the benefits that progressive management practices–like workplace flexibility–hold for employers to enhance business performance and retain and motivate key talent.

This was a key message emphasized during the White House Forum on Workplace Flexibility last March, and supported by research published by the Council of Economic Advisors, and groups like Corporate Voices for Working Families and the Families and Work Institute (FWI). In fact, according to a recent report on the “Impact of the Recession on Employers,” published by FWI, 77 percent of employers naturally responded to the Great Recession by finding ways to cut or control costs. It is telling to note, however, that most either maintained the workplace flexibility they offered (81 percent) or increased it (13 percent) during the recession.

Clearly, workplace flexibility is a business imperative– a management strategy employers can use to modernize their workplaces to meet the needs of the 21st century workforce.

As Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor and Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement said at the March White House Flexibility Forum:

We believe that more workplaces should try to do a better job in meeting the growing needs of their employees and their families. It’s not just the right thing to do, but of course it’s the smart thing to do for the government and for any company that wants to stay competitive.

That is why Corporate Voices launched its national workplace flexibility campaign after the White House Flexibility Forum to create a broader awareness of the positive business and employee benefits of flexibility. This campaign seeks to create the critical momentum needed to expand flexibility within the business community.

A growing number of employers have joined this campaign to recognize the value of workplace flexibility for the success of businesses and working families. Campaign “Business Champions” include: Accenture, Allstate Insurance Company, AOL, Baxter International, Bright Horizons Family Solutions, Childrens’ Creative Learning Centers, Cisco Systems, CVS Caremark, Deloitte LLP, Ernst & Young, George Mason University, Knowledge Universe, KPMG, LifeCare, Marriott International, McGladreySM, Merck & Co. Inc., Sodexo and Workplace Options, among others. These businesses have expressed their support for flexibility by signing Corporate Voices’ Statement of Support for Expanding Workplace Flexibility.

Flexibility as a National Priority Highlighted in “Focus on Workplace Flexibility” Blog Series

To maintain the forward momentum for the campaign, Corporate Voices has launched a “Focus on Workplace Flexibility” blog series to provide commentary and analysis on the key demographic and economic trends transforming work and family. This series will illustrate how workplace flexibility can be a catalyst for success for businesses and working families in the 21st century, and what practical tools and resources exist to help employers successfully implement flexibility practices.

• Read the sixth post in the series, “Why Workplace Flexibility Needs the National Spotlight.”
• Read the fifth post in the series, “Overcoming the Implementation Gap: Workplace Flexibility in Action.”
• Read the fourth post in the series, “Creating a Culture of Flexibility.”
• Read the third post in the series, “The Path to Employer Flexibility is Paved with Business Results.”
• Read the second post in the series, “Focus on Workplace Flexibility-The Rise of Older Workers and Caregivers.“
• Read the first post in the series, “Focus on Workplace Flexibility-Main Themes.”

To learn more about this national campaign and about how you can join, please visit Corporate Voices’ website.

By Sara Toland

Sara is Senior Manager, Workforce Readiness, Business and Community Engagement with Corporate Voices for Working Families.

A recent study of more than 2,300 undergraduate college students found that 45 percent “did not demonstrate any significant improvement in learning” during the first two years of college. Released by The Social Science Research Council the book, Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses, and accompanying report, finds that colleges are not challenging students academically.  More specifically,

• 36 percent of students demonstrated no significant gains in critical thinking, complex reasoning and written communication over all four years of college.
• Half of students did not take a course requiring 20 pages of writing during their prior semester.
• One-third did not take a single course requiring even 40 pages of reading per week.

A comprehensive and informative discussion on this study and the issues of educational attainment and the skills necessary to succeed in today’s workplace is featured in this New York Times blog post “Does College Make You Smarter?”

And while few can argue with the need for high educational standards and academic rigor, the study doesn’t focus on one critical reality that faces many college students today: the need to work while attending classes.

This is particularly true for students attending community colleges where fully 84 percent of students under age 24 worked during the 2007-2008 school year.

And while the “Academically Adrift” study highlights an important issue.  employers have expressed concern over the lack of workforce readiness among entry-level workers for quite some time.

In fact, the gap between employers’ needs and workers’ skills is an ongoing “call to arms” from the business community that has not abated even in current economic conditions. A 2006 report compiled through surveys of business leaders found that among those new hires with a recent college degree, employers say only 24 percent have an “excellent” grasp of basic knowledge and applied skills.  What they lack, say employers, are basic skills such as reading comprehension, writing and math, as well as important applied skills such as work ethic and professionalism.

Business leaders also report that high school graduates are even less prepared for work than college graduates.  The same skills needed to achieve in higher education, are also needed when working.  While colleges and universities want to apply academic rigor, they are faced with incoming students unprepared for heavy course loads and stuck with offering more remedial classes.

Because these students are not prepared for work, according to a recent brief and blog post released by Corporate Voices for Working Families,

“97 percent of the business leaders surveyed agree that workforce readiness is a critical business imperative.  They are deeply concerned about their future workforce and the cost of providing training to a generation of ill-prepared workers.  Furthermore, these leaders report it is imperative that top decision makers focus on workforce readiness and the talent development pipeline as a critical investment in their future productivity – not an additional expense.”

Employers in need of better prepared workers and educational systems that do not  produce an adequate supply of appropriately skilled graduates have been on a collision course, creating a growing skills gap in the marketplace. Corporate Voices, in partnership with our member companies is finding that in order to get college graduates ready for the workforce, business and higher education must collaborate.  When businesses work with education to create opportunities for students to advance academically and in their careers, employers, colleges, and individuals can all succeed.

Corporate Voices for Working Families has published a report, entitled, From an ‘Ill-Prepared’ to a Well-Prepared Workforce: The Shared Imperatives for Employers and Community Colleges to Collaborate to discuss the imperative for collaborations between industry and community colleges. The paper also highlights promising practices in employer and community college partnerships, and recommends a set of public and private policies to support the growth of these partnerships in the future.

Corporate Voices is committed to identifying and spotlighting businesses that make significant contributions to postsecondary completion through progressive talent development practices that increase access to career opportunities through education and training through a series of Learn and Earn Micro-Business Case Studies.  Nine companies have been highlighted to date and they include CVS Caremark, Expeditors, Verizon Wireless and most recently, Convergys.  If your company has a potential Learn and Earn Micro-Business Case Study, please contact Corporate Voices.

With the national spotlight clearly on jobs and education, Year Up provides a model for helping young people succeed in the workplace and in life. Corporate Voices for Working Families recognized Year Up in 2009 as its “Nonprofit Partner of the Year,” and now the organization has gained well-deserved national attention in a story in The New York Times.

Year Up is a one-year, intensive training program that provides urban young adults, ages 18-24, with a combination of hands-on skill development, college credits, and corporate internships. It offers a six-month training program followed by a six-month internship in a large corporation such as Bank of America, Citi, JP Morgan Chase or AOL, all partner companies of Corporate Voices. Since its founding in Boston in 2000 with a class of 22 students, Year Up has expanded to eight cities and served 4,000 young adults. About 70 percent of its students complete the program and the organization reports that, within four months, 84 percent of graduates are either enrolled full time in college or have secured a job. The average starting wage is $15 per hour – roughly $30,000 per year.

Here’s an excerpt from the story by David Bornstein, “Training Youth in the Ways of the Workplace“:

The most frustrating economic news of 2010 wasn’t that the recession had worsened — it was that things had improved markedly for corporations, but not for the labor force. Even Alan Greenspan expressed concern that the U.S. is evincing “fundamentally two separate types of economy” — one in which big companies and high earners thrive, the other in which millions struggle to find jobs and make ends meet. One group that has been particularly hard hit by the recession is youth. Among workers aged 16 to 24, the unemployment rate is almost 20 percent. For young Latinos, it’s over 24 percent, and for young African Americans, it’s over 32 percent. Some 4.4 million youths are currently unemployed.

This is of serious concern to a country with a rapidly aging population. And while today’s best jobs require post-secondary schooling, 30 percent of U.S. public school students fail to graduate from high school (pdf), and more than half of those who enroll in higher education fail to earn a degree or credential within eight years.

We all know the education system needs fixing; 1.3 million high school dropouts per year is untenable. But youth unemployment gets far less attention  and policy makers have few new ideas to offer. In fact, government investments in workforce development for youth have declined precipitously — from about $1.6 billion in 1994 to about $900 million in 2010, even while gross domestic product doubled during that period (representing a real drop of 70 percent).

Why the cuts? Because for years there has been a lingering perception that workforce development programs don’t work (pdf). That’s why I’m focusing today on an organization called Year Up, which is demonstrating fresh promise in this area.

Year Up, a nonprofit, was founded by Gerald Chertavian, a social entrepreneur who started his career on Wall Street before building a technology firm that he and his partners sold for $83 million. When he was a college freshman, Chertavian began volunteering as a mentor and Big Brother to low-income youths. He did this for decades. He was impressed by the ambition and talents of the young people he got to know. But he saw that they had little scope to “plug in” to the mainstream economy. It wasn’t just that some had attended poor schools or lacked college credentials; they lacked exposures to the “professional culture” — and this, as much as any skill gap, kept them marginalized.

Year Up assists disadvantaged, mostly minority youths, whose only academic requirement is a high school degree or equivalency degree. It offers a six-month training program followed by a six-month internship in a large corporation like State Street, Fidelity Investments, JP Morgan Chase, Partners Healthcare, or AOL. Since its founding in Boston in 2000 with a class of 22 students, Year Up has expanded to eight cities and served 4,000 young adults. About 70 percent of its students complete the program and the organization reports that, within four months, 84 percent of graduates are either enrolled full time in college or have secured a job. The average starting wage is $15 per hour — roughly $30,000 per year.

Year Up A student participated in a Year Up business communication course in Boston.

And more from the Bornstein article:

There are several things that Year Up does that distinguishes it from run-of-the-mill job training programs. It involves employers in the design of its programs to make sure its trainings are matched to market demand. It offers students extensive support from counselors and, where necessary, social workers. It forms partnerships with community colleges, which offer course credit for Year Up classes. And at a time when government policies favor short-term trainings, Year Up gives students a full year to make the transition to the professional world. It pays students about $200 a week so they can afford to stick out the year (some still drop out for economic and other reasons). It helps participants find corporate mentors. And it charges employers serious money to receive interns: companies pay Year Up about $875 per week or $22,750 for a six month internship. This ensures that companies will insist on getting employees who can perform. The fees cover about half of Year Up’s operating costs; the rest comes mainly from philanthropy.

But none of the above fully explains Year Up’s success. The real difference is that Year Up takes great care to prepare its students to succeed in a professional culture. “We often talk about hard and soft skills,” says Chertavian. “To me, it’s actually hard and harder skills.” The merely hard skills are things that many training programs cover — for IT, it might be using software applications or installing hardware. The harder skills are more nuanced. They involve questions like: Do you know how to communicate in a team? If you’re running late, do you know to call ahead? If you don’t have enough work, do you know to be proactive and ask for more? Do you know how to write a professional sounding e-mail?

Corporate Voices is proud to partner with Year Up to develop effective new “pathways of opportunity” for out-of-school youth and young adults aged 16 to 24.  Through Corporate Voices “New Options” initiative, funded by the Kellogg Foundation, we plan to develop a cadre of senior business leaders who can serve as champions among their peers and as messengers to policymakers. The ultimate goal of this partnership is to help employers view disconnected youth as a valuable economic asset and source of labor worth investing in-and not a societal liability.