Corporate Voices for Working Families

The following commentary by Donna Klein, Executive Chair and CEO of Corporate Voices for Working Families, was originally posted on The Huffington Post.

As we celebrate National Work and Family Month this October, working families across America are struggling to balance the competing demands of work, family, caregiving and, in many cases, pursuing their education. This struggle is made all the more challenging against the backdrop of anemic economic growth, rising tuition and health care costs, and high unemployment. Work-life conflict is no longer an issue confined solely to working mothers, but how a diverse group of working mothers and fathers, caregivers, nursing mothers and students balance the dual demands of work and life. This is now an everyday concern for working families and businesses in America.

In this context, therefore, employer programs that support work-life balance and an employee’s educational and career goals are critical to ensuring job satisfaction, increasing recruitment and engagement, and building a strong future talent pipeline. Programs like these are also increasingly important for today’s working learners, who find themselves juggling not only work and family, but also the challenges of working while pursuing higher education. The future competitiveness of our economy, and the economic security of working families, depends, in part, on the training and education of these working learners to meet the talent demands of employers.

That is why Corporate Voices for Working Families, a national nonprofit business membership organization that creates and advances corporate and public policy solutions that help improve the lives of working families, has in recent years focused on identifying and encouraging best practice workforce readiness and postsecondary completion programs. Our corporate partners recognize that by creating talent development models that invest in the skills and education of their workforce, often in partnership with community colleges, employers are playing a unique role in helping working learners complete their college credentials, thereby strengthening the quality of the labor force.

For example, Learn and Earn talent development models, such as those led by KPMG, CVS Caremark, UPS and Walmart, as well as those created by small businesses such as Crest Cadillac and Applied Scientific Instrumentation, are first-rate examples of innovative collaborations that are uniting industry and education to train workers for the jobs of the future. Corporate Voices has developed these micro-business cases as part of its Learn and Earn and postsecondary education work, which seeks to identify, promote and encourage innovative partnerships between employers, community colleges and higher education institutions to help today’s working learners—often low-income young adults—complete their education while working.

Corporate Voices’ Learn and Earn series also documents successful partnerships, such as those led by Toyota and the Health Careers Collaborativeof Greater Cincinnati, which train workers in STEM fields such as health care and automotive technology. Given that STEM jobs are projected to grow rapidly over the next decade, partnerships that prepare workers for industry needs in this sector are critical to the ability of a large segment of the workforce to take part in any future economic recovery.

And, more broadly speaking, as the majority of the jobs of the future will require at least some postsecondary education, Learn and Earn partnerships will increasingly define successful business practices of the future. As more and more businesses understand that providing supports for work-life balance and education also help meet bottom-line business needs, encouragement for Learn and Earn and other workforce readiness programs will grow, helping to scale local successes into a nationwide trend. This, in turn, will help ensure that America leads the world in college completion rates and enhance our ability to compete in a global economy.

So, as we celebrate National Work and Family month, let’s keep in mind how the work-life conversation is now changing to include the needs that working learners face in today’s economy, and how the employer community can play a positive role to meet those needs, in a way that supports their profitability and their long-term sustainability.

At a time when the nation’s economy is stalled, the unemployment rate won’t budge, and public dollars for critical education, training, and social services are constrained, communities across America are seeking innovative ways to spark economic growth and ensure a skilled workforce for tomorrow.

Corporate Voices for Working Families has published two new resources that offer valuable guidance for local officials, employers and others teaming up to support children, youth and working families in their communities.  Both publications will be the focus of discussion at a Corporate Voices’ panel during the National Council of La Raza Workforce Development Forum, in Chicago on October 11 and 12.

Opportunities in the Workforce Readiness Pipeline: A Community Engagement Toolkit for Business, is designed to assist business and local leaders in developing successful, sustainable partnerships to ensure that more young people in their communities have the highest-quality education and supports they need to be successful today, and as the workforce we will depend on tomorrow.  The toolkit reflects the expertise of United Way Worldwide and the Workforce Strategy Center, content partners in the publication.  It offers practical advice and hands-on steps to investing in community improvement, and features case studies from leading corporate citizens like KPMG LLP’s Family for Literacy program, Baxter International’s Science@Work program, and the Bridging Richmond initiative, supported by the Altria Group.

Building the Business Case for Investing in Tomorrow’s Workforce, also new from Corporate Voices, similarly profiles private-sector commitments to support education and workforce training for lower-skilled employees, and documents the substantial payoff to companies that have done so. Case studies include CVS/Caremark, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, and the Johns Hopkins Hospital system.  Both CVS and KPMG executives will be featured panelists at the national La Raza conference on October 12.

“Our tools for community-business engagement address an urgent goal: Strengthening and expanding the most effective partnerships to ensure that more young people can step confidently into jobs leading to careers,” said John-Anthony Meza, Vice President of Workforce Readiness at Corporate Voices. “The nation’s prosperity depends more than ever on a well-prepared workforce, yet too many young Americans remain poorly equipped to excel in school today and in the economy of tomorrow.”

“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. We are so pleased to partner with Corporate Voices on these tools to advance that important goal,” said Karen Pittman, President and CEO of the Forum for Youth Investment.

These publications are 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.  Corporate Voices’ community-business engagement tools are produced through the Ready by 21® National Partnership, a team of national organizations committed to helping communities implement Ready by 21—a set of innovative strategies to improve the odds that all children and youth will be ready for college, work and life. The tools may be accessed on Corporate Voices’ website at www.cvworkingfamilies.org/our-work/workforce-readiness/ready-21/tools-resources-business-community-leaders.

Although we are experiencing high unemployment and joblessness, employers continue to have trouble finding skilled and educated employees. In order to close this education and skills gap, Congress must take a hard look at the education policies that shape the nation’s talent pool and determine the economic future of all its citizens.

Bringing attention to these issues and the newest ideas and trends in education reform, NBC News hosted its second annual Education Nation Summit last week in New York City, where parents, educators and students met with leaders in politics, business and technology to explore the challenges and opportunities in education today. Over the past year, NBC News has been committed to engaging policymakers and the public through continued coverage on the state of education. The event addressed the developments, challenges and progress of the past year, and identified and explored new, exciting opportunities to reinvent America as an Education Nation.

As part of a special Education Nation feature, on Thursday, September 29 Angela Cobb, leader of the New Options Project and Director of Return On Inspiration Labs, spoke with NBC’s Andrea Mitchell about how the New Options Project is working to connect out-of-school young adults ages 16-24 with meaningful career opportunities through the introduction of innovative tools and approaches.

“Education and training is a really important component for young adults who have become disconnected from the traditional education system and from work.  The first step for many young adults is connecting them to employment, so that they can…start to identify career paths and career options.  There is then greater context for their education, so it then makes more sense for them to go get their GED or high school diploma, get technical training or begin pursuing coursework at a community college or four-year college.”

Corporate Voices is a partner in the New Options Project, a multi-year initiative of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, that seeks to connect more than four million young adults with no high school diploma to meaningful career opportunities that match their talents and skills. New Options works to connect employer talent needs with new sources of previously undeveloped talent. Local work zones are used to create and test innovative products and market-based approaches that provide pathways to employment, which are supported by national initiatives and movement building to influence perceptions.

Through its work with the New Options Project, Corporate Voices is committed to identifying and spotlighting businesses that make significant contributions to enterprising pathways. Recently AOL, Accenture, Bank of America, CVS Caremark, Expeditors, H.E.B. and Southwire were highlighted in a series of micro-business case studies published by Corporate Voices for their commitment to providing career training to low-income young adults.

An equally innovative and exciting partnership is between Corporate Voices’ corporate partner IBM and its innovative Pathways in Technology Early College High School (P-TECH) program, a joint effort with the City University of New York and the city’s Department of Education. P-TECH enables students to begin their college and professional lives more quickly and with more support than the typical school-to-work pathway. Graduates of P-TECH have the opportunity to earn an associate degree and leave the school with the skills and knowledge they need in order to continue their studies or step seamlessly into competitive jobs in the information technology (IT) industry.

The new school has even caught the attention of President Obama, who spotlighted it this week in remarks about education reform. It was also featured at the COMMIT! Forum in New York City, alongside Southwire’s flagship training program 12 for Life.

As policymakers wrestle with the task of reducing our nation’s deficit and at the same time creating an atmosphere that will promote job creation, they must not lose sight of the impact that education outcomes have on the vitality of the nation’s workforce.  The work with the New Options Project and these best practice employers show that Congress must align education policies with the talent needs of employers to help close the skills gap, to connect talent with employment and to encourage business to create economic growth and upward mobility through on-the-job training and ongoing human capital development.   Efforts like these will go a long way toward strengthening our future economic competitiveness. More specifically, Corporate Voices and its partners in the New Options Project ask Congress to make workforce needs central and to shape desired education outcomes by following these key principles:

• Ensure complete skills development, including both academic and workforce skills.
• Utilize contextualized and work-based learning.
• Dramatically raise high school graduation rates.
• Focus on the lowest-performing schools and hold them accountable.
• Develop Enterprising Pathways
• Promote post-secondary completion, not just enrollment.

Corporate Voices encourages you to visit its website to learn more about the New Options Project and the work other companies are doing to connect their own needs with the skills development of previously untapped talent.