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Tag: Workforce Development & Higher Education

Partner Interview: Fair Chance Hiring

Written by Afton Group on . Posted in Community Engagement, Workforce Development.

From January through September 2023, Afton collaborated with the Corporate Coalition of Chicago, Cara Plus, and the Chicagoland Workforce Funder Alliance to facilitate the inaugural Fair Chance Hiring (FCH) Initiative, a business-led effort to reduce barriers to hiring individuals with criminal justice involvement.

Afton: First, for those that may not know, what does the term ‘fair chance talent’ mean?

FCH Initiative: It refers to individuals who have either been incarcerated, have a prior conviction, or have a prior arrest. When folks hear this phrase, they often only think of people who have at some point in their lives served time in prison. However, one-third of the adult working age population has a criminal record. A person does not have to have been incarcerated; someone with a 10-year-old DUI falls into this category. Through this Initiative, we want to demystify who is part of a ‘fair chance’ hiring pool. We want to reframe the narrative and shine a spotlight on just how many folks have been and continue to be impacted by the criminal legal system.

Afton: What are some of the pervasive myths or perceived roadblocks employers cite related to fair chance hiring?

FCH Initiative: There are three main things that usually come up. First, companies often cite their industry’s regulatory requirement as being a barrier to hiring fair chance talent, but this blanket statement leaves out a lot. Sure, there might be some folks who won’t be able to be hired for a specific role because they possess a disqualifying record, however, there are many ways that organizations can make it work–regulatory requirements alone should not stop you from hiring individuals with prior convictions or arrests.

Second, companies have a lot of perceptions about risk, about what they’ll be liable for if their hire commits another crime. To address this, many companies set their background check lookback period to be 7-10 years, often disqualifying individuals who have a conviction within that timeframe. But why? Why are we looking at 10 years? Most people are not career criminals. They may have made one choice that led to an arrest or conviction, but they’re not necessarily repeating that behavior again and again. Often, individuals take these actions because of their limited economic opportunity, so having a job addresses this need.

Third, companies are subject to implicit bias and often have preconceived notions about what kind of worker someone with a criminal record will be. However, in practice, employers are finding fair chance hires have higher retention rates and are focused not only on keeping a job but in advancing, as well. As one example, fair chance hires at Dave’s Killer Bread Company outperformed traditional hires in attendance, policy, and behavioral violations, and were promoted faster over a three-year period.

Afton: How was the Fair Chance Hiring Initiative launched?

FCH Initiative: The Corporate Coalition decided to pursue a fair chance hiring cohort based on the interest of our Coalition members. In 2022, Jeff Korzenik, a thought leader in this space and author of the book Untapped Talent: How Second Chance Hiring Works for Your Business and the Community, presented to our membership about the hiring challenges many employers are facing, particularly coming out of Covid. The U.S. is currently experiencing a labor shortage that requires employers to look to non-traditional or ‘untapped talent’ pools– like individuals with prior arrests or convictions–for their hiring. In making this business case, our members expressed resounding interest in participating in a cohort that would help them examine their own hiring and retention practices related to fair chance talent.

Once our membership was on board, we were able to secure funding from the Chicagoland Workforce Funder Alliance, JP Morgan Chase and the McCormick Foundation to launch an inaugural cohort. We also partnered with Cara Collective—an organization with a long history of helping individuals impacted by the criminal legal system to secure employment—and its expansion arm, Cara Plus.

Afton: What were the goals of this first cohort?

FCH Initiative: The goals of the Initiative are to demonstrate and promote models of successful fair-chance hiring, to build a cross-industry group of local champions for fair chance hiring to scale the effort, and ultimately to increase the number of people with criminal records gaining productive, family-supportive employment. In this first cohort, we worked with eight companies that were largely national or global in scale, ranging from financial services and health care to transportation, academia, and retail. Over the course of nine months, we met monthly to discuss topics such as overcoming regulatory barriers, developing talent pipeline partners, revising background check processes, overcoming internal barriers and external perceptions, and offering supportive wrap-around supports to ensure retention and advancement of new hires.

Afton: What outcomes, successes, or results did you see from this first cohort?

FCH Initiative: So many amazing things occurred! Here are some examples:

  • The majority of cohort members have created internal stakeholder groups to continue to move this work forward, generate organizational buy-in, and influence culture change.
  • Many are drafting language to include in their job postings to indicate they are “fair chance employers” and encouraging those with arrests or convictions to apply.
  • One company is working to adjust their background check lookback period from 7 years to 5 years.
  • All cohort members identified two or three roles that could be suited for a fair chance hiring pilot and received feedback on these job postings to ensure they represent more inclusive hiring practices, such as highlighting transferrable skills and listing responsibilities in clear, jargon-free language.
  • Two companies are drafting additional content on their background check processes to communicate expectations more transparently with interested job seekers.

Afton: For folks reading this who may be interested, what actions they can take to hire more fair chance talent?

FCH Initiative: There are three things organizations can do right away to make change:

  1. Identify roles within your company that are fair chance friendly and make that known! Let applicants know you’re open to hiring individuals with records by posting transparent communication on your website and in the job descriptions themselves.
  2. Partner with workforce development organizations in your area that specialize in supporting fair chance talent. They will be able to provide resources to you and the employee to ensure the hiring, onboarding, and retention process goes smoothly.
  3. To the extent you can, conduct more individualized assessments for candidates based on the nature of the role you’re hiring for, the nature of the conviction, and the time that’s elapsed since the conviction took place. This individualized approach to your background check process will help you keep the door open to as many people as possible.

Afton: What comes next for the Fair Chance Hiring Initiative?

FCH Initiative: We are currently recruiting employers for our next cohort, which will kick off in January 2024. Reach out to Steph (steph.dolan@corpcoalition.org) for more information. And, for those interested in additional tools to support fair chance talent, check out The AdvoKit from Cara Plus or reach out to Liana at lbran@carachicago.org.

Eight Community Engagement Practices That Facilitate Stronger Decision-Making

Written by Afton Group on . Posted in Community Engagement, Effective Governance, Resource Equity.

Answers exist in the communities being served and it is our job to support our public sector partners in uplifting them. The issues we take on do not have “one-size-fits-all” fixes; context matters to both defining the problem and crafting the solution. As such, local champions who know the landscape and can commit to carrying out a vision play a critical role in shaping success. They are also well-positioned to improve newly implemented programs and policies over time to ensure intended and sustained impact. 

To tap into the wisdom of the community, engagement must be pursued with intention. We recommend eight key practices to create meaningful opportunities that result in rich and actionable insights.  

PRACTICE #1: Come into engagement activities curious, without assumptions or predetermined ideas. 

As facilitators of the Governor’s Workforce Commission on Equity and Access in Illinois, we started by exploring the needs of the workforce development system users to understand their challenges and pain points. With our colleagues at MDRC, we created job seeker personas and journey maps and conducted many focus groups with workforce providers and job seekers. Notably, we uncovered specific issues for undocumented workers who felt they could not access good jobs because of work authorization requirements. We also learned that they feel their education, skills, and work experience gained in their home countries are not appreciated or valued in the U.S. They wanted more guidance in using those skills beyond the employment market that overlooked them.  With that input in mind, the resulting recommendations included expanded support for those interested in entrepreneurship and self-employment. 

PRACTICE #2: Include the most impacted individuals, with particular focus on historically underrepresented groups. 

Illinois’ transition to a new unified Department of Early Childhood prompted the creation of robust new engagement channels to include input from impacted parties in the agency design process. While they were successful in hearing from nearly 1,400 individuals, only a small percentage of them were parents or providers. With the help of Afton Partners, the state doubled down on their efforts to reach those groups. We implemented a regional listening session plan, inviting local organizations across the state to serve as hosts. Leveraging local networks proved successful: the 1,700 new participants represented every county in the state, and 98% identified themselves as parents or providers. Of those who were parents, 40% identified as Hispanic or Latino, and 25% identified as African American. Over half of the participants represented rural communities. The more robust participation ensured we had insights that better reflected different communities’ experiences with the current system and what improvements they would deem helpful. 

PRACTICE #3: Make engagement accessible for participants. 

With the Colorado Early Childhood Compensation and Benefits Task Force, we conducted focus groups and surveys in English and Spanish. Additionally, we offered meeting times in both the afternoon and evening to accommodate participants’ work schedules.  Participants received incentives and professional development credit for their contributions and time. To ensure an inclusive process, communications came in multiple formats and included sign language, ADA-compliant accessibility in print and online materials, and the avoidance of jargon in favor of language everyone could relate to. All of these measures led to robust input, and the insights played a valuable role in the development of the task force’s recommendations.  

PRACTICE #4: Set norms and expectations from the start. 

Afton facilitated the development of the Great Start for All Minnesota Task Force’s guiding principles that set the conditions for their process and final recommendations. Co-developed by members, the principles reflected the task force’s values and provided shared expectations for engagement.  

Revisiting the guiding principles at every meeting kept everyone aligned in productive conversation that valued input from all members.  The 12 norms and expectations included: 

  • Attend meetings prepared and on time 
  • Engage in respectful dialogue 
  • Everyone’s input is important 
  • Assume best intent 
  • Listen with an open mind, and for commonalities 
  • Don’t say or type anything you wouldn’t want to have shared in public 
  • Don’t just disagree, offer a doable alternative idea 

In complex processes, co-created norms and expectations offer built-in accountability that has full buy-in from the start. The result is less conflict, quicker course correction when needed, and more efficient discussion in pursuit of the end goal.  

PRACTICE #5: Demonstrate respect, transparency, honesty, and genuine appreciation for all perspectives shared. 

In any community engagement activity, people want their input to be heard, valued, and impactful. In our focus groups conducted with the Colorado Department of Early Childhood, we made sure to clearly articulate why input is needed, what it will be used for, who it will be shared with, and how it will influence final recommendations. We made it clear that there is “no wrong answer” and guaranteed anonymity in our notetaking to encourage sharing and disclosure. Finally, to ensure we close the feedback loop with participants, we shared the final report with our summary findings and results so they can know how their perspectives shaped outcomes and their efforts made a difference. 

PRACTICE #6: Pursue broad and diverse participation when analyzing and making meaning of data. 

Individual, structural, and institutional biases can emerge in community engagement work, and it’s also important to consider statistical bias. In our data analysis and financial modeling work for school districts and charter school networks, Afton emphasizes the significance of looking at site-level financial, academic, and student data in school-level funding allocation policy and budgeting. This must accompany district-wide data analysis to make sure important details aren’t missed.  

For example, certain schools may have higher or changing needs of students, or student outcomes may be on an undesirable trajectory. Examining funding variation across all sites with distinct characteristics and forecasting future expenditures and investments at the school level can reveal unintentional inequities in the school plan. Therefore, it’s critical to have broad participation from education staff, community members, and students and families in interpretive activities that inform decisions.  Those with lived experiences related to the data can explain what it means to them, providing enriched understanding and problem-solving possibilities. 

PRACTICE #7: Conduct iterative engagement activities at various points in the project; consider a variety of methods or approaches. 

Our work with the Office of the Deputy Mayor of Education in Washington DC sought to develop a funding policy that provides equitable and adequate resources to serve each student well and to make a clear case for policy change. In collaboration with our project partners, we identified four primary groups to engage with through a variety of methods: district leaders; school personnel; families, students, and the community; and city leadership. The strategies to engage with each of these groups varied to meet the needs and positioning of participants. For example, we used a survey to capture straightforward financial data from district leaders who deal with the funding policy daily. However, a focus group proved more appropriate for parents and families, allowing for nuanced conversation about the resource needs of students. Finally, we interviewed key school personnel and leaders to gather their insights on the implications of the work at hand.  

Taken together, some groups and methods provided foundational information while others provided valuable reactions to proposals as they took shape. We synthesized all of the feedback to discover recurring themes across the district that either fortified quantitative data or showed important areas of tension, all of which informed the final policy recommendations. 

PRACTICE #8: Ask for feedback along the way and at the end. 

How do you know your process works for participants? Do they feel they have adequate opportunity to share? Do they walk away from each encounter feeling informed? Empowered? Something else? What could be improved for the next community engagement activity?  

In addition to gathering responses to make short-term adjustments, collecting feedback at the end of an initiative offers teams an opportunity to reflect on both the outcomes of a process and the methods used to create them. For instance, every phase of a project brings about a new host of questions. And yet, survey fatigue is real. Narrowing in on the most important questions and choosing the appropriate approach (“is a survey the right way to get what we need?”) can facilitate high-quality responses and reduce attrition over time.  

Done well, community engagement offers unparalleled insight into the reality of complex problems and their workable solutions.  

But we can’t just go through the motions.  

Employing the eight practices will ensure you harness the power of collective wisdom to create the transformational change your communities want and deserve.