What is Giving Compass?
We connect donors to learning resources and ways to support community-led solutions. Learn more about us.
Giving Compass' Take:
• Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Generation Work initiative, the Economic Opportunities Program, researches best practices connecting employers and young adults of color to job opportunities.
• How can this research help improve equitable hiring practices? In what ways can donors bolster these efforts or support research that helps community-based practitioners?
• Learn about designing career pipelines to fit the future workforce.
Even while general unemployment begins to improve, millions of America’s young people, especially young people of color, are out of school and work. Not connecting to work can have lasting effects, including long-term unemployment or long-term employment in low-quality jobs. Strategies to connect young adults to jobs that will set them up for success both now and moving forward are more important than ever. And employers play a critical role.
As a national partner to the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Generation Work initiative, the Economic Opportunities Program has been conducting research with community-based practitioners working directly with employers to build more equitable and inclusive employment practices. Workforce partners in Generation Work communities have tried and tested a range of strategies, and we highlight these in a new typology of promising practices.
Promoting Equity and Inclusion and Connection to Good Fit Jobs for Young Adults describes three categories of practice for employer engagement:
- Leveraging political and financial incentives to influence employer practice change
- Cultivating connections between employers and young adults to influence employer practices
- Working with employers to change practices from the inside
Read the full article about employment for young adults of color at the Aspen Institute.
Our hope is that this approach to describing the practical work of employer engagement will not only be helpful but also aspirational to readers who seek to expand good fit jobs in their communities. And, that workforce practitioners, in particular, can identify ways they can proactively engage with employers around supporting equity and inclusion in the workplace. Having said this, we recognize that this typology and examples from Generation Work, while rich, do not represent the totality of employer engagement tactics. We welcome input from readers to help us build this body of work with examples from your own experiences.