Giving Compass' Take:

• More and more business owners are promoting social good initiatives and implementing better recruiting practices in order to drive employment and focus on equity within the company culture.  MOD pizza is one example of a company that partnered with the local community to solve their high turnover rates while giving youth in the neighborhood opportunities they might not otherwise have. 

• What is the relationship between businesses empowering people in the community and community then empowering business?

• Read about these Minnesota businesses innovating on social good. 

Savvy business leaders everywhere are focused on talent, changing demographics, and the future of work—and what it all means for their company. On June 13th, FSG and the Shared Value Initiative are hosting REWIRE: Unlocking Talent Solutions for Today& Tomorrow at Gap Inc.’s headquarters in San Francisco to explore how companies can build their capacity to better recruit, retain, support, and advance historically overlooked talent pools with an aim of improving the bottom line.

MOD Pizza was founded with the goal of using business to make a positive social impact. Founders Ally and Scott Svenson realized that through the fast-casual pizza segment they pioneered, MOD could create a positive effect on the lives of their fiercely loyal employees.

When MOD learned that 5.5 million young people in the U.S., ages 18-24, are out of school and unemployed, they saw an opportunity to not only impact lives but solve a critical business need. Through FSG’s Innovation Lab program, MOD set out to discover whether a partnership with a community-based organization could help address their high turnover and recruitment challenges through providing them with both a pipeline of career-ready youth and the wrap-around supports these youth needed to be successful. MOD decided to focus their pilot partnership in the Bay Area where MOD restaurants were facing upwards of 67% turnover at the 90-day mark.

Less than a year into the partnership, MOD is finding that their collaboration with JUMA is having an impact on their recruitment and turnover. Of young people hired by MOD during the pilot, only 50% turned over by the 90-day mark compared to 67% for the region.

MOD plans to scale impact hiring at a national level, building both partnerships and a database of community-based organizations that all MOD general managers can tap into as talent pipelines and for support.

Read the full article about businesses doing good by Megan Hansen at Shared Value Initiative