We often work with companies to determine how they can become fair chance employers, but the results of the study reveal that companies thinking about hiring justice-involved individuals into but not up in their organizations are missing out. The study found that justice-involved employees apply for and succeed in receiving advancement opportunities more than any other group surveyed – across gender, race, and age. Specifically, they apply for promotions at a rate six percentage points higher than other frontline employees and request more responsibility at a rate 14 points higher. They go on to successfully receive these promotions and opportunities for more responsibility at a rate of five and 12 percentage points higher, respectively, compared to other frontline employees. 

The evidence suggests that this outcome is largely due to those employees’ exceptional motivation rather than employer-driven initiatives to promote access to advancement opportunities, where we saw a +10-point gap in employers’ stated availability of training, mentoring, and career paths vs. employees’ stated perception of them. Moreover, while justice-involved employees prioritize qualities like job growth and pay in their advancement like the broader group of frontline employees surveyed, they were more likely to value having more responsibility. To increase their capacity to take on these greater roles in their teams, we also saw justice-involved employees take advantage of upskilling opportunities at a rate 14 percentage points higher than other frontline employees in addition to a 10-point higher uptake of learning from co-workers, obtaining certifications, and doing the job before they get promoted.

This confirms what we have seen among job seekers we work with every day at Cara Collective, where nearly 50% of our participants (or 600+ people annually) have been impacted by the criminal justice system: when these individuals are given the opportunity (or a “fair chance”), they don’t waste it. Employers more broadly report justice-involved employees demonstrating a high level of effort and commitment to their jobs, often translating to higher rates of retention and advancement, which was reflected in the study. As Cara Collective graduate Lawrence Johnson says of his job at wholesale distributor The Bazaar Inc. – where he’s received two promotions in two years – “I now have a living wage, great benefits (I can provide health insurance for my daughter), and a great supervisor. I also got the chance to learn about managing facilities and now people trust and depend on me. [In this environment], you can get more pay, but I couldn’t leave when they’ve treated me so well.” 

Lawrence’s experience points to another trend revealed in the study: while justice-involved employees generally deprioritize vacation and sick time, flexible schedules, and family support benefits relative to other frontline employees, pay, job security, and a suitable work environment became more important to them, especially after COVID. Despite evidence that they advance at higher rates than other frontline employees, justice-involved employees face unique barriers, including a 10-point higher rate of having stressful homelives, a 5-point higher rate of not perceiving opportunities to get ahead, and a 7-point higher rate of not having the skills to work from home (e.g., computer literacy). To help justice-involved employees tap into their incredible motivation and desire to stay and gain more responsibility at their companies, employers must consider how they support these individuals and connect them to roles and responsibilities that match their interests and skill sets. 

What Employers Can Do 
Employers can start by reflecting on their background requirements and background check process from a job seeker perspective to reduce barriers to these individuals entering their organizations. They can also clearly communicate advancement opportunities in job postings, which can be especially impactful for justice-involved candidates, who have a 6-point higher rate of utilizing written descriptions of career paths relative to other frontline employees. Employers can similarly connect these workers with others who have successfully advanced and leverage the fact that justice-involved employees also have an 8-point higher rate of utilizing on-the-job mentoring or shadowing.  

Further taking advantage of justice-involved employees’ interest to expand their responsibilities and seek out training, companies can teach employees job functions other than those that are normally assigned and inform and remind employees of learning and development programs. When connecting these employees to specific opportunities to grow in the organization, companies should also keep in mind current skill gaps (like computer literacy) and where they can be supplemented. Finally, recognizing the additional barriers justice-involved employees can face outside the workplace, employers interested in tapping into this talent pool must also equip their managers to support and grow their teams, including aligning incentives for them to do so. We know this is especially important given the study’s finding that employees that advance are 15% more likely to receive positive feedback from their managers and 23% more likely to have frequent, manager-led conversations that demonstrate that their managers are invested in them.  

In this supportive environment, justice-involved employees can not only help meet near term hiring demands in today’s tight labor market but can also serve as an enduring source of committed, quality talent. Perhaps just as importantly, employers can extend not only a fair chance, but a future for the 79 million Americans impacted by the criminal justice system. Or as Lawrence better explained, “When [my company] says, ‘We want you to succeed,’ how can they say that, and you not want it for yourself.” 

To access deeper insights from the study Bridging the advancement gap: What frontline employees want—and what employers think they want, join Cara Plus’s next webinar unpacking data from the report on specific talent pools and industries.  

Liana Bran is the Director of Expansion Strategy at Cara Collective. Her team, Cara Plus, works with companies to shift how they hire, cultivate, and grow untapped talent, to create more inclusive, thriving businesses. 

The post Why Companies Should Think Beyond “Fair Chance” to a Future with Justice-Involved Employees  appeared first on Cara Collective.

Here are three questions we explore with our Lab attendees during our two-week cohort that unpacks tools and tactics to strengthen your workforce development program.

“Why should we focus on love and forgiveness when people just want a job?”

When you hear “job training,” you probably envision a series of mock interviews and resume writing classes – and you’re not wrong. Being able to confidently walk into an interview room, with your resume in hand and your elevator pitch at the ready, is an essential lesson taught in workforce development training programs. However, we believe that curriculum should encourage job seekers to dig a little deeper and stretch a little further.

At Cara, we teach classes about skills like love and forgiveness (yep, you read that right) because the “you” that shows up to work isn’t just the work version of you; it’s your entire self. It may sound strange to incorporate love and forgiveness into a job training program, but the “soft skills” we tend to neglect or avoid entirely are necessary for succeeding on a job and building a healthy life for yourself and your family.

During our Workforce Development Solutions Lab, you’ll have the opportunity to meet our frontline trainers who know the ins and outs of how to build trust and shift perspectives in the classroom, which is vital when talking about not only love and forgiveness, but topics like conflict resolution and communication. Attendees of our Workforce Development Solutions Lab will also walk away with the Attendee Workbook that includes an in-depth overview of our training model, as well as many of the tools we use along the participant journey. 

“Okay, so we have motivated job seekers who are ready to work, but how do we partner with employers to provide the actual jobs?”

To set up job seekers for long-term success, developing trusted relationships with nearby employers can help your job seekers go from where they are to where they want to go. Cultivating relationships with unique employment partners is the first step and it takes time – as our Employment Services team will attest.

Our approach is one of partnership, never viewing the relationship as a transaction. We want employers to succeed just as much as we want our job seekers to thrive, which is why we work side by side with Chicagoland employers in need of untapped talent. We get to know our employment partners, their workplace cultures and, most importantly, how they support their employees. These employers don’t see our work as charity, but as a strategic advantage to fuel their companies’ success.

At the Workforce Development Solutions Lab, you’ll meet our Employment Services team and dive into what Cara Collective has learned about building relationships with employers, matching job opportunities to our job seekers, and how to balance the goals of both. We’ll also send you home with the tools and assessments our Employment Services team uses every day. 

“Wait, once job seekers get hired, how do we make sure they stick and stay on the job?”

At Cara, we’ve learned that coaching is everything. Our employed participants are assigned coaches who regularly check in with them throughout their entire first year on the job. In fact, a participant doesn’t graduate from our program unless they hit one year at the same employer.

We recognize how challenging that first year can be, which is why our coaches serve as a sounding board, strategic advisor, resource connector, and provider of encouragement and love (even if it’s the occasional tough love). Together, we navigate any bumps in the road, whether it be in a participant’s professional or personal life. This makes all the difference for people working towards long-term stability and ending intergenerational poverty.

In our Workforce Development Solutions Lab, our Coaching team shares how they continue to show up for participants, day-in and day-out. They walk you through Cara’s Stability Assessments in your Attendee Workbook, so you can gauge participants’ needs and barriers to employment. 

To further unpack these questions and so many more, we hope you will join us in an upcoming Workforce Development Solutions Lab. We would love to meet and collaborate with you; and together, help more job seekers find hope, jobs, and opportunity.

Ready to get started? Register for our next Workforce Development Solutions Lab.

For any questions, please contact learn@caraplus.org.

The post Three Questions You’ll Get Answered at Cara’s Workforce Development Solutions Lab  appeared first on Cara Collective.

Earlier in my career, I worked for a CEO who was obsessed with a simple question. If you were ever debating two points of view, he’d inevitably ask: “What’s the third way?” It was his way of challenging us to consider whether the choices we debated were the only options, or if there was another – often unseen alternative – that would lead to a better outcome.  

Recently, I’ve found myself thinking a lot about the third way as I speak with companies struggling to find and keep good talent. On one side, I hear businesses lament that there isn’t enough good talent to do the work, while on the other, I hear an increasingly loud chorus that the jobs that exist aren’t worth pursuing. As I hear these debates, it makes me wonder if there’s another opportunity to address the seemingly endless talent shortage, while giving people who want to work the opportunity to. It makes me wonder if there is a third way.   

Right now, there are tens of millions of Americans who – due to different barriers – are overlooked for jobs. For example, 98% of companies run background checks on prospective candidates, and yet, 1 in 3 adults have a criminal record – a majority of whom are Black and Latinx.¹ Similarly, when employers require a four-year degree, they exclude even a broader talent pool, including 68% of Black and 79% of Latinx candidates.² While firms may use background policies or educational requirements as proxies for trust or ability, this isn’t borne out in the data.³ More importantly, it means that they are missing out on a pool of highly committed, often diverse, individuals that could contribute to their bottom line. 

Luckily, as firms think about how they can find and keep good employees, our insights from 8,000+ job seekers and 100+ employers have illuminated five levers that businesses can pull to find and keep this overlooked talent:  

1. Recruitment  

In the war for talent, it can be common for firms to rely on traditional recruitment methods like their networks, local colleges and universities, trade schools, and online sources like LinkedIn. To broaden their recruitment efforts to include individuals that may not have access to traditional channels, employers can: 

• Consider the educational requirements for each job role or skills that can be trained on the job (i.e., are there roles that may not require a four-year degree?) 

• Assess their criminal background policies to ensure that they focus on relevant, discrete offenses rather than backgrounds as a whole; when they have less flexibility, they can consider shortening the lookback period to less than seven years 

• Test job descriptions with local workforce development organizations to ensure that other language doesn’t inadvertently exclude certain populations, or use tools like Skillfull’s job posting generator 

• Make job applications mobile-friendly for people who may have limited access to computers 

• Hire from workforce development organizations that have a strong track record of helping talent find and keep employment 

• Provide job shadowing experiences and internships, like the Chicago Apprentice Network 

2. Hiring  

Once potential candidates have been identified, another common barrier is hiring practices that unintentionally exclude certain populations. To widen the net of who may advance in the candidate selection process and ultimately obtain a role, firms can: 

• Use a competency (or skills) based approach to hiring to capture those who may have gained experience outside of the workplace 

• Ensure hiring processes eliminate opportunities for implicit bias (e.g., managers use a consistent set of competencies to assess candidates) 

• Understand the best way to reach candidates so that people with less internet access do not miss any important communications (e.g., phone, text, email, etc.) 

3. Job Quality, Culture, and Support  

Once firms find good talent, retaining them is key to reducing turnover costs. Things that can prevent an employee from staying on the job may include feeling like they aren’t setup for success, a lack of team or organizational support, or pay and benefits that do not support their stability or quality of life. To help employees stick and stay, firms can: 

• Create a structured onboarding process that goes beyond administration to include on-the-job training and 30-60-90 day check-ins to understand what employees need to be successful (as well as what they wish they had learned) 

• Empower managers to support their teams beyond just production; showing care from the top down can set this example 

• Partner with non-profits that can support individuals on areas that could impact their stability (e.g., transportation, childcare, housing, etc.), or add on stability-focused supports to your Employee Assistance Program (EAP) through services like WorkLife Partnership 

• Provide basic living standards, such as livable wages, predictable scheduling, and benefits 

4. Advancement 

Studies estimate that every time an employee leaves a job, it costs 33% of that employee’s wages to find, hire, and train up their replacement. As such, when employers hire, job retention can be a key success measure to minimize turnover costs. To help retain employees – and create advancement opportunities for those who want to grow – firms can: 

• Develop career pathways and opportunities for advancement for every role in the company – and ensure that employees know how they can tap into those opportunities; ensuring that employees know about these opportunities within the first 30/60/90 days of employment is critical too 

• Provide a coach or mentor who can encourage the employee and help them with their goals; this could be someone on their team or elsewhere in the firm  

• Support employees interested in developing skills or obtaining degrees that will enable them to advance in the firm with time and resources; offering stipends or the ability to do this during work hours can reduce barriers for individuals with less discretionary time 

• Provide professional development opportunities, so that if individuals cannot advance in their firm, they can advance elsewhere 

• Transition employees to their next opportunity with guidance, dignity, and respect 

5. Public Commitments 

If you’re doing the good work to shift these practices – shout it from the rooftops! Making public commitments or sharing what changes you are making will not only help your brand, but it will give other employers the confidence to do the same. To showcase your success and de-risk new hiring practices for other companies, firms can: 

• Take a public position with a quantitative commitment to hiring from historically overlooked populations; publicizing specific changes made to achieve that goal can inspire others to follow suit 

• Create case studies of what did and didn’t work to lift up effective practices for other companies 

When I first learned about the concept of a third way, it pointed to a discrete, alternative solution. But, when I think about the third way for tapping into overlooked talent, it’s not a single step, but a new perspective. That if we are willing to see talent for the potential that they bring vs. the background that they do or don’t have, then we can transform our talent strategies to include millions of individuals who are ready, willing, and eager to work. And if we can integrate these levers into our firms, then we will not just strengthen our places of work, but we will help individuals, families, and nearby communities thrive.  

Are you a company eager to shift how you hire, cultivate, and grow untapped talent? Join us at our upcoming Inclusion Action Lab.

Sara Wasserteil is Managing Director of Expansion and Integration at Cara Collective. Her team, Cara Plus, works with companies to shift how they hire, cultivate, and grow overlooked talent, to create more inclusive, thriving businesses.

The post What Talent Are You Missing Out On? appeared first on Cara Collective.

In our experience, many companies tackle this challenge by focusing on who and how they hire. This bold step is an important one that we see change lives every day at Cara Collective, where over the organization’s 30-year history we’ve connected overlooked talent to 11,600 jobs. We also know, though, that the path to self-sufficiency and economic mobility requires that people can stay in those positions, which is why Cara participants only graduate once they are one year on the job. So, if you care about diversity and inclusion, you should also care about retention.  

We appreciate that companies care about retention given the high tangible and intangible costs associated with turnover, but retention should also be a key focus of diversity and inclusion efforts. It is not enough to expand your talent pipelines; if you can’t get employees to stay, these investments will be fruitless. Yes, organizations must have diverse talent to retain in the first place (which is why you should continue to commit to more inclusive recruiting and hiring), but in the long term, to be able to take advantage of the numerous benefits of diversity and get to our collective aim of greater racial equity, retention cannot be an afterthought. 

In McKinsey & Company’s report, “Race in the Workplace: The Black Experience in the US Private Sector,” they highlight a “double broken rung” where Black workers not only have higher attrition for frontline and entry-level jobs but also lower odds of advancement. The good news: if Black workers are able to get into a manager-level position, they have better odds of future promotion. This points to another important goal for diversity and inclusion: advancement. If we hope to see racial parity across organizations, companies will need to examine how both retention and advancement are being considered in their DEI strategies. 

That’s why Cara Plus is launching our inaugural Inclusive Employment Institute focused on retention and advancement this May. In this interactive institute, employers will: 

• Strengthen onboarding processes to equip diverse talent for success in their role and ensure they “stick and stay”  
• Develop team cultures that create a shared sense of belonging and an environment where all members of the team can thrive  
• Cultivate relationships between frontline employees and managers, who have the biggest influence on employees’ outcomes  
• Grow pathways to help diverse talent grow and advance so that they can maximize their contributions to the firm  
• Workshop new practices by learning what is working for other employers and workshopping ideas with their peers 

If your organization is serious about inclusion and is looking for support to reduce turnover and strengthen advancement opportunities for diverse talent, click here to learn more and register for the Retention & Advancement Institute.  

About Cara Plus 

As a social enterprise of Cara Collective, Cara Plus engages employers and organizations across the nation to foster an inclusive economy where organizations – and all talent within them – have the ability and opportunity to thrive. Since our launch, Cara Plus has worked with dozens of socially minded companies and organizations to adopt or adapt Cara’s trainings and methodology. To learn more, please visit www.caraplus.org.

The post The Worst Way to Kill DEI: Ignore Retention appeared first on Cara Collective.

It has been quite a year, and it’s natural that during this pivot to largely remote work, we’ve learned a thing or two around the ‘do’s and don’ts’ of video calls. Cara Plus is no stranger to a long video call – having shifted our in-person Workforce Development Solutions Labs to now being fully virtual. Here are five ways to maximize your virtual meeting experience to help you build community:

1. Introductions set the tone

This seems obvious enough, but we’ve learned that you can’t give enough importance to how you start a virtual call – whether it’s a single workshopping session or a multi-session conference. Introductions are an opportunity to set the tone, and at Cara Collective, we know that if you want to build relationships, you need to build trust first. We are all about building relationships and getting vulnerable fast.

One of our favorite tools is “Re-Introductions.” This starts out with the typical round of standard introductions, in which participants typically share their name, professional title, and a sentence of what they do. After that, we prompt participants (without prior notice) to dig deeper – to share their personal story, such as an experience that’s shaped them that paved the way to where they are now. This catches participants off guard but also allows them to spontaneously share a piece of what makes them tick, and sets the tone for showing up authentically and being vulnerable.

Always be sure to have yourself or one of the facilitators ready to model their response first. When opening it up for introductions, you can either start popcorn style: asking the participant to call on the next person to share. Or you can even list out all the names of participants in alphabetical order in the chat box to guide the sequence of sharing. Having a stated approach for who will go next can prevent awkward silences.

2. Establish roles and the journey

Next, you’ll want to consider the format of the video call. Do you want to begin with an opening slide? Or is it more meaningful to be in gallery view so that everyone can see each other’s faces while they introduce themselves? (We prefer the latter.) Whatever you decide, call out the agenda, including a breakdown of the schedule, if possible. Be sure to identify who will be steering the ship on this journey. This will help establish the tone that facilitators are captains of the ship and providing an overview of the journey ahead. You can also offer a quick tech tutorial, asking participants to practice typing in the chat box and use the raise hand feature.

Here’s 3 roles we think are key to a successful virtual session:

Facilitator: being an active listener, asking questions, explaining the task

Tech: being able to share screen, explain technology, record the call, share links in the chat box

Tracking engagement: watch for raised hands, read the chat box, answer any direct messages

Note that the person managing tech can also track engagement, depending on the group of the size. You’ll want to be mindful of the facilitator-to-participant ratio. For groups of 10 or more, we always recommend having at least one facilitator and one tech/group tracker in the virtual session.

3. Build a safe and brave space

Similar to when beginning a session in-person, it’s important to set group norms to establish a shared language for the group. This also helps create guardrails and builds foundational community trust. We like to begin this section by highlighting the definitions of a safe space and brave space to our virtual audience, which allow for deeper engagement and confidentiality.

Safe space: A space in which folks can feel welcome to fully and freely express themselves without fear of judgement or an inhospitable environment.

Brave space: A space in which folks can bring their entire selves to the table, challenge one another in a positive way, and learn from one another.

We also list out some norms that acknowledge we’re all learning together in this new virtual space, to come as you are, to give a little grace, and to honor emotional states. Recently, we have begun to highlight virtual etiquette as well, such as:

• Find a quiet space to participate
• Stay focused and be present
• Keep yourself off mute unless your background is noisy
• Turn on your video if you feel comfortable
• Minimize multitasking

Prepare yourself to be fully present during the session. Do you need to remove a pet from the room or hide your mobile phone? We won’t be using email during this session, so you can close your email inbox too if it’s open!

Once we’ve shared our list, we ask the audience if there’s anything they’d like to add, remove, or change. And we end with getting a physical or virtual thumbs up to ensure everyone’s on board before continuing. Your established group norms will be an important list to reference, especially before breaking into any deeper or personal conversations. It’s important to decide before the session how you’d like participants to show up – whether you’d like them to keep their video on when possible, etc.

4. Accommodate different learning styles

As facilitators, we’ve learned that part of this role is to acknowledge and appreciate all of the unique ways that participants show up into a virtual community, including their different learning styles.

While some participants are extremely active in large group settings, others may enjoy smaller reflection opportunities. Some may be visual and auditory learners – which is an essential consideration when thinking about your learning tools.

Whose voices are showing up? Can you show, rather than tell, i.e. through a video clip?

Also consider all of the methods you can encourage participation on a virtual call: through a chat box, polls, annotation feature, and so on.

5. Switch things up & embrace breakout rooms

We all know that doing things virtually can be exhausting and you want to avoid video burnout. We’ve noticed that our most effective virtual sessions have incorporated activities that allow for screen time breaks. We might share a video clip with the group and have them view it with their video/audio off. Our general rule of thumb is to allow for a 10-15 minute break for every two hours of a workshop.

As facilitator, you’ll want to get comfortable being able to gauge the energy levels of your group (virtually), which isn’t always easy. Are folks dozing off? Do you notice their attention wavering? Are they silent during large group discussions? It’s also helpful to have a queue of energizers ready to pull out when necessary, sometimes on the fly. Consider the different ways you can engage individuals. You can offer a 5 minute break for individual reflection time, or you can also pair folks off into breakout rooms and have them answer a quick personal question. Breakout rooms are an underutilized asset to a virtual call – you can send your participants into a virtual tête-à-tête with just a few clicks of your mouse.

Here are some fun energizers we’ve used that work well to get folks talking and connecting, either at the start of a session or as a mid-session pick-me-up:

• How are you feeling today? In the chat, rank your feeling from 1-10.
• Describe how you’re feeling, using the weather as a metaphor. For example, “I’m feeling cloudy with a chance of sunlight.”
• What’s your story? This activity requires participants to select an artifact that represents a piece of themselves or their story – it can be an item in their home that holds a greater significance or has a deeper meaning behind it. Artifact exercises can be done in pairs or groups of three.

And lastly, as captain of the ship, you’ll want to wrap up each session with a debrief. Consider posing a few open ended questions on a slide and ask the large group to share out. Even if this is just for a few minutes, it’s always important to help folks process what they’ve learned during their time together. We like to share a slide for a minute, and then drop the questions into the chat box as we resume gallery view. This ensures that the community you’ve built together can see each other as they answer.

To continue learning from Cara Collective and other workforce development organizations around the country, join our upcoming Workforce Development Solutions Lab, which provides organizations with the opportunity to learn from and workshop best practices. Want more information? Click here to browse all of our resources and learning opportunities.

The post 5 Ways to Build Community Virtually appeared first on Cara Collective.

Without the courage to be vulnerable, to express care for yourself and the people in your life, we know even the most experienced professionals struggle to find and keep a job. That’s why love is, quite literally, at the heart of true transformation.

A lot of love and transformation starts right here in the Motivations circle

Since 1991, we have been laser-focused on providing a program for motivated job seekers to develop and demonstrate workplace competencies (like time management, teamwork, and communication), but our former CEO Eric Weinheimer recognized—while essential for long-term success—these skills didn’t get to the heart of how someone truly transforms their life.

And so, the Love Letters exercise was born, created by Eric; artfully written and taught by Ms. Vicki Hudson-Stapleton; and used to unlock thousands of hearts by Mr. Jesse Teverbaugh. The exercise goes like this:

• Identify a person who you love but have a challenging relationship with.
• Meet with this person and ease into a conversation.
• Place your hands on their face, look into their eyes, and say “I love you.”
• Then write a letter, describing what happened and how you felt when you put your hands on their face and said those three powerful words.

Anyone feel sweaty, even a bit nauseous, picturing yourself doing this? Whose face would you hold in your hands?

Generations of Cara’s heart: Director of Student & Alumni Affairs Jesse Teverbaugh,
President & CEO Maria Kim, Cara’s Founder Tom Owens, Former President & CEO Eric Weinheimer

While the instruction of the Love Letters exercise may seem simple, performing it is very complex, to say the least. To get a better understanding of the Love Letters exercise’s difficulty, vulnerability, and intimacy, we asked love leaders Ms. Vicki Hudson-Stapleton and Mr. Jesse Teverbaugh to break it down for us:

Jesse: “You’ve got to understand the purpose of it [the exercise] and how we build up to it; no matter what your background, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, education level… Everyone comes with some lack of self-worth. Whatever the reason.”

“How do you restore that sense of self-worth and self-love when people define love with hurt? That’s not what love is. We redefine what love is so that we can rely on it more heavily when we need it. We need to lean into it, not shy away from it.”

Vicki: “The majority of people who come to Cara are here for a job; I wouldn’t even necessarily say a career because they don’t go as far as to say, ‘This is something I want to do for the rest of my life. This is my purpose, this is my passion.’ So much of the work is changing the mindset to get them to understand what purpose and passion look like. That’s where the transformation part comes in, that’s where the love comes in; identifying who you are.”

Ms. Vicki Hudson-Stapleton leading our Transformations training, including the Love Letters exercise

Vicki: “From a trainer’s point of view, you can’t do this job if you are not willing to be honest and share your story. We can’t get them to do that if that’s not something we can do ourselves. That’s the end goal. We always say we have a long way to go but a very short time to get there. By that fourth week of Transformations, they’re identifying who they are.”

“One of the biggest takeaways of the exercise is that I am worthy of love. A lot of people don’t believe that: ‘I am worthy of the best life has to offer.’ You can’t believe that if you can’t love yourself. That’s what we want them to gain by the time they not only leave Cara but continue on.”

Jesse: “The Love Letters exercise focuses on touching someone’s face. It’s called intimacy: ‘Into me you see.’ Here you have the opportunity to give someone their flowers while they’re still alive and to live your life out loud, loving people and sharing your love.”

“When you teach people about goals, the first thing you tell them is to write it down. List your goals. Start journaling. Part of the Love Letters exercise is just a bit of that same philosophy. There’s something about writing it down that makes it really powerful and sustainable, so it sticks with them.”

For a glimpse into the power of the exercise, read a Love Letter written by a Cara participant.

Your support will help our motivated job seekers transform their lives. Click here to make a gift to Cara.

The post Getting to the Heart of Transformation appeared first on Cara Collective.

What are transitional jobs?

Transitional jobs are temporary jobs designed to help individuals build new skills and experience as they seek full-time employment. Transitional employment programs are particularly beneficial for job seekers overcoming barriers—like poverty, homelessness, lack of transportation, or long gaps in employment history, among others. It’s a way for our participants to simultaneously build their resumes and their confidence, while also earning an income.

The Benefits of Transitional Employment

Our participants find that the short-term opportunities provided through Cleanslate and Cara Connects help them:

• Apply their skills to new situations. All of our participants join us with existing strengths, talents, and interests. For example, some people are great at making conversation while others are more detail-oriented and can keep track of many different moving parts. The life skills our participants already have are valuable on-the-job skills.
• Try out a job temporarily to see if it’s a good match. Some of our participants join us with an idea of what they want to do, but others need to see what’s out there in order to determine what career path is the right fit. Getting to know our participants helps us place them in temporary positions that fit their interests, talents, and personalities. 
• Learn new skills and abilities. If participants have been out of work, have had a hard time maintaining employment in the past, or are looking to start working in a new field, transitional opportunities provide on-the-job training and learning that they can apply to a permanent position down the line. We curate opportunities for our participants to develop the expertise they need to land a quality job—from computer and customer service skills to job-specific certifications.
• Gain experience and references. Participants learn on the job and gain valuable expertise that they can turn around and list on their resumes. That way, they gain experience to add to their employment history and use it to get a permanent job in the future. Developing good working relationships with managers and supervisors also helps participants build out their professional networks and strengthen their reference lists.
• A steady paycheck. While volunteer work is also a beneficial addition to any resume, all of our transitional job opportunities are paid. We know that earning a steady income is important. That’s why we also have support in place for participants that need it—and provide free transit cards, free professional attire, and retention coaching to all participants so they can put their best foot forward.

How Does Transitional Employment Work at Cara?

For both temporary and full-time jobs, we reach out to our network of employment partners—businesses and organizations that want to hire, affect change, and make a commitment to inclusive employment. Some of the organizations where we have placed participants include Whole Foods, University of Chicago Medicine, the Chicago Transit Authority, Catholic Charities of Chicago, Eataly, ABM, and more.

If you’re interested in embarking on your journey of self-growth and gaining new skills to be successful on the job, learn more about our program or contact our team today to get started.

The post The Importance of Transitional Jobs appeared first on Cara Collective.

Our founder Tom Owens started Cara out of his car, driving from shelter to shelter to help connect people experiencing poverty and homelessness with gainful employment. Since then, Cara has grown from one person’s incredible vision to today’s team of 85 passionate staff members serving hundreds of job seekers each year in Chicago and beyond.

We realized early on that finding and keeping a job is tough for anyone, but especially if you are affected by poverty and the challenges and inequities associated with it. The road up out of poverty isn’t only about a job but the entirety of the person looking for one. That’s why we came up with our guiding principles that we call the “Five Ways to Transform Your Life,” recognizing that the journey is just as, if not more important than, the destination.

Our Five Transformations are:

Look With New Eyes

Don’t Relax

Think Outside the Box

Change Your Behavior

Know the Deepest Truth of Who You Are

In the words of our Director of Student & Alumni Affairs Jesse Teverbaugh, “We cannot teach where we are not willing to go,” which means our participants aren’t the only ones who practice our Five Transformations; Cara’s entire enterprise lives them out too. If 2020 has taught us one thing, it’s that the deepest truth of Cara is ever-evolving but rooted in how we learn, grow, and work together to unlock the power and purpose within our communities and ourselves.

A picture of Jesse Teverbaugh leading Transformations training – Photo taken by Siskel/Jacobs Productions for The Road Up

Over the past year, Cara as an enterprise has collectively leaned into these Transformations more than ever before. We had to look with new eyes to shift our in-person classes, workshops, and services to a virtual world. Our social enterprises Cleanslate and Cara Connects never relaxed, working non-stop to make sure people could build their skills through transitional employment. We had to think outside the box to reach and onboard job seekers without being physically together. And we are simultaneously getting our participants into jobs while working with companies to change their hiring practices to be more inclusive.

But most of all, at the foundation of our deepest truth, is our participants and alumni who have kept our communities going by working on the front lines and proving what we’ve always known to be true; they are always essential.

Read more stories about how our participants and the Cara enterprise live out our Transformations every single day.

The post The Deepest Truth of Cara appeared first on Cara Collective.

Back in early March, Cleanslate, our flagship social enterprise, was making plans to broaden our reach into new regional communities while gearing up for a busy Chicago festival season —anticipating our crews servicing three dozen events. Just days later, festivals started cancelling and our regular operations were put on pause as a Stay at Home Order was enacted for the state of Illinois and Cleanslate’s operations were suspended.

Immediately, we sprang into action to come up with measures that would keep our Cleanslate crews and staff safe. From ensuring proper sanitation and installing plexiglass in our trucks to reducing crew sizes and putting a hazard pay system in place, we were preparing to re-open safely. We also created an alternate framework to train new crew members in two hours virtually instead of our traditional multi-day in-person training.

After 17 days, Cleanslate was defined as an essential business by the city, and we were back to work. Fortunately, some of our biggest customers committed to pay their full monthly invoice even while we were briefly closed during that short time. Our partners saw Cleanslate as essential to our community.

We were back in action with great hustle and even exceeded our expectations: signing new contracts; expanding our reach to Gary, Indiana; and creating employment opportunities comparable to our pre-pandemic numbers, trending towards 400 jobs for the year.

Two of our Cleanslaters providing essential landscaping services this past spring

“What am I most proud of this year? Obviously the team at Cleanslate,” says Brady Gott, Cleanslate Managing Director. “Since March, our team has made the tough decision to come in every day, follow all of the safety guidelines they helped put in place, and coach and develop our crew members, while also running profitable contracts.”

Cleanslate set high standards that helped our entire enterprise set safety policies and procedures for our other campuses. Without Cleanslate’s quick thinking and immediate action, hundreds of people would be unemployed and the communities we serve wouldn’t get essential landscaping and exterior maintenance care. 

To learn more about how Cleanslate is transforming the physical and social landscapes of Chicago and beyond, visit our website. You can also read more stories about how our participants and the Cara enterprise live out our Transformations every single day.

The post How Cleanslate Did Not Relax in a Pandemic appeared first on Cara Collective.

Hiring practices tremendously shifted this past year. Many of our closest employment partners are in the industries hardest impacted by COVID-19 such as hospitality and food service. We’ve seen these companies pause their hiring, which makes connecting people with gainful employment all the more challenging.

However, we’ve also seen new and promising opportunities to work with employers ready to grow their team and change their hiring practices to be more inclusive. We are using this momentum to start an inclusive employment movement, helping companies see and hire the amazing talent that exists in Chicago communities often overlooked.

Cara Plus, the expansion arm of Cara’s enterprise, has helped amplify our enterprise-wide voice to advocate for inclusive employment. We are collectively working to share actionable steps employers can take to hire community-based talent such as tweaking job descriptions that welcome a larger talent pool and accepting applicants who have previously been involved with the justice system.

“We all have bumps and bruises,” says Elaine Ross, Manager of Placement Services. “But that doesn’t mean a person wouldn’t make a positive impact on your company. Every single person on this earth has beautiful talents; they just need an opportunity to share them with the world.”

We are fortunate to work with companies who are eager to join the movement. Our friends at BMO Harris are dedicated to making the financial industry more accessible to jobs seekers with barriers to employment. Earlier this year, they partnered with us to co-create their new workforce initiative BMORE. Every step of the process was a collaboration from how we recruited talent to training and preparing potential hires. And through this program, BMO Harris has already hired 11 Cara participants to be their newest Customer Experience Representatives.

Joe Mutuc and Bianca, a member of our inaugural BMORE cohort, on the Good Day Chicago morning show

One of our incredible participants in this inaugural cohort is Bianca, a lifelong resident of the Austin community and single mother of two young children. “This job means I can be independent,” says Bianca. “I can provide and set the example of hard work for my children.”

As we enter 2021, we are eager to help more companies change their hiring behavior to find the essential talent from all Chicago communities.

Read more stories about how our participants and the Cara enterprise live out our Transformations every single day.

The post Changing Behavior to Build an Inclusive Employment Movement appeared first on Cara Collective.