On Monday, May 21st Commonwealth Corporation and JobsFirstNYC co-hosted a webinar on Employer Solutions to Recruitment & Retention Challenges in a Tight Labor Market.  Nearly 100 participants from Massachusetts, New York and other states joined us for a rich conversation.

The webinar began with a presentation on research that JobsFirstNYC had conducted on the impact of online applications and embedded personality assessments in screening out individuals who are likely good candidates for positions.  Their research illuminated several alternatives to online pre-hire assessments that are being used successfully by large retail and food service businesses.

We then learned about three really interesting and different models designed to help businesses be successful in hiring and retaining workers, and workers be successful in managing work and life responsibilities.

  • Aaron Bence from the Center for Open Hiring at Greyston explained the inclusive hiring approach that they have used over the past 35 years at their food manufacturing facility in Yonkers. The Center for Open Hiring at Greyston is officially launching on June 12th and will seek to share the lessons and practices they have developed to help other businesses think differently about their hiring practices and consider adopting inclusive hiring approaches. Click here for the Center for Open Hiring at Greyston powerpoint presentation.
  • Marie Downey from BEST Hospitality Training explained how strong partnerships with employers in the Boston hospitality industry have informed all aspects of their training and education programming–from screening criteria for participants, to curriculum development and even some components of training delivery. A few of the newest features to their program are implementing a U.S. Department of Labor registered pre-apprenticeship program and an articulation agreement with Bunker Hill Community College to offer college credit for some of BEST’s training. Click here for the BEST Hospitality Training powerpoint presentation.
  • Jordan Runge from Managed by Q, an office support company, was inspired by Zeynep Ton’s book, The Good Jobs Strategy. Jordan shared how high turnover rates among their cleaning services workers led them to research the reasons behind involuntary turnover among employees within the first three months of employment. They developed a pilot program which involves a navigator whose focus is supporting workers in a number of ways to remove the obstacles that may prevent them from showing up to work. Click here for the Managed by Q powerpoint presentation.

The webinar wrapped up with a Q&A facilitated by Marie Davis from the 100K Opportunities Initiative.  This allowed webinar participants to follow-up with questions about each of the models.

Click here for the full webinar recording on YouTube.  While the entire webinar is worth watching and listening to, below are the approximate time breaks by presenter if you are looking to listen to just part of the session.

00:00-14:00 Introduction, summary of tight labor market conditions, JobsFirstNYC research

14:01-23:40 Aaron Bence, Center for Open Hiring at Greyston

23:45-38:55 Marie Downey, BEST Hospitality Training

39:00-52:10 Jordan Runge, Managed by Q

52:20-1:24:15 Q&A with Marie Davis, 100K Opportunities Initiative