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(upbeat music) (bell ringing) - Hello and welcome to the City Club of Cleveland, where we are devoted to conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive.

Today is Friday, July 22nd, and I'm Dan Moulthrop, chief executive here and a proud member.

And it's my pleasure to introduce our forum today.

It's the second forum in our workforce development series, which we present in partnership with the Deaconess Foundation.

In fact, Cathy Belk of Deaconess was supposed to deliver this intro and I'm just filling in for her.

I hope I do an okay job.

Last month, we had a fascinating conversation about how the world of human resources has shifted from benefits administration to talent attraction and retention and cultural stewardship.

Today, we look at things from a different perspective, more of a worker's perspective.

I want to introduce to you a new phrase, a relatively new phrase, the social determinants of work.

At this point, most folks in our community are pretty familiar with the social determinants of health.

Those are factors such as poverty, access to education, proximity to green space, among others, that can have a determinative impact on your health.

People who experience poverty or housing stability, for instance, are more likely to get sick more often.

So what do we mean by the social determinants of work?

That's what we're talking about today.

These are the factors that are part of your life that can ultimately determine your career prospects, your career trajectory, not just what it takes to get a job, but what it might take to actually thrive in that job and then proceed to your next job.

If this is just beginning to spark some ideas and connections in your brain, by the end of this conversation, it will all be clear.

I assure you, because here with us today to discuss this framework are Bishara Addison.

She's director of job preparation at The Fund for Our Economic Future.

She also happens to be serving the Ohio General Assembly as interim representative for the ninth house district and deserves a considerable round of applause for that.

(audience applauding) Jill Rizika, president and CEO of Towards Employment, who once upon a time employed Bishara Addison.

(audience laughing) And also Renee Timberlake, director in Economic Mobility at the United Way of Greater Cleveland.

And moderating our conversation today is Teleange Thomas.

She's chief operations and relationship officer at JumpStart Incorporated.

Yes, please, round of applause.

(audience applauding) If you have questions for our panelists, you can text them to 330.541.5794.

Again, for the the benefit of our radio audience, it's 330.541.5794.

You can also tweet your questions at The City Club and our staff will work them into the second half of the program.

Members and Friends of the City Club of Cleveland, I present this panel.

Teleange Thomas, it's yours.

- Great, thank you so much, Dan.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Definitely delighted to be here with you all and to be on stage with these wonderful panelists.

We have a great topic that we're gonna jump right into, and as you heard in the introduction, we are talking about the social determinants of work.

And so I think that's a great place for us to start the conversation as that might be new terminology for some, but it really informs what we're gonna get in today.

So I will open it up.

Who would like to say in their own words, what are the social determinants of work?

- Sure, I'll take this one.

So the social determinants of work is a phrase that came about last year, Dr. Angela Jackson from New Profit was trying to help us understand the difference between the experience of people who were able to work remotely and those who were not in COVID.

And so to set it up as a new class system, right?

And so she identified these five social determinants of work to help really explain that dynamic.

They are job flexibility, healthcare, childcare, sustained education and transportation.

In conversation with Jill who used the phrase, this is where I found it, in their workforce, or sorry, their work advanced report, which she's showing, (indistinct chattering) - Get your copy.

- From last fall, that report talks about the social determinants of work and the impact that they have on people's ability to get jobs and to stay in those jobs and to move ahead.

So Jill and I got together and a couple of other folks from each of our teams got together to talk about how we could sort of elevate the conversation around the social determinants of work.

And through those conversations identified three additional items that we thought were really important to include.

So they are home and community health, broadband access and access to justice.

And we'll get more into - Absolutely - what those mean.

- Thank you.

Anything you would like to add to that, Jill?

- I think, we'll talk more later, but we did want to point out that the three that we added really was a focus on some of the early, the initial things were about how you take advantage of an opportunity today and if you don't have childcare transportation, how that can stunt your ability for Economic Mobility.

But the three that we added, we really wanted to focus a little bit more and raise awareness on the role of structural issues and really the legacy of systemic racism in creating, so the access to broadband, for example.

Why is there not that investment in certain neighborhoods?

Access to justice.

Why are blacks overrepresented in our criminal justice system?

So to think about not just what the challenges are at the moment of being able to access opportunity, but why, and why do certain populations have an opportunity gap?

So there's a little bit of background in why we added those three.

- Great.

Well, thank you for that context.

So another report is Where Are the Workers?

And that is one that The Fund for Our Economic Future has helped to shed some light on about what the experiences are that workers are having across our region.

So Bishara, let's start with you.

What do we need to know about the report and what are some of the barriers that were highlighted in it?

- Sure.

And so.

where the workers research is a project of The Fund for Economic future.

Last year, people kept coming to us asking what's going on in the labor market?

There's this great resignation.

There's individuals who aren't coming back to the workforce.

And we're like, we should probably come up with an answer to these questions.

And so we embarked with our board to be able to answer those questions.

And the part of that research that's most relevant for today is we did hire a public polling firm to be able to survey Northeast Ohio residents.

We were able to connect with nearly 5,000 individuals across the region and ask them questions around have your priorities around the work have changed?

Are you interested in going back to work?

Why might you be leaving work?

What are some of your barriers?

And so what we found, a couple interesting nuggets, one was that compensation was not one of the main reasons or is not the top reason that individuals were leaving work.

It actually had more to do with toxic work environment.

Now, compensation definitely made the list, but it was interesting for us to hear that toxic work environment was one of the main reasons why individuals were leaving their jobs.

That also means that compensation, although it matters, isn't a determining factor in whether someone comes to work or leaves their job.

- Excellent.

So that is some meaty nuggets and I was in a conversation just the other day talking about employment and what it is to be an employer and hiring, and someone made the statement, generally, employees don't leave an employer, they leave people.

And so, that's a good insight and looking forward to getting into that some more.

Anything, Jill or Renee, that you found interesting or want to highlight from the report that you think would be helpful for the group to hear today?

- So I think a couple of things.

One is just that I think the fact that the fund is focusing so much energy on Where Are the Workers and, you know, brain power, it just really reflects how ubiquitous this problem is right now.

There are so many people right now who are trying to understand why are there... Why do we have a higher than average unemployment rate and why do we have have so many unfilled positions?

So I think that's a really important piece of this work in that a lot of what they're doing helps inform what, you know, like Jill and I are doing in our, our organizations and really can help us give better context to the conversations that we're having.

One other important thing I think that came out of that research is actually from the employer side, which is something Bishara, correct me on this, this data point, but over 90% of employers are having a hard time finding people with the correct skills.

- That's correct.

And so, and I prefer to use the language of skills mismatch.

Individuals have skills but they just may not have the skills that are being demanded by our current employers.

And so we have a misalignment between what people are ready to do and also what people want to do.

There's also an interest mismatch and I think the pandemic has made folks rethink their lives.

We ended up doing some focus groups in Cuyahoga County.

PolicyBridge assisted us in that.

That's contributing to our report.

And individuals were able to kind of communicate to us that the pandemic made them rethink and reimagine what their careers in their life could be.

And it was almost like having a pause and thinking through, you know, what do I want to do?

What kind of environment do I want to have?

Do I want to spend more time with my family?

And so the combination of a huge psychological shock made people reflect differently about their work priorities and that context of what it meant in their daily lives.

- And if I could, one of the things I think that is still ahead of us in the rich data set that has been collected is breaking out responses and being able to look across race, age, and especially, I think, type of job and wage level and really being able to dig in on if we're looking at direct service workers versus managers and seeing if there's any difference in when you start breaking that down into what bubbles up top.

But I think it is universal and I think sometimes it is forgotten for direct service workers or those earning low wages that you want to be respected in the workplace.

You want to be engaged in meaningful work.

You want culturally competent supervision.

You want an ability to be able to manage your home life.

That is universal.

And often when you look at the way jobs are structured at the entry level position, those are the positions that often do not have those characteristics.

And I think that's the challenge ahead of us.

- That's a great point and I appreciate that there's the need to disaggregate the data, to go a little bit deeper and really understand.

And so to that point, I know we've been referring to these individuals as workers, but to the extent that, you know, we can kind of put a face in an experience, I think it's important that we do that.

So whether it's Jill or Renee or Bishara, I would welcome you to just give us a little bit of insight 'cause at the end of the day, these workers are our friends, our neighbors, maybe a sister, a younger sibling who are trying to navigate and find their way in a career in our region and really just want to have a better appreciation for what their experience is and who they are as individuals.

So who would like to share?

- Well, I'll kick off that interestingly, when we asked a question in our survey around what are your barriers to work, ironically, they happen to line up with the issue areas identified with the social determinants of work.

And that's actually how we all came together.

Renee and I were like, oh wait, there's some alignment here.

And when we think about what individuals are experiencing, we know that in certain types of jobs, you're gonna have different kinds of barriers than you would otherwise.

So individuals who, according to the survey, making less than 25,000 were more likely to have been laid off.

Were feeling the pain of inflation more acutely than other individuals, often had criminal records, were single mothers.

And so the combination of these different life factors creating challenges to being able to stay in the workforce is exactly what Renee and Jill have identified as the social determinants of work.

- And just to give some examples, you know, childcare and transportation, I think everybody talks about the role of childcare and transportation.

And just an example of, I'll just call her R, who was working but really wanted to improve her situation and wanted to enter a training program.

She used childcare vouchers.

So limited access to, it wasn't easy to change your childcare provider.

It turned out that that childcare provider did not open in time for her to then be able to take public transportation to start and be at the training on time.

And if you're not at the training on time, you will get kicked out.

So in this case, she, very entrepreneurial and just exemplifies that actually, how entrepreneurial and how persistent you need to be to solve problems, but she was able to talk this childcare provider to let her start early, drop her kids off early.

So she was able to actually solve her problem.

But who else needs to have that stress and the energy that it took to resolve that?

Somebody else comes to work with, has a criminal background.

The employer is open to hiring people with backgrounds.

And we're seeing that more and more, which we can applaud.

That could be a whole 'nother session.

But Dee was still on parole and needed to have regular meetings with his parole officer.

Parole officers are often not flexible.

Work schedule, not flexible.

So needing to make that choice, you know.

Am I gonna take time off from work?

How do I navigate that?

Will the employer understand?

Can the employer flex for this one individual where they're not flexing for other individuals?

Just it creates complexity and a lot to have to navigate.

And then one other example.

So call her Elle, had an opportunity to enter an apprenticeship.

To be part of this apprenticeship at her job, it meant changing shifts.

She was managing childcare with a very fragile network of friends and family helping with pickup and who was covering after the kids had to be picked up while she was still... That she couldn't recreate that for a temporary shift change.

And so she had to bypass that opportunity for advancement.

So those are just some examples of how these social determinants of work can constrain people from starting or once they've started, getting ahead because they have these challenges to deal with.

- Thank you.

So you mentioned it in the opening comments that we would get into the topic a little bit later and we definitely want to make sure we give time and space to talk about the intersectionality of race and structural barriers related to how workers are experiencing the employment space.

So I would like to start with Bishara and ask that you give us some perspective on how this also is a determinant.

- Of course, and we know that we have...

The systems that we have are by design.

So they look that way because they were designed that way.

When we think back to kind of 1935, that was the Social Security Act.

It was a set of policies where government first started actually offering benefits to individuals.

And of course at that time they were exclusionary to people of color, particularly black women.

If we fast forward a couple decades and get into the 1980s, I'm sure you probably heard some of the toxic narratives around, you know, the black welfare queen.

And so we started using language that stereotyped individuals who really were trying to get ahead or actually needed that as a resource.

The benefits that have been identified and are coupled with these narratives that stereotype or class individuals in ways that aren't helpful.

Those benefits create cliffs, and particularly in some of those happen to be aligned to the social determinants of work.

So think about childcare.

If you make over a certain amount, you will possibly lose your childcare voucher and you're not actually better off.

So you could advance, maybe get you another $1.50 an hour and that $1.50 does not actually put you in a better position.

You actually end up worse off when you lose those benefits.

And so when we think about over time, we had policies that were exclusionary to people of color.

We had policies that existed and individuals of color were disproportionately taking advantage of them, but we were stereotyping those individuals and really getting into who's deserving and who's not deserving.

And now we're in a situation where regardless of where you stand on these issues or your interpretation of history, where we are is these barriers or the benefits, the eligibility requirements, work requirements, all the things that go along with it are actually keeping individuals from advancing and actually hurting employers and their ability to move people up.

- Thank you.

Jill or Renee, anything you would like to add?

- I would just talk, given that history and we think about how we are creating the opportunity to get people better connected, give them opportunities, we have to recognize what this history tells us is that we're everyone's not at the same starting point.

And so if we want to tap untapped pools of talent and create an environment for their success, it's important to sort of like, we use a tip of the iceberg analogy.

You don't look just what is in front of you, but what's happened prior to that.

And so how can we help lift up and overcome some of the systemic, these barriers that have been created over generations in many respects.

And thinking about getting, I'm jumping ahead to solutions here, but I mean, thinking about how if the skills mismatch exists, and you think about getting training that is the most relevant for your workplace, get people in sooner.

Create, learn and earns.

Apprentice programs.

You are training that person then exactly for what you want them to do in your environment.

And there are opportunities to partner and with public dollars and community partners to invest in helping employers create those kinds of programs, and many employers in our community are already doing that.

But thinking about this legacy, thinking about the fact that you need talent and there are untapped pools.

What do we need to do differently?

We're not just trying to fix the workers.

We have to fix the work, we have to fix the system.

And we've got lots of ideas when we get to that question.

- Really great.

Getting into that.

- I want to - Absolutely, Renee.

- jump in on this too.

I think, so a couple of thoughts come up.

One is that this is, a lot of what we're talking about are really fundamentally policy issues which Bishara was getting at.

And if you have more interest in what Bishara was just explaining, I cannot recommend this book enough.

"The Sum of Us" by Heather McGhee.

Go read it immediately if this is interesting to you.

But she makes a really compelling case for the story that Bishara was just telling, how that actually eroded public support for public support, right?

So a lot of the, you know, in the 80s, most people were supportive of the government providing jobs and providing food and providing basic needs to people.

And because of this sort of dichotomy that was intentionally created that there are deserving and they're undeserving people and specifically set up as like the undeserving, our women of color, support for these programs has eroded.

And so we find ourselves in a situation where employers are really left, employers and social service organizations are really left with a burden of having to fill those gaps and to try to create the sort of society that we were on track in some ways to creating and has really been derailed in the last four years.

So that's one thing.

The other thing I wanted to say in terms of policy, another, if you like reading, Kyle Fee from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland produced, he did this great report last year on the job access disconnect, where in Cleveland we have high job access and we also have high unemployment.

And that's a disconnect.

That's not normal, believe it or not.

And he points to, you know, segregation.

Cleveland is one of the five most segregated cities in the entire country.

And the misconnect in terms of skills versus, you know, education.

And so the last point, and then I'll step off this, my little podium here is that we've created a situation where we articulate success as having a four-year degree.

And if you don't go to college, then you can't be successful.

And yet most of our skills gaps are in careers that don't actually need a four-year degree.

And so we're not framing success in a way that makes people who don't want to go to college or can't afford to go to college 'cause it's also far too expensive for most people these days to see themselves on a successful career track.

- Excellent.

And you see why we have these three ladies on the stage with us this afternoon.

(audience applauding) So before I move us towards talking more concretely around solutions, and Jill gave us a little preview towards that and I think it's also important to acknowledge that we're almost kind of in this tale of two cities construct, right, Where employers are hiring.

There are people in positions.

There are people trying to find pathways to grow in their success and in their careers.

Some people like the jobs that they have and want to continue to thrive in that regard.

But there's still some disconnect, which the data is highlighting for us and which you've just elaborated on somewhat, Renee, as relate to how we define success in the job market.

So for those who kind of fit in that space, what are the things that workers need to be successful for those who like their job and want to con continue to thrive.

What are we hearing?

What is the data telling us?

What do we need to acknowledge as employers, as a community to continue to wrap support around them and help them towards that, towards their definition of success in career and life?

- I'll kick us off and that was one of the questions that we asked in our Where Are the Workers?

Survey.

Just a shameless plug, we do have a table out there and there's a QR code.

So if you want to read or look at the mass amount of information that we have, you can definitely do that offline.

But one of the questions that we did ask was focused on if you're deciding to leave work, 'cause we know that one of the number one things that people are doing is they are leaving work right now and making different choices with their lives.

Are there things that employers can do to make you stay?

And over 50% of those that responded to that question said that there are things that employers can do.

And one of the things that the Fund for Economic Future has coined as kind of the three Cs.

Compensation, culture and connection.

When we think about compensation, wages do matter and we know that wages, depending on where you fall, you know, between minimum wage and above, you might experience a benefits cliff.

And so we have to be mindful of that.

But it includes more than that.

Benefits, job flexibility, creating opportunities for advancement and making people feel welcome and valued in the workplace.

We did a special focus group with individuals who worked in the hospitality sector, where hospitality sector broadly defined, which if we were to add it up broadly defined, it's actually the third largest sector in Cuyahoga County.

And we asked this question of, you know, what do you need?

What is it that would keep you in this industry?

And the respondent said that it's not just about compensation.

It's about feeling valued by both the employer and also the individuals, the patrons who are coming in and participating in that environment, which says to us that we have to have kind of a cultural shift in how we think about different kinds of workers and valuing, regardless of which position you're in, the skills and the time and the effort that it takes to do that.

We found that the individuals who work in the hospitality sector really love working in the hospitality sector, and it requires a set of skills that, you know, might be different than working in manufacturing.

And we have to change the way that we think about these different occupations so that everyone feels pride and joy in that work, but also making sure that we're showing appreciation and showing that we value those opportunities.

- Great.

Jill, anything to add?

- I think it's hard to argue with the things that workers have lifted up, as we talked about earlier.

And I think that there are a couple things to note and that it's hard as employers.

I mean, thinking through how to get this right and what resources are available.

The Fund for Economic Future with support from the organization, The National Fund for Workforce Solutions has an initiative where they have trained, worked with a group of employers who raised their hand to participate and running through an assessment that asked certain questions and helping to build out a work plan.

So I think the first step to...

I think the principles, right, are pretty universal.

I think it's how you get from here to there and the idea that there are opportunities and resources to help employers think through what are the things that are most important to their workforce.

How to partner with community organizations, public sector to map out what changes could be made and work towards implementing them.

I think it may feel like a very difficult thing to tap into, but doing an assessment and then a map and some resources to help implement could be a way to get started.

So thank you to The Fund for bringing those resources to our community.

- Great.

- And I'd like to add, there are a few initiatives, but also I want to highlight one employer particularly that I recently learned about that's doing some incredible things.

So first of all, the Workforce Funders Group, there's several people in this room from the sector partnerships, through the Workforce Connect sector partnerships, they're doing a lot to understand what employers within healthcare, manufacturing and IT need, but also then figuring out how to get workers to match the skills.

But there's this really important loop, right?

So the intermediaries are helping employers understand the kinds of things we're talking about now, that they really do need to care about whether they are taking public transportation and might have to be five minutes late because they don't have any control over the bus schedule, for example, or whether they have benefits.

We know that a lot of people who work full-time don't have benefits.

So that's a really good place to start.

And there's a lot of good work coming out of those initiatives.

The one, so we recently, for an event we held last week, had the opportunity to talk to a young woman whose experienced benefit cliff.

She got a raise, $17 an hour.

She works for the YWCA and she lost her, you know, she went from paying zero to seven or $800 in housing.

She lost her housing voucher, She lost her childcare and she lost food stamps.

And I don't know the entire amount of that.

But what the YWCA, and she loved her job.

So this is, you know, when you're talking about thriving, she loves where she's working.

She loves working with children.

The YWCA really stepped up and they have of course the benefit of having childcare on their premises.

And so she's now allowed to, you know, bring her daughters to childcare for free.

They're allowed to attend summer camp for free.

But in an article in "Cranes" last week, Debbie Matisse, who was gonna be here but couldn't, unfortunately, also talked about how, because of the pandemic and the number of employees who faced severe traumas during that time, they actually got rid of limited PTO.

So they now have unlimited PTO because they know that traumatized people come to work traumatized and show up differently, right?

So I think that, and I know that they're doing some other things too, so that's one example I wanted to give of, like, concrete things that people can do to make an immediate difference in people's lives.

- Absolutely.

So thank you for sharing that.

And I think it's a great segue as we begin to kind of share final thoughts.

So we've defined social determinants of work.

We've talked about the five plus three.

We've got a reading list for this weekend, which is great.

We've got some data that we can dive into to get really nerdy around this topic, but we definitely also want to understand solutions, what is happening or what we can challenge ourselves to do as employers, as community members and stakeholders involved in this work.

So I'll start with Bishara and go down the list.

What would you offer to the audience?

What can we do?

What should we be doing?

- I think we can look at this on a couple different levels.

I'll give you one example of an employer that was part of our Employer Round Table series, in this Where Are the Workers?

initiative, and we was dealing with this if issue of transportation not aligned with shifts.

And when the employer realized that there's a reason why a lot of his employees are coming late, it's because the transportation that they were using was showing up like 10 minutes after they needed to start their shift.

And so what he did was he actually changed the shift time to line up with the transportation, which is a crazy thing, but hey, you eliminate the problem.

And so when, one, you're able to do that when you actually have tapped into employee voice.

So actually empowering the individuals who are working for you and making them feel valued in your workplace and asking them what they need.

And so being able to ask the question, he has been able to resolve a problem.

The second thing.

That's foundational, is thinking about how we can restructure benefits and restructure opportunities.

And so you can have benefits that are, I think about tuition reimbursement.

Well, why don't we do like a tuition advance?

Because reimbursement means that you have to have the money up front, and if you're only paying your workers $12 an hour, they probably don't have the money up front.

And so if you want them to be able to, you know, grow their skills, then we've gotta be able to do that.

But we would be remiss if we didn't talk about the fact that, again, public policy is driving many of the public benefit cliffs that people are experiencing to the examples that Renee and Jill have given.

And so right now there is actually a piece of legislation in the state house.

I doubt it will be addressed in this year and it'll probably be reintroduced next year.

So just look out for it.

One of my colleagues is in the office, State Representative Terrence Upchurch.

And this legislation would scale an existing pilot program that's operating in a few counties, not Cuyahoga, but a few counties across the state to basically bridge individuals who might be experiencing a cliff because they're advancing in their work and keeping them whole.

And it's really like a cash transfer incentive-based program.

And they are finding some really good results that individuals are not only being kept whole during that transition, but as they continue to advance, they no longer need or rely on those particular benefits.

Now that is an incremental change because it doesn't address the fundamental policy at the federal and state level that is driving some of these challenges, but it's called a benefits bridge because it is helping to bridge individuals from one place to another, until we have a more systemic solution.

And so just look out for that, but it also means that we can't ignore public policy in this conversation.

- Great.

Absolutely.

(laughing) I think there are policy issues.

There are things that employers can do.

There are things that providers can do.

There are partnerships between public sector, private sector and communities and some long-term systemic changes in individuals.

So I'll focus, thank you for the policy, and I'll try to focus a little bit on the more what's in front of us and raise up a couple initiatives that try to create a table so that these kinds of issues can be discussed.

And then because it's a table, that's a louder voice, hopefully to influence policy.

So one example is there's a reference to Workforce Connect and just the idea of sector partnerships and the ability to create a table of employers with common issues as it relates to talent and provide an opportunity for education raising these issues in a safe space, I think, for employers to discuss how does this impact and how can we bring in community partnerships and be on a learning journey together.

So I think that that is one place that creates a table where a lot of these things can be discussed.

Another example is a model that's called the Employer Resource Network.

Again, employers who have come together and in recognition of the role of social determinants of work in affecting people's ability to get the job, focus on the job and take advancements are hiring a success coach, right?

And by banding together, they divide the cost of that coach, everyone buys a share, and then that coach, success coach goes to the workplace and is able...

So the employer is providing this benefit, but they're not having to get involved in solving some of these issues.

Navigating this benefit cliff takes specialized expertise in understanding all the different benefits that exist, and that is a special expertise that you talked about in your earlier forum on HR.

HR people are not necessarily, should even necessarily need to be so involved in, but they should make available resources for people to help address it.

So those are just, like, two ways, and I just wanted to share a couple examples that come out of that kind of collaboration.

Through the sector partnership, manufacturing sector partnership has an emphasis on hiring people with backgrounds specifically.

So employers are coming with their eyes open, that they're bringing people with that lived experience into their workplace.

Somebody who was hired very, doing very well, but the company had a setback and was going to have to do some layoffs and this person was going to be impacted.

Because of the open communication, they were very aware that a condition of this man's probation was he had to be employed, and if he spent time unemployed, he risked going back to prison.

So what this group did is figured out what... Did not lay him off until we were able to work with this group of employers to find another job, and he was able to transition smoothly and was not, you know, his entire life was not jeopardized because of that.

So some of these things are small.

It's awareness and understanding of what it takes and having those conversations and accessing the resources.

And just one other example of employers, one of the things that has been talked about is really understanding a role for advancement.

Do I see myself here in future years?

Is there a pathway?

Is it transparent?

How do I get it?

Am I supported in doing it?

And so again, just a couple examples of people coming in and because of that commitment, somebody going from $12.15 an hour to over 20 in less than two years, you know, somebody else who came in as a nutrition service worker, for example, in a hospital who over the course of five years took advantage of an internal pathway program to become a patient care associate.

Then another into community health worker and is now enrolled at, you know, with the employer support in a BA for nursing, still employed by the same employer.

So that kind of support that gives people hope.

It gives them opportunity, the steps were transparent and they had support.

They had the support of a coach, because this employer partnered with a community agency.

Happened to be us, Towards Employment, and then got into a point where they were able to access traditional employer benefits.

So I'll stop there.

Thanks.

- Thank you, Jill.

Renee, final thoughts?

- Yeah, I guess my final thought is that United Way is really working on building a coalition, right?

We're trying to elevate these issues because we know already that tons of people in Cleveland are talking about this.

We have a lot of organizations that are actively working on solving these problems, but we also have a bit of a disconnect between organizations.

And so the role we sort of see ourselves taking is in trying to bring those folks together to one table and to have more collective information, and also to act more collectively.

So, you know, we just had our summit last week.

And for us, this is the beginning of the work.

Bishara, I know our meeting in a week 1/2 to talk about how our two organizations can build out an employer toolkit.

So what are some things employers can do to support their employees?

Folks from Towards Employment and United Way are writing a report right now on the social determinants of work and how they're impacting Cleveland and how Cleveland is impacting the social determinants of work.

So if you're interested in being part of that coalition, you can email me, ReneeTimberlake@UnitedWayCleveland.org or check out our website.

So that's what we're working on next.

- Great.

- So I think with that we're gonna get some Q&A with the audience.

- Indeed we are.

I think I see somebody already lining up.

I'm Dan Moulthrop, chief executive here at the City Club and we are about to begin the audience Q&A.

And again, I just have to say before we do, I'm so excited about this conversation.

It is so solutions focused and has clearly identified these issues.

(audience applauding) So our panelists are Bishara Addison.

She's director of job preparation at The Fund For Our Economic Future, and as I said is also serving in the the Ohio General Assembly right now.

Jill Rizika, president and CEO of Towards Employment, and Renee Timberlake, director in Economic Mobility at the United Way of Greater Cleveland.

Teleange Thomas, chief operations officer and relationship officer at JumpStart is our moderator.

Everybody's welcome to ask a question as long as we have time.

Guests and those of you joining us via our live stream at CityClub.org or our radio broadcast at 89.7 Ideastream Public Media, WKSU, if you'd like to tweet a question, you can tweet it @TheCityClub and we'll work it in.

You can also text your question to 330.541.5794.

That's 330.541.5794.

May we have our first question please?

Sir.

Who's got it?

There he is.

Okay.

- Thank you.

Good afternoon.

First off, wonderful conversations.

So thank you all for a fantastic dialogue today.

As recently as this past Wednesday, I was in conversation with someone about this issue, and the one thing he kept on saying is no one wants to work anymore.

I knew that that phrase is very simple and takes this into a much simplified talking point.

And I was wondering when you hear that phrase, how do you respond?

'Cause I would love to be able to respond back to that phrase (laughing) in a simple way.

- One, it's not true.

(indistinct) (audience applauding) I think that individuals are making different choices with their lives and time.

We also just have a numbers problem.

There are more opportunities available than there are people and because there is a more crowded marketplace, people have choices and they don't actually have to work for you.

They can go and do something else.

I also think that there are individuals who are coming up with creative ways to earn income beyond just working for someone.

So when we think about the Where Are the Workers?

Survey, we found that a lot of individuals are working in the gig economy with doing app-based work.

There are individuals who are starting their own businesses.

There are individuals who are doing contract or independent work.

And so people are working, they just may not be working in the traditional jobs that we grew up with or were thinking about, which means the opportunity or what employers have to be considering is how do I change our value proposition, whether that's compensation or the kind of work environment you're in so that I can better compete with these other opportunities, because right now we're operating in a tight labor market.

- The only thing I would add is that I think everything we've been talking about today, disincentivizes work too.

So I agree with everything Bishara said and the evidence points to that.

But we also have a broken system.

- I apologize to Jill and Renee, but my question is for Representative Addison.

(audience laughing) As you mentioned in your closing remarks, there's a lot of public policy issues, that a humane public policy would address these social determinants of work.

So what have you learned about your colleagues in Columbus, about their interest, will, (audience laughing) and shifting their mindset to advance more humane public policies, and what will it take for us to maybe help you change them?

- Sure.

(audience laughing) - Thinking about the legislation that I did raise around the benefits bridge, so there's language, it'll likely be reintroduced next year and it is bipartisan.

And so there is incremental progress that's possible in the State House.

One of the biggest issues is around eligibility and eligibility requirements and work requirements tied to the different benefits that individuals can tap into, whether that's childcare or healthcare or thinking about cash assistance, which would be TANF, Temporary Assistance For Needy Families.

From a policy standpoint, many of those policies are driven by the federal government, which that does not make anyone feel comfortable, because we know that Congress is at a bit of a deadlock at the moment, but that's actually where if we want to get to the root of some of these policy issues, we've really gotta be able to change some of the federal policy.

But the benefits bridge, this legislation and the pilot that's currently operating provides kind of a stop gap until we are able to get to the real solutions.

I think there's also needs to be a different framing of these issues.

We talk about, you know, benefits as individuals are receiving something that is not making people want to go to work, and we actually can dispel that through the Where Are the Workers?

research.

We looked at some national studies around why people are maybe not going back to the workplace, and we found that benefits was not actually one of the reasons why people were not returning to work.

Some folks were relying on savings and many individuals were working during the pandemic.

(indistinct) Think about our essential workforce, particularly in manufacturing.

And so individuals are working.

They are participating in the economy, but what they need is federal policy change so that individuals can not need the stop gaps in the State House.

I do think that we need to have more of an economic framing, and economic development needs to get further into this conversation.

When I think about childcare, this is an economic development problem that we don't have enough childcare, that it may or may not be quality.

I think last year, there were, in the State House, there was an effort to maybe unravel some of the quality standards around childcare.

And I can tell you, I'll tell you right now for someone who's in workforce, if you're not happy with the workforce today, I promise that if you reduce quality standards in early childhood, you're gonna have a workforce that you're not happy with 20 years.

And so we actually have to invest in it.

(audience applauding) - Question?

- Hi.

Again, thank you so much for coming here today and speaking with us.

So you spoke a bit about kind of the myths that we grow up with here in America.

Employers are good.

Minimum wage workers are bad, especially when they ask for more money.

Unions are bad.

Welfare is bad.

All this stuff that, like the myth that we had, that we are learning is untrue.

You know, some of us who grew up with that are unlearning, especially with the internet, we've got the most educated or knowledgeable set of workers that we've ever had.

In fact, when the gentleman said the thing about not wanting to work, I just recently saw something on the internet with newspaper clippings going back to the 1930s about people complaining about nobody wanting to work.

And we can see now that there's a huge wealth gap and people who work for minimum wage jobs can hop on the internet and see how much their CEO made, versus how much they made that year.

And people can share their experiences about illegal things that their employers have tried to force upon them.

So I guess I'm wondering, we've talked a lot about what seems like good faith employers who maybe are having a hard time seeing their employees as whole people instead of just employees.

I'm wondering if you could speak a bit about bad faith employers or the people who don't want to see a change happen to recognize employees as people and how they are impacting the good faith employers that make up, you know, a lot of the businesses around us.

- Can I start this one?

As you're asking the question, the first thing that pops into my head is a conversation I had with someone from Team NEO who said that he had a conversation with an employer who said, what can I do?

I need employees.

I need to make sure that I'm able to retain them.

What can I do as an employer?

And then he had another employer who said, my employees don't know what's best for them.

And he said, you know, who is going to continue to have issues moving forward?

So I'll just say, Bishara mentioned that this is in, you know, worker's market right now.

For a lot of people, if they don't like the way they're being treated by employers who don't recognize them as whole people, then there are options to move elsewhere.

And I know that's not a perfect answer, but I think that there is gonna be some self-selecting out of those companies.

And so I think employers would do really well to just think of their employees as whole people and to take a risk in understanding something a little bit different than the sort of life view that they've grown up with and held onto.

- One thing I'd just like to add is that we're not gonna have a tight labor market forever, right?

We're already seeing some changes.

So this issue, we can't rely, I don't think, on just that people need workers and they're gonna be forced to change.

I think we need the coalition of the willing to make change, to be leaders to then influence their peers.

We need initiatives from the bottom-up from workers getting involved.

So, you know, we're not gonna have a tight labor market forever.

So I think, but these issues still need to be worked on and so I think we can't rely on that only.

- I agree.

- Thank you.

- Good afternoon.

Great segue.

I'm glad you mentioned initiatives by workers because there have been some national initiatives by workers that I think really mitigate some of the social determinants you're talking about and that's workers from Amazon and workers from Starbucks.

And we haven't talked about how unions, belonging to a union can help to mitigate some of these social determinants.

We know that unions, people who work in unions, the average nationally is $191 more per week.

We talk about being valued in the workplace.

Amazon, they weren't being valued, so they are forming a union to force the employer to value them.

And so I was just wondering, do unions ever come up in your surveys or do you ever have conversations about the importance of belonging to a union?

- I will say for the Where Are the Workers?

Survey, we did not focus on unions.

We were really focused on what were the attitudes and priorities of workers today and why they're making the choices that they are?

And from the employer standpoint, we were asking some of the employers on like, are you experiencing a tight labor market?

And overwhelmingly the answer is yes.

And also what are you trying to do to mitigate this challenge?

And most often, employers were saying that they are raising wages.

And we know that raising wages is a complicated issue 'cause you can raise wages and then leave people worse off because of some of these federal and state policy issues.

But we did not get into unions.

I will say if we, I don't know.

A good friend of mine might be in the audience.

Grace Heffernan.

And she's kind of led some work around the Northeast Ohio Worker Center.

And so that is a way in which, and I think you're working with one of the labor unions that, is it 1199?

That has been supporting some of that work.

And so there are efforts locally to help create a better policy and help workers organize and train them to have a voice.

But our survey didn't focus on that.

- [Speaker] Okay, thank you.

- This is a text question.

This person says, "Another detriment to focus on are social connections.

If you want to pursue any occupation outside of what any family member has done, you'll have trouble even starting on your aspirations.

Is access to social capital or networks consider a detriment?"

- I would say yes, absolutely.

I think that raises a really critical point and it goes to some of the isolation that happens in neighborhoods and you go back to some of the historical reasons and redlining and reasons why that is.

But yes, if you can't see it, how can you do it or dream about it?

So I think that opportunities and there are opportunities through training programs that exist in the community, organizing that's happening in the community, but building, giving an opportunity for people to break out of what they see every day and to be able to dream and experience through whether it's mentorship, whether it's work experience, whether it's just career exploration and exposure.

A plant tour if it's about manufacturing, shadowing.

And it is extremely important, I think, to helping people be able to actually see what's available and what's possible for themselves.

And then that creates motivation and persistence and all kinds of good things.

- Hello, good afternoon.

My name is Maria Garcilazo.

I represent Esperanza.

We work with the Latin community.

And my question is about how we can help to the community that I represent to improve them careers and in some way make employers understand that sometimes these immigrants or people from Puerto Rico, they have a really good academic background and in some way they need to be out of the stereotype that they can just be working in factories or any kind of manual jobs.

Thank you.

- Complicated question in terms of the answer.

And I think Joe Cimperman is also here.

And so I know that this would probably be his topic.

One thing, we did a focus group with PolicyBridge that really where many of the participants were part of the Latinx community and a couple of things that they said was because there's sometimes a language barrier, employers don't think they're smart, when actually they have a lot of skills and education, sometimes more than, you know, the average citizen population in the United States.

And one of the things that employers can do is, you know, actually try and have materials in more than one language, bringing on staff that are bilingual so that you can start bridging some of those issues.

There's also some issues in terms of licensure and how licenses from other countries translate over to here.

And so that's a federal policy issue, but it's a really important one if we want to be able to kind of not only make our workforce more diverse, but also just increase the number of people we have participating since we have a a bit of a numbers problem.

And I think another thing is really helping to resource organizations actually like yours to be able to offer bilingual programming and services.

We know that, like when I think about typical workforce programs, many of them are in English.

And if you have a language barrier, that's not helpful in terms of your ability to train, and there's a way to bridge both helping individuals address the language barrier, and also developing some skills training at the same time.

And so we probably need to invest more in that kind of programming and we just haven't done so as much as we need to in the community.

(audience applauding) - Thank you so much, Bishara Addison, Jill Rizika, Renee Timberlake, and Teleange Thomas.

That brings us to the end of our forum today.

Thank you once again to our panelists and thank you all, members and friends of the City Club of Cleveland.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Our forum is adjourned.

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