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Bakers are doing daily cleaning

Open hiring

Open hiring is a business model proposed by Greyston Bakery, aiming at filling jobs without judging applicants or asking questions. In addition to the crucial first step of providing job opportunities, community service programs such as supporting new employees and their neighbors are also considered in the Open Recruitment business model. When organizations practice open hiring, they disrupt traditional hiring practice by shifting spending from screening employees out to investments in support of employee success. A primary reason for shifting towards the open hiring model is to save time and resources that organizations typically waste by using headhunters. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, open hiring has frequently become accompanied with collaboration technology.

The process of open hiring

Five dominant steps exist in conducting this business model.

1. Job posting.
2. Collection of application forms.
3. Judge applicants from their abilities during interviews.
4. Relevant background checks only after conditional offers are given.
5. Job offer.

Background

The commercial bakery, Greyston Bakery was founded by Bernie Glassman in 1982 in Yonkers, New York. The launch of the business model in initial is to provide more job opportunities to applicants who have barriers to work environment. In the long term, having access to a job is more than a weekly payback, it provides access to education, revitalizes the community and even promotes economic growth. Greyton has a slogan which says that hiring bakers isn't about baking more brownies, baking brownies, by contrast, is about helping more bakers. In Greyston Bakery, around 35,000 pounds of brownies are daily baked on average and then shipped to Ben & Jerry’s, their main customer. There exists a win-win situation since Ben & Jerry's has the opportunity to find a partner who can both meet food standards and help them innovate socially. Hiring bakers without an interview, a resume or a background check, all profits of the company go directly to the Greyston Foundation which is responsible for donating money to local community.

The Center of Open Hiring

The application of open hiring isn't isolate.The founder, Greyston launched Open Hiring Center to help other organizations implement their own version of the practice. The purpose of the center is based on Creating Shared Value, organizations that are interested in Open Hiring can experience it first-hand and apply the model in their own companies. While providing help to other companies, it can stabilize 'Open Hiring' model and promote the development of competitive employment in the whole society. The reduction of profit in the short term may correct the market failure demanded by the society and the legislator.

Cascade Engineering has made a significant progress through the application of the 'Open Hiring' Business model. In Cascade Engineering, candidates with a felony conviction or arrest records are traded equally to normal candidates. Concrete analysis such as frequency of convictions, circumstances of the offense and employment records are carefully checked when the conditional offer is given to the employee. The aim is to provide equal employment opportunities to employees while ensuring the legal interests of the company.

Target employees

Target beneficiaries are those applicants that have been kept out of the workforce. That includes applicants with former convictions, immigrants and refugees, people of color, as well as the disabilities. Given the same qualifications, these people face greater obstacles in finding a job than the average interviewee.

Card of the capture of prisoners

Have criminal records

Ex-offenders are found to be unemployed for an average of one year after the release. Even a fairly minor felony record can have a significant negative impact on an employer pullback compared to normal applicants. The lack of stable work even increases the likelihood of re-offending.

The application of open hiring reduces employers' recruitment and training costs significantly, which is estimated to be around $4000 per employee. Turnover has also been reduced from 25 per cent to 11 per cent. Irrespective of other factors, including educational background, enlistees with felony records were 33 percent more likely to be promoted to sergeant than those with no criminal records. The main reason is that they tend to have fewer performance options in the long term unemployment.

However, there has been some debate surrounding the appropriateness. The experiment shows that successful access to job interviews comes at the expense of racial discrimination. The black-white gap in the company pullback is widened significantly. The best explanation is that employers are relying on exaggerated impressions of racial disparities in real-world felony conviction rates . Furthermore, hiring applicants with criminal records should be done in a way that protects employers. A balance between hiring ex-offenders and protecting private employers still needs to be achieved by focusing on three aspects: innovating hiring standard, adopting it to employers, and establishing a statutory presumption.

Portrait of Refugee, Paris

Immigrants and Refugees

After immigration, immigrants of working age desperate to find work. Many of them see their resettlement as an opportunity to develop their career potential. Information on career development and transition of migrants remain limited so the employment represents a significant challenge. Under this circumstance, suitable career counseling seems to be highly needed. The majority of refugees are found to be employed in physically demanding industries with high risk and are paid at a very low level. Even so, limited salary is used to support their families, since more than half of the refugee population is children.

The hiring of these immigrants enables employers to see positive outcomes for their businesses. Refugees tend to stay with the same employer for longer period than other hires. The lower turnover rate improves the efficiency of the company. A number of refugees who have barriers entering the work environment are often required by employers. They rarely take drugs and can easily pass a background test. As for benefits for the business, managers are found to become more comprehensive and have a more flexible management style after accommodating diverse workforce.

Project in Vietnam where people with disabilities get work.

The disabilities

The disabilities who have barriers to enter the work environment tend to have relatively low productivity and educational level. Social discrimination also triggered low unemployment rate to some extent . Since the existence of transportation difficulties and chronic loneliness, disabilities are stuck in greater social isolation. According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948, every individual with and without a disability has the right to work, the right to choose the work freely, the right to work in fair and favorable conditions, and the right to unemployment protection. In 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was issued. Beginning in July 1992, the Act required employers to provide reasonable housing for workers with disabilities because the risk of separation was significantly affected by accommodation.The open hiring for these cohort not only reduces the unemployment rate but reduces the gaps in social and psychological measures, for instance, the communication between colleagues overcomes social isolation so that target applicants can be more integrated and engaged in mainstream society.

Target employers

Employers who are open to hiring are found to have similar characteristics. Thirteen specific employer characteristics were defined and divided into three categories: 'Work culture', 'Employer experience' and 'Job match'. The dominant category is 'Work culture', employer owning characteristics such as a more flexible management style and caring more about employees' life is proved to have a higher success rate of hiring the disabilities during interviews. As for 'Job match', focusing more on employers' skills and capacity instead of external factors is more likely to offer a job to those who have barriers to work environment. Besides, employers with relevant community volunteering activities are found to better understand employees' feelings as well as to accommodate those applicants.

Under the consideration for the development of the business itself, even employers who are open to the employment of people with disabilities are very concerned about maintaining clear and rigorous employment guidelines. Their first goal is to hire people who can best demonstrate their ability to perform basic functions of the job. Their second goal is to hire people with soft skills (positive attitudes) to be reliable workers. According to the theory of negligence in employment, if the employer violates the obligation to select and retain qualified employees with reasonable care, the employer may be liable for the employee's tort. The innovation of hiring policy mentions that if the employee is engaged in a sensitive occupation, or the employee will have the opportunity to use the key, the employer has the responsibility to investigate employers to certificate that they are worth to be trusted.

Fair hiring chance

The founder of the business model, Greyston is one of several businesses advocating for an inclusive employment approach. Starbucks, an American coffee chain, Walmart, a multinational retail corporation and Target, a mid-priced department store chain depends on what they call fair hiring chance. Fair hiring chance hopes to help those individuals with former criminal records be treated fairly in the competitive working environment. Its target group is more concentrated compared to open hiring policy.

Ban the box

A dominant booming policy under Fair Hiring Chance named ‘Ban the box’ is the community-used checkbox on job applications requiring into an applicant’s former convictions. On 11th October 2015, The Fair Chance Act NYC made it illegal for the majority of employers to include inquiries of former criminal records and other similitude questions during an interview. President Obama has also announced a new policy on a visit to a treatment center in New Jersey to reduce the barriers of entering work environment for those ex-offenders. Many private employers, including Walmart and Starbucks, bowed to public pressure and decided to start implementing policies before they received mandatories. In April 2018, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed an amendment to the Fair Chance Ordinance, which took effect on October 1, 2018. At this time, the scope of the revised law extends to all employers with five or more employees. 11 US states had made it mandatory for private employers to remove conviction history questions from job applications by the end of 2018.

Stemming from balancing the concern of safety with the concern of improving post-release employment opportunities, ‘Ban the box’ law exempts employers who have ten or fewer employees, recognizing that they lack the resources to conduct such deep recruiting campaigns. In the process of continuous implementation, ‘Ban the box’ has encouraged detoxification, promoted community development, as well as reduced the recidivism rate. Three proactive businesses implemented the policy and have had different reactions.

Starbucks at the Shinbashi Yurikamome train station in Japan

Starbucks

According to a letter received by U.S. Senator Cory Booker, starting from 2015, chain brand Starbucks only had background checks after employers have received a conditional offer and made it to the final round of interview. The aim is to provide applicants who have a former criminal record with the opportunity to be assessed as a complete person by considering their capability and characteristics.

On 20th September 2017, McElrath-Bey shared his story and connected with youth and young adults at the Opportunity Fair in Washington D.C. By helping opportunity youth with their resumes and interviewing tips, the youths will be given the opportunity to interview one of the 36 employers, including Starbucks, Hilton, and many others. By the end of 2017, Starbucks had committed to six Opportunity Fair and had partnered with more than 50 other companies to launch 100,000 opportunity initiative. Since then, Starbucks has hired more than 40,000 opportunity youths and set a goal of hiring 1 million by 2021.

Walmart home office in Bentonville, decorated for Christmas

Walmart

Walmart has removed questions about criminal history from its employment applications and has set up a review panel to consider an individual's general profile and qualifications, including proven rehabilitation efforts. A background check may only be conducted after a conditional offer is made. If candidates take the job, they will be required to agree to a background check and be required to disclose their criminal records. Background checks and self-disclosure are online and centralized, as a result, Human Resources managers are unaware of disclosed convictions, only the final result of the report can be used to determine whether an applicant is eligible for appointment or extension of appointment. Discrimination in the competitive workplace has been significantly eliminated after applying these considerate methods. As a result, a fair chance can be applied for all ex-offenders.

Target

Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton signed a law on January 1, 2014, which expands the "ban the box policy" already in effect in government, whereby state agencies include all private employers in Minnesota. A national program has been launched by Minneapolis-headquartered Target Corporation, aiming at eliminating the questions on job application forms that inquire applicants whether they had a conviction before. In addition, Target has agreed to donate $100,000 to the Council on Crime and Justice, a Minneapolis social justice organization, to support ex-conviction programs, employer involvement as well as education on the issue. Greta Bergstrom, communications director for TakeAction Minnesota, said Target’s latest moves were forced by the pressure of a two-year campaign. Target organized an open recruitment event with 200 people in the lobby of Target's headquarters, however, a hundred applicants with former criminal records were turned down when they applied for jobs at Target.

External links

Greyston bakery