Importance of Volunteers in Job Development

I recently attended a dinner for LIRS affiliate volunteers of the year. I was an inspiring night and really highlighted the importance of volunteers in successful resettlement programs. They play no bigger role than the one the play in job development. Volunteers can and should be utilized in pre-employment classes as teachers, in job development by providing transportation to and from interviews, and as community members networking with colleagues to strengthen ties to employers and job openings. Finding retired business men and women to help job coach clients can be extremely beneficial to refugees' success in the workplace. Mainly, volunteers being a set of skills and expertise to the employment service arena that job developers may not necessarily have. The more individuals we have supporting our clients the faster they can integrate and become self-sufficient. Go to: www.volunteermatch.org to find connect your needs to a volunteer looking to support a great cause like ours!

Harry Says...

I wanted to introduce you to Harry Crawford. He’s the Employment Program Manager at Caritas – my boss. He has more than 25 years of experience in workforce development. And, he’s very wise. Lots of times in meetings with outside agencies, I have to laugh because everyone ends up taking notes while Harry explains something we all need to understand. Two pieces of his wisdom are counterintuitive, but they always guide us through difficult aspects of working with clients, so I wanted to share them with you.

Some Clients Have to Hit the Wall: Sometimes, no matter what you do, clients have a hard time reconciling themselves to taking the first available, entry level job. When we’re feeling stress and worry about their family’s financial stability, Harry reminds us that some clients have to face a crisis before they can internalize the need to start in a job that they may feel is beneath them. When they run out of options and money, they are forced to accept the realities of US work culture and that’s the best thing for them in the long term.

Finding a Job is a Numbers Game: The more job leads we have, the more referrals we make. The more referrals we make, the more placements we can count. Clients often get really frustrated and discouraged by applying for lots of jobs and never even getting a response. Practice strengthens their skills and, eventually, if they apply enough places, someone will call and they’ll get a job.

Using LMI to Promote Refugee Workers

In tune with local labor market trends, the Idaho Office of Refugee Resettlement and the Idaho Department of Labor sponsored a forum on hiring refugees in healthcare. Across the state, most healthcare occupations -- including Registered Nurses and Nursing Aides -- are projected to grow by at least 6% in the coming year. Forum participants learned about the strong talent pool of potential employees while also gaining more understanding about the supports that local refugee employment services can bring to their recruitment and retention efforts.



Boise State Public Radio produced a nice story about the event that highlights three refugees who are contributing their skills and talents to Boise's healthcare industry. Listen here.

Request for Advice about Public Speaking and Community Outreach

My job description includes raising community awareness. There was discussion in last month’s Program Models webinar that touched on the role of Job Developer as more appropriate when focused on employers rather than skill building. There was mention of a joint effort to raise awareness through public speaking engagements and stronger outreach to business and community groups. Our development office advised me to target associations (like restaurants, small artisan food producers, hotels). I have spoken at the local hotel HR professionals association and it was very useful.

I’m just beginning to collect ideas on this topic to plan how I can do more in this direction. I don’t have much to say about it and could really use some advice. What groups showed the best response? How to you target your presentation? What kind of follow-up helps make the most of public outreach? Do you make a specific ask or just brief about refugees and employment services?

I really hope others can give me some good ideas and advice. Thanks.

It’s now been almost a year since Caritas of Austin was able to initiate my position as full time Job Developer. With this blog, I want to share what we’re learning and strengthen our efforts by learning from others.

Recertification program to start in San Diego

RefugeeWorks in beginning its pilot project in San Diego this month. We are partnering with the Welcome Back Center of San Diego to help 30 refugees become recertified in their careers as medical personnel or engineers. In this project, participants will receive vocational ESL, extensive case management, and recertification classes. Once participants complete the course they will receive help with obtaining a job in their respective fields. Welcome Back is creating partnerships with local businesses to ensure job prospects once the the participant is ready to look for employment.

We are excited to get this underway and look forward to sharing our success stories and lessons learned.

Are there other recertification programs going on in your area? RefugeeWorks would like to know.

Thanks,
Jonathan

Part Two: Starting a Job Club

We were all excited about job club when we first got it started. (For details of our start-up thought processes, refer to Part One posted on September 21). We thought through all the details and believe it can achieve multiple objectives. Personally, I was happy to have more direct client contact and a chance to facilitate training. The staff of the public Library where we meet has been supportive and I’ve had no problem preparing enough fresh job leads and other useful materials for each meeting time. (Look for more details about some of those materials in Part Three.)

Despite these great plans, it’s gotten off to a rough start. I’ve had lots of reading time in the library. A total of 9 clients have attended, despite more numerous referrals. We knew it might take some time to build, but after 2 months, we met to reevaluate and decide what changes to make. We have weekly program meetings and spent a good portion of one of those talking about changes.

What strikes me as I reviewed this before posting is how interconnected job development is with everything else about employment services. It takes team work and an adjustment in the way we all work. Here are the changes we decided to implement:

1. I will stay a whole hour in case someone shows up toward the end of the published time. A couple of times, clients came after I had left. We thought reliability and consistency would encourage clients to come back.
2. The Employment Specialists will pay more attention to referrals to be sure that all eligible clients know about the opportunity.
3. The most important decision was to include attendance in our compliance criteria for receiving Refugee Cash Assistance (RCA). Clients are required to attend once a week if they have been referred and to call their Employment Specialist in advance if they cannot attend. Failure to comply will feed into our already-established sanction process.
   

Since these changes, attendance has definitely picked up. We now help an average of 9 clients per week – some of them repeat attendees. The feedback clients give their Employment Specialists has been positive. We have talked about a variety of topics, including how to read want ads, when to schedule cold calls, how to attach resumes to email and how to complete on-line applications.

I have developed several additional handouts based on questions and requests from clients. In the third and final post about Starting a Job Club, I’ll focus on some of them in case others could use some of those materials.

It would be great to hear from others who are doing something similar in their Employment Programs.

Where to Find Jobs for Low English Proficiency (LEP) Clients?

This was one of the questions generated in a recent webinar discussing innovative Program Models. Jobs for LEP clients is one of the toughest questions we all face. Sadly, I don’t think there are easy answers or some magic bullet that none of us have discovered yet. I think it takes strategic thinking beyond just identifying employers. One of my previous posts talked about short term or contract jobs to help build skills, for example.

Here are some types of jobs or strategic ideas we’ve been trying:

1. Hotels continue to be the best employers for LEP clients. They offer stability, diversity and training. Over the past year or so, the hotel business in Austin has been very slow. We have continued to stay in touch and provide interpretation and support for former clients working in hotels. It’s paid off now that things are picking up a little. The hotels appreciated our continued partnership and are responding by giving us placement opportunities as they have a few new positions open up. We’ve also been trying to reach out to smaller hotels. That has also worked sometimes, but in other cases the salary, hiring practices or unwillingness to try “new” languages continues to be a barrier.

2. Look for an Industry with “Churn”. A large new employer can have a ripple effect. For example, a very high end hotel is opening in December. We’re trying to place clients there, but are also hoping that other hotels will have openings to replace employees who get a salary increase by moving to the new place. I have mixed feelings about benefiting from immigration enforcement. But, whenever there’s a raid or crackdown on undocumented workers, we usually see jobs become available.

3. Janitorial Companies are a new strategy I’ve been trying. Large janitorial franchises sometimes have regional support offices that could help you contact multiple franchisees at once. I got the idea and found our first contact from a friend who works in a government office building and noticed the janitor uniforms and gave me a contact. We are also working with the service that cleans our own building.

4. Restaurants often seem willing to hire clients for back of the house positions, especially dishwashers. Sometimes, we have good luck with a new restaurant that’s hiring a whole crew. Other times, new restaurants don’t want to risk initial success by making “risky” hiring decisions. It often seems to depend on the hiring or kitchen managers. If they are open to the idea or can be convinced to give it a try, it often works. I haven’t seen any other given for success.

5. Fast Food restaurants work sometimes. It seems to depend on whether or not the have separate back of the house positions or if every employee is expected to have direct client contact. Again, it often depends on finding the right people. We’ve had a couple of successes with multi-outlet franchises that have some kind of regional structure. Little mom and pop local places have sometimes worked, too.

6. Subcontractors to Construction Projects. The Austin Samsung plant is renovating and building an expansion facility. Construction jobs have really been hit by the economy and continue to be extremely competitive. But, we found a couple of sub-contractors doing construction cleaning or other support services who have been great to work with. A few special clients with strong skills got higher level jobs through that whole system of sub-contracts.

7. Religious institutions and ethnic community groups can be great resources, although they can also be somewhat naïve about empowerment and self-sufficiency principles. For example, an informal network of Muslim contacts (former employees, sympathetic clergy and lay leaders) often gives us leads about childcare or tutoring where languages are often seen as a plus rather than a barrier. There was already a professional community from the subcontinent that has become a very strong support for the Nepali refugee community, including internships and on-the-job training opportunities.

8. Don’t be afraid to try to charm your way into a job. Sometimes we all get really negative and wait around for some employer to state that they’ll hire an LEP client. That doesn’t happen often. It’s a hard sell. It’s discouraging for clients and for us when we go to apply and get shut down. But, sometimes, with the right manager, a client who puts their best foot forward and the passion and sales pitch of an Employment Specialist or Job Developer, we get luck and nothing feels better.

9. Look for “the right person”. Several of these ideas mention the importance of finding the right person – someone who is willing to give a client a chance. I’ve had some success looking for those people and then finding out how they can help. I talk to people at world music shows, my returned Peace Corps network, foreign films and ethnic restaurants. If people are interested in international things, I think they’re more likely to be willing to think about hiring a client.

I’m a little worried that you will all scoff at the lack of anything you haven’t already thought of in my list. It would be really great to get ideas from others. For example, we have thought about targeting temporary worker programs and try to convince employers to include our clients. I see lots of landscaping and construction jobs advertised. We haven’t had much luck yet. Any advice out there?