Finding the Right Fit: How Alternative Staffing Affects Worker Outcomes

Evaluates implementation and activities at four worker-centered, social-purpose alternative staffing organizations, including worker profiles, jobs secured, experience with the ASO, earnings, and subsequent job status, and business clients' experience

Career Pathways to Quality Jobs in Construction, Hospitality, and Healthcare

This report provides a description of the career pathway model and a definition of a quality job. It provides a description of Boston residents, mostly women and people of color, who are potential candidates for career pathways in construction, hospitality, and healthcare. An economic and labor market analysis is conducted for each industry, which is summarized as: Construction employment has been slow to grow since 2001 and it makes up a small percentage of employment in Boston, but it provides the highest average wages of the three industries. Union membership rates are high compared to the national average, but wages for Boston residents lag behind in-commuters in several occupations. Hospitality employment has been growing steadily since 2001, but it provides the lowest average wages of the three industries. There is a significant starting wage differential for union and non-union hotel workers (approx. $11/hour versus$18/hour, respectively). As with construction, median wages for Boston residents lag behind in-commuters. Healthcare employment has also grown steadily since 2001 and it currently constitutes just over one-fifth of total private sector employment in the City of Boston. Union membership rates are strong and median wages for Boston residents are mostly similar when compared to in-commuters

Why Use the Services of Alternative Staffing Organizations: Perspectives from Customer Businesses

Organizations that aim to improve the experiences and employment chances of job seekers who face barriers to employment have, over the years, had to contend directly with potential employers and their requirements. This is particularly true for community-based job brokers that use a temporary staffing model, offering job access and immediate work to their service population.Alternative staffing organizations (ASOs) are worker-centered, social purpose businesses that place job seekers in temporary and "temp-to-perm" assignments with customer businesses, and charge their customers a markup on the wage of the position. These fee-for-service organizations can help job seekers who face labor market barriers gain work experience and access potential employers. Created by community-based organizations and national nonprofits, ASOs are often embedded within larger organizations that provide other employment, training, and human services to their community. The parent organizations may also be operating other social enterprise ventures. Businesses that contract ASOs for staffing services are customers that expect a service, but also represent an opportunity for employment and work experience for job seekers. Thus ASOs must operate with a dual agenda to serve both sides of the equation. In related publications, we have explored how ASOs operate as social enterprises and how the model fits within the goals of the parent organization. With detailed information from five well-established ASOs, and as part of two waves of a demonstration initiated by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, we have documented the employment experiences of workers placed in assignments and their employment status after leaving the ASO. In this paper, we address engagement with businesses and their perspectives on ASO services. This is a major issue for ASOs as well as for other workforce development organizations. ASOs engage with businesses while selling staffing services and monitoring worker performance. By the very nature of temporary staffing, they receive rapid feedback on worker performance and their services from customer businesses. As such, ASOs provide a window into how to connect to potential employers in order to access opportunities. Also, activities of ASOs shed light on how hiring takes place for entry-level jobs, and how customer businesses use ASOs to solve their entry-level hiring problems.This paper demonstrates what can be learned from customers of established ASOs about their reasons for using these services. Specifically, it explores how customer businesses use temporary staffing by ASOs, and for what purposes. What business needs do they meet with ASO services? What are their reasons for using an ASO over conventional staffing agencies? And finally, what causes customer businesses to use an ASO and retain the service over time?These concerns are salient for those organizations considering the creation of an ASO. They also are important for workforce development programs that need to become more active in engaging potential employers and that seek solutions for job seekers who need to connect to employment and need immediate income

Entry-Level Workforce Investment Feasibility Study

Project Hope and the Center for Social Policy conducted an Entry-Level Workforce Investment Feasibility Study in the Spring and Summer of 2010. The primary purpose of this study is two‐fold. First, the study was used to identify and target one or two industries (other than health care where Project Hope has already established employer partnerships and job training programs) which offer entry‐level jobs and begin to establish relationships with potential employer partners. Second, the study synthesized existing data and research to assess the match between the characteristics, interests and skill sets of Project Hope participants and the job opportunities in the targeted industries. This report provides the main findings and initial recommendations from this analysis

Alternative Staffing Organizations and Skills: Linking Temporary Work with Training

This paper provides a brief research background on the field of alternative staffing and what we have learned about connecting job brokering activities with training and education opportunities. This includes drawing on recent research by the Center for Social Policy on the Alternative Staffing Demonstration II, 2008 to 2011, funded by the Charles Stewart (C. S.) Mott Foundation. The paper also offers several points for consideration in connecting temporary help workers to training opportunities. Specifically, it puts the role of alternative staffing in the context of the entry-level job market and discusses the value of staffing services from the perspective of job seekers, customer businesses, and the workforce development field. A number of examples are provided of training programs and partnerships that combine skills development with job brokering. Overall, we address two questions: 1) What do we know about connecting staffing services with training opportunities?, and 2) What are some promising examples of connecting ASO workers to skills training

Finding the Right Fit: How Alternative Staffing Affects Worker Outcomes

This report reviews our findings from two and one-half years of monitoring and evaluating the activities of four alternative staffing organizations (ASOs). ASOs are worker-centered, socialpurpose businesses created by community-based organizations and national nonprofits. These fee-for-service organizations use the model of temporary staffing services to help job seekers who face labor market barriers access work experience and potential employers. They place job seekers in temporary and “temp-to-perm” assignments with customer businesses, charging their customers a wage-based markup fee. This field of practice first emerged in the 1970s and grew rapidly in the 1990s; it now includes over 50 ASOs. Alternative staffing complements other workforce development approaches, including job readiness, training, and sectoral strategies, to successfully connect people to jobs and promote career progression. We conducted this monitoring and evaluation study between 2009 and 2011. It focuses on outcomes for workers who use ASO services to find employment and on customer businesses that fill jobs through these services. Our study is part of the Alternative Staffing Demonstration (ASDII), an initiative of the C. S. Mott Foundation; it is the second national demonstration sponsored by the Foundation

Continuity and Change in Low-wage Work in U.S. Retail Trade

Retail work is undergoing significant change in the United States. To explore these changes, and their impacts in terms of turnover, skill levels, and other key workforce variables, we conducted 18 case studies of retail businesses. We spoke to employees from top corporate executives to frontline employees, visited stores, and reviewed HR statistics. This paper summarizes major findings from the study. We start by stating the study’s key questions, principal findings from public data sources, and the study design. We then review field findings on patterns in job quality across four dimensions (schedules, compensation, duties, and turnover/training/mobility). We identify two current strategic thrusts by retailers—cost-cutting and enhancing service/quality/variety—and examine how these strategic approaches have affected the same four dimensions of job quality among retailers in our sample. We zoom in on issues involved in communicating change within retail organizations. We briefly contrast our findings with those in parallel studies underway in five European countries and Mexico. We close with some reflections on the sustainability of current U.S. retail strategies, and speculate briefly about likely long-term shifts in strategy and job quality in retail

Brokering Up: The Role of Temporary Staffing in Overcoming Labor Market Barriers

Alternative Staffing Organizations (ASOs) are social-purpose businesses created by community-based organizations and national nonprofits to “broker up” job seekers, starting with temporary assignments and forming bridges to better jobs. Funded by the C. S. Mott Foundation, the Alternative Staffing Demonstration examined four ASOs around the country for a three-year research project, with 18 months of close monitoring, exploring, and assessing the ASO model. The Center for Social Policy studied how ASOs structure the services they provide, handle day-to-day management issues, and sell their services. We found the ASO model was variously adapted to generate short-term employment, build work experience, provide a step to better employment, and/or overcome the effects of discrimination. ASO temp jobs paid higher than the minimum wage, and clerical jobs comprised the majority of assignments in three sites while blue-collar jobs dominated in the fourth. Workers valued getting detailed job information and receiving ASO staff support on their assignments. ASOs sell staffing services to customer businesses by emphasizing their service quality and efficiency; some do so by promoting their social mission. Customer businesses use ASO services to screen potential hires and to fill entry-level positions. They value the ASO knowledge of worker strengths and limitations. Revenue generated by a markup on assignments, charged to the businesses, pays for administrative costs of the job-brokering function, stretching grant resources to cover support services across a larger group of workers

Why Use the Services of Alternative Staffing Organizations: Perspectives from Customer Businesses

Organizations that aim to improve the experiences and employment chances of job seekers who face barriers to employment have, over the years, had to contend directly with potential employers and their requirements. This is particularly true for community-based job brokers that use a temporary staffing model, offering job access and immediate work to their service population. Alternative staffing organizations (ASOs) are worker-centered, social purpose businesses that place job seekers in temporary and “temp-to-perm” assignments with customer businesses, and charge their customers a markup on the wage of the position. These fee-for-service organizations can help job seekers who face labor market barriers gain work experience and access potential employers. Created by community-based organizations and national nonprofits, ASOs are often embedded within larger organizations that provide other employment, training, and human services to their community. The parent organizations may also be operating other social enterprise ventures. Businesses that contract ASOs for staffing services are customers that expect a service, but also represent an opportunity for employment and work experience for job seekers. Thus ASOs must operate with a dual agenda to serve both sides of the equation. In related publications, we have explored how ASOs operate as social enterprises and how the model fits within the goals of the parent organization. With detailed information from five well-established ASOs, and as part of two waves of a demonstration initiated by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, we have documented the employment experiences of workers placed in assignments and their employment status after leaving the ASO. In this paper, we address engagement with businesses and their perspectives on ASO services. This is a major issue for ASOs as well as for other workforce development organizations

The Alternative Staffing Work Experience: Populations, Barriers and Employment Outcomes

This paper presents results of a three-year study of workers and former workers at four Alternative Staffing Organizations (ASOs). ASOs are fee-for-service job brokering businesses created by community-based organizations and national nonprofits whose objective is to gain access to temporary and “temp to permanent” opportunities for workers facing barriers to employment. The paper looks specifically at the relationship between the personal characteristics of workers, their temporary work experiences through the ASO, and the subsequent employment status of former ASO workers, determined through a follow-up survey conducted by telephone six to eight months after workers had left the ASO. We found several factors influenced employment status at the time of follow-up. Workers with jobs at follow-up had worked substantially more weeks through the ASO, had higher earnings than other study participants, had received some additional services at the ASO, and, in some cases, had held ASO assignments at the ASO’s parent organization. However, workers without a valid driver’s license, those with children and those who were receiving public assistance had more trouble finding a job after their time at the ASO.This paper demonstrates how the complex relationships between individual worker characteristics and experience with an ASO affect future job prospects