The PCC EWD 2024 Future Of Work Conference – Part 4: Key Takeaways

While the 2024 Pasadena City College Future of Work Conference focused on sports, media, and entertainment, many of the messages shared there translate into other industries and workforce sectors. These insights are of value to any business owner, industrialist, employee, or entrepreneur, and sharing them here extends the value of the Conference to any entity looking to find a qualified workforce, public recognition and growth, and greater success within its sector.

Leader Insights

The well-informed insights of the FOW Conference speakers and hosts were honed over decades of career and life experiences. Each participant freely shared how they built their skillset and then how they applied those skills to their roles within their organizations. Reviewing their individual contributions as a whole, their opinions and successes appear to converge around a few themes and theories that have proven successful for them all. Of further value to readers: a very convenient ‘sports’ analogy is available to explain how their effort propels their enterprise into the future.

All conference participants noted their intentional involvement with their local community, whether that’s a neighborhood high school softball team or a regionally dominant professional league franchise. The examples of significant outreach were instructional and inspiring:

Make the Connection

Every business must identify and unite with its target market; sports teams are no different. In these cases, the game, team, or player is often the draw. In non-sports businesses, the product or service may be the attraction for new buyers. Companies looking to connect better with a potential market must find ways that resonate with the consumers they’re trying to find. Using every available form of outreach – email, social media, television, flyers, etc. – offers the best opportunity to see and secure this new customer base.

Publicize Outside the Box

The Angel City Football Club (ACFC) prioritized community outreach before it even launched its team in the LA area. Recognizing that securing and maintaining public attention on a women’s sports team posed unusual hurdles (especially in LA’s already busy professional sports environment), ACFC’s female leaders began developing its public persona first, connecting with major soccer organizations and supporters to get the word out early and often. Soccer is a global sport, so many international people and communities were eager to hear their message and watch their team emerge.

Their outreach proved to be extraordinarily successful: just two years after its formation, the market valuation of the ACFC was set at $250 million when it sold in July 2024. Further, the new LA representative of the National Women’s Soccer League scored the most lucrative contract in the history of women’s sports at the end of its 2023 season. The $240 million contract will televise games on major streaming services and broadcast networks.

These organizations show up off the field, too. They participate with or volunteer for charities; their athletes make public appearances regularly, and school and hospital visits provide excellent public relations fodder for the company newsletter or email blast.

Reduce Barriers to Participation

Many people struggle to make ends meet, which impedes their opportunity to find better resources in their community. Corporations looking to build both a fan base and a workforce can assist promising future human assets by helping them with basics so they can focus on their future. Internships, apprenticeships, and training opportunities that maximize available timeframes provide options for course attendance and on-the-job training.

As an example, the ACFC focuses on women, girls, and the non-binary community, and its mission is to improve equity through sports. Achieving that goal means looking for ways to increase its target population’s participation in and enjoyment of team sports while also addressing the inequities that have prevented earlier participation.

The Club is running several strategies designed to help its target market get out of the house and onto the field:

• They streamline sponsors to maximize the impact of their core outreach channels. Their inaugural sponsor, DoorDash, partnered with the team in 2021, inking a deal committed to delivering 250,000 meals through its Project DASH initiative to those in need in the LA region. In exchange, the mobile food delivery service gets a mid/center placement on the team jersey and other merchandise. The international poverty-fighting non-profit agency CARE has also joined this effort to identify the organizations most likely to benefit from the service.
• The ACFC also recognized the challenges many women faced when it comes to financial management. In too many cases, women aren’t exposed to or don’t have access to financial literacy materials, so they are unable to access resources that are easily accessible to their male counterparts. The ACFC now offers classes to its female soccer fans to narrow the financial acumen gender divide.

Utilize All Available Tools

All these sports administrators recognize the value of incorporating available assets into every club project or outreach. The ‘Game Day Experience’ reference offers a unique case study:

• Each fan is an individual who experiences each game day in a particularly unique way.
• Data gathered throughout the consumer/entity engagement can flag organizations to populations that require novel or different types of support to be fully engaged with their team.
• Tailoring game day activities to meet these fan demands helps the team connect better with their audience, regardless of the score of the game.

Social media technology, traditional media outlets, schools, fairs, and other community events and gatherings all offer appropriate venues for sports-based businesses to find both fans and a workforce.

Final Messages:

As the Conference closed, the panelists were asked how they would advise a person or company seeking to work with a sports team (or any organization that matches their business parameters):

• The LA Chargers’ Lilianna Perez-Palacios advised job and career seekers to be themselves. “There is no one like you; there is only you.” The individual’s innate skills and talents will determine the best fit for their next employer.
• The Rose Bowl’s Monique Reaves urged persistence in the pursuit of a career in any element of the ‘sports’ industrial sector. As the industry grows, more jobs are becoming available and need a workforce to fill them.
• The LA Sports Council’s Matt Cacciato suggests that presenting oneself with confidence and self-esteem is essential, too. Every applicant for every job has a skill set that may offer tremendous value, but the organization can’t know what that is unless they receive that data directly.
• PCC’s VP – Economic and Workforce Development division, Dr. Salvatrice Cummo, advised that applicants prepare for the interview by familiarizing themselves with the entity. Asking questions about the job, the team (or product/service), and the enterprise demonstrates strategic thinking and advanced planning skills.

Once again, Pasadena City College demonstrated its unique presence in LA’s EWD sector by hosting an informative, entertaining, and enlightening Future of Work conference. Thank you to all participants, attendees, and supporters, whether they’re sports fans or not.