Pursuing Socioeconomic Mobility

Pam Sornson, JD on May 2, 2023

Pam Sornson, JD

May 2, 2023

Traditionally, the compensation for ‘labor’ – the performance of activities to achieve a particular economic end – has been valued according to the ‘class’ of the person performing it. In American society, being a member of one of five social ‘classes’ often determines how well that person succeeds economically throughout their life. Those born to the ‘upper’ classes earn more money for their labor and experience opportunities and benefits not available to those of the ‘lower’ classes. They typically do better financially over the course of their lives than their less well-off colleagues.

Further, people born into a ‘class’ usually remain in that class throughout their lives and don’t or can’t actively try to do otherwise. Those who do make the effort can achieve ‘upward social mobility’ – and a consequent economic mobility  – if they can overcome the obstacles impeding that progress. For individuals, breaking through those barriers – both visible and invisible – presents a formidable challenge. For communities, removing those barriers to social, economic, and upward mobility may be the key to securing future financial and social success for all their constituents.

 

What is Mobility?

The word ‘mobility’ means both:

the quality or state of being mobile, and

the ability or capacity to move.

Those elements are not the same, as is demonstrated by the challenges presented to people hoping to be ‘mobile;’ they may enjoy the ‘state’ of mobility, but societal barriers prevent them from actually moving.

In a societal context, the concept of mobility encompasses ‘social’ and ‘economic’ movement, and it can refer to downward, lateral, and upward activity in both instances.

‘Downward’ mobility, obviously, connotes a decline in capacity.

‘Lateral’ mobility reflects maintaining the status quo.

‘Upward’ mobility suggests an improvement in capacity.

Achieving both social and economic ‘upward mobility’ – socioeconomic mobility (SM) – is a goal many people pursue.

Social and economic goals are not the same, however, although achieving one often means achieving the other, too. ‘Socioeconomic’ movement happens when a person moves beyond their familial and economic class levels in either a decline or an advance. When upward movement happens, that person will gain a myriad of benefits that were not available in their previous life.

 

Measuring Socioeconomic Mobility

There are two measurements of ‘socioeconomic mobility,’ each determined by the particular person’s status in society:

‘Intergenerational mobility’ refers to changes in one’s socioeconomic position as compared to their parents (familial).

‘Intragenerational mobility’ refers to changes in economic status over the course of one’s lifetime (social ‘class’).

Having the capacity to achieve socioeconomic mobility of either type is linked to having opportunities to pursue it.

However, there are several barriers to achieving SM, primarily because the opportunities for advancement are not typically available to all. Unequal or inequitable regulatory hurdles frequently limit or bar access to resources that facilitate upward mobility as a form of economic growth. In too many cases, people are denied a comparable range of options for reasons unrelated to their capacity to work. Gender, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and even birthplace location are factors used to limit an individual’s opportunity to seek and achieve a higher financial status.

In other cases, those barriers are entrenched in a fundamental aspect of the societal infrastructure, creating a ‘closed’ mobility system. ‘Closed’ mobility systems intentionally deny equal rights of access to all their participants. ‘Open’ mobility systems, on the other hand, allow everyone access to resources that can enhance their SM status (although they, too, may incorporate a series of variables that can discourage success).

 

Closed Mobility Systems

In a ‘closed’ mobility system, specific segments of the population are intentionally excluded by definition from opportunities that would allow a change in their social status. The ‘caste’ system still exists in many countries today and is a closed mobility system. India’s caste system, for example, segments its Hindu population into five groups: Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, Shudras, and Dalits (also known as ‘the untouchables’). The segments establish a hierarchy that puts Brahmins on top, and the actions and activities of the others are always made in deference to this group. Members of each caste are born into it, so they have no choice about their personal economic circumstances, nor are there ways for them to alter their reality.

Open Mobility Systems

In other communities, open mobility systems allow transitions between class segments. Optimally, all resources that drive upward mobility are available to all members of these communities. When that is the case, individuals can achieve ever-escalating levels of financial and social success depending on the effort they put into that process. Societies that encourage and embrace upward mobility as a community asset typically are healthier and more stable than those that don’t.

‘Hybrid’ Mobility Systems – an Ugly Truth

Other populations may appear – or even declare themselves – to be ‘open’ class societies while also integrating into their infrastructure both evident and hidden barriers to prevent people from moving upward economically; their rule base is essentially a closed system masked as an open one.

In this ‘hybrid’ construction, restrictions to movement are based on gender, race, etc. American society currently has several culturally embedded barriers that prevent people from moving out of their class toward a higher, more financially beneficial one. These barriers were built into the social network to dissuade lower classes from attaining upward mobility by making that objective almost impossible to achieve. This structural racism is used to retain existing – and foster further – discrimination against specific populations by manipulating public resources such as housing, employment, earning capacity, and access to health care, to name just a few.

Rules are set to make access to resources more difficult for some communities while easing it for others.

Using rent manipulations to contain certain population groups within specific neighborhoods, for example, can limit access to public transportation and education resources, healthy food sources, and other assets critical to well-being.

Maintaining these inequitable structures perpetuates the control of the upper classes over those in the lower classes and curtails the opportunity for the less well-off to pursue upward socioeconomic mobility.

 

Why Upward Mobility is Critical to Social – and Societal – Success

Suppressing economic growth in any segment of society also suppresses economic growth for the entire community. On the other hand, emerging research demonstrates that increased socioeconomic mobility within suppressed social sectors offers unmatched growth opportunities for the whole populace.

In a recent UK study, for example, data showed that even a modest increase in SM for a percentage of its citizens would significantly increase the country’s overall GDP. The finding underscores the premise that enhanced SM for some equals improved outcomes for all.

Further, pursuing that goal – upward SM for all – is essential for more than social justice reasons. Fundamentally, providing access to upward SM that facilitates class-crossing interactions and sharing builds relationships and stimulates economic growth.

 

For too long, talented, worthy, and exceptional people from the less-advantaged classes have been marginalized for reasons that have nothing to do with their value. When society removes the barriers they face and receives the values they offer, everyone – regardless of class – will benefit.

Dismantling Barriers to Socioeconomic Mobility

Pam Sornson, JD on May 2, 2023

Research suggests that stagnant socioeconomic mobility (SM) levels negatively impact an entire society, not just its marginalized population(s). Communities with infrastructures that support equity and equality across all population segments – and therefore have higher SM capacities – do better economically than those that do not. Regions with disparate and unfair socioeconomic outcomes within social classes, and low correlating SM rates as a result, can learn from their more prosperous neighbors how to reverse that course while improving the overarching economic situation for everyone.

 

Begin with Policy …

All too often, reduced SM levels result from biased and discriminatory legislation and rule-making. All communities exist through a system of legislated policies and procedures that address (or should address) the needs of everyone. In too many instances, however, those policies were crafted and implemented to further the goals of smaller subgroups within the community, thereby leaving the other subgroups unsupported. This group of unfair policies creates and perpetuates the cultural groundwork that impedes social and economic growth and limits the opportunities to achieve SM.

To repair the injustices caused by those obsolete policy patterns, today’s forward-looking leaders can identify how their constituents are affected by the existing regulatory infrastructure. In many cases, they’ll find that their current standards fail to address the fundamental elements of ‘social welfare’ for all their citizenry: security, equity, inclusion, and a fair distribution of resources. Instead, they may discover that current policy often intentionally limits opportunities for those in some classes to attain the resources available to other community members.

Access to adequate and equitable public transportation is one way previous governments have limited their citizen’s options. In one community, a plush and comfortable bus gets prioritized routing to speed wealthy patrons to their destination. Those who can’t afford the cost, however, must endure exposed bus stops, plastic seats, and the interminable dreariness of public traffic patterns.

Finding adequate housing is also a challenge for people with fewer resources. Discriminatory behaviors within the housing industry often leave people of color, the differently abled, or ethnically diverse without appropriate or desirable options. In many communities, the biases aren’t so much written as they are demonstrated in behaviors that direct non-white ethnicities to non-white neighborhoods, as an example.

Obtaining a high-quality education is also more challenging for some members of a community than it is for other members. Despite years of social debate and advocacy, the American educational system is one of the most inequitable systems in the industrialized world, where social status – not intelligence, talent, or skill – determines the quality and availability of education.

Remaking policies and their associated practices to reflect the community’s commitment to fairness will move toward righting the existing injustices while also boosting the economic capacity of all – not just some – of its residents.

 

 … Focused on Target Populations

To be most effective, any policy changes must be directed at the populations they are intended to benefit, using strategies to achieve the best outcomes for those public investments. These changes may (and will probably) require shifting public funding away from some programs (such as the plush bus system noted above, which was publicly funded) and toward others that provide service and support to marginalized community members.

Research from the Brookings Institute offers suggestions for policymakers to help guide them to a fairer community and a brighter economic future, with a focus on two pivotal public resources: housing and education.

Housing

A safe and sound home is the best foundation for the growth of any person, but America’s housing laws do not ensure that all citizens have access to this critical resource. Home rental rates and purchase prices are often out of reach for a sizeable percentage of the community, leaving them with no option but to seek more ‘affordable’ housing. However, in far too many communities today, ‘affordable housing’ is only available in inhospitable areas that lack adequate transportation, food, and safety services.

Consequently, Brookings suggests civic leaders reinvigorate their housing laws by incorporating these factors:

Use housing vouchers to target both populations and housing options. Use policy and practice to create ‘mixed-income’ communities with families from a range of economic classes.

Develop affordable housing options across the region, not just in small sections of the city.

Review and reform housing laws that prevent those who need housing from attaining it. Zoning restrictions, in particular, have played a significant role in keeping minority populations out of specified communities.

Enforce housing rules to ensure that they actually and effectively protect their intended beneficiaries. The number of laws passed that require the application of ‘fair and equal’ housing policies is irrelevant if they are not enforced or enforceable.

Education

The depth and breadth of educational disparities across the United States are alarming, as study after study reveals that students of color – in almost all regions – receive significantly fewer educational resources at all levels than their white counterparts. Long-established school systems continue to execute policies that provide different educational assets to whites than to non-whites, and those decisions effectively limit the economic capacities of the community as a whole.

Thirty years of research demonstrates that four factors directly influence student achievement and that white learners are much more likely to receive these factors than their non-white classmates:

smaller schools (300-500 students is optimal),

smaller class sizes,

a challenging curriculum,

and highly qualified teachers.

Despite the evidence connecting these influences to higher educational achievements, school systems that are predominantly for learners of color:

are much larger, on average, with some hosting as many as 3,000 students,

have class sizes that are 15 times larger than those found in white schools, and

accept significantly lower quality standards for both curricula and teachers.

Even integrated schools have a history of bias by directing non-white learners to lower-track classes with higher student/teacher ratios and less qualified educators.

 

The politically manufactured barriers in most of America’s communities continue to perpetuate the bias and prejudice that inhibits SM for marginalized people. As the country recovers from the recent global health crisis, it has an opportunity to reevaluate the negative impacts of its foundational civic platforms. Revising those to build in diversity and open opportunities for all residents can raise the economic value of the whole community, meet the needs of today, and lay the foundation for a more profitable – for all – tomorrow.

Women Delivering: Equity Achievements

Pam Sornson, JD on April 16, 2023

Since 1848, women have been fighting for full equality with their male counterparts, and the barriers they’ve overcome have been momentous. In the United States, women have achieved significant status as leaders, role models, and visionaries, and, in many instances, their voices and opinions carry the gravitas they deserve. The successes achieved to date, while not completing the entire mandate of full equality, now ensure that all females enjoy a plethora of protections, supports, and opportunities not imaginable by their distant ancestors.

 

An Obvious Place to Start: Becoming A ‘Person’

Fundamentally, the battle to become a fully emancipated and individualized person comes down to the identification of legal status as conferred and enforced by law. The law grants people the capacity to hold title to property, make decisions and contracts, and live independently of others’ influences. Men, apparently, are inherently ‘persons’ and ‘people;’ there has been no effort to deny them as a class from the benefits those statuses convey.

Women, however, have been fighting to attain protections and rights similar to men’s since before the American Revolution. For colonial women in the 1700s, recognized legal status was conferred based on marital status, and married female colonists were definitely at a deficit. The early settlers followed British common law, which, in 1769, defined wives as aspects of their husband’s person: “By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in the law. The very being and legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated into that of her husband under whose wing and protection she performs everything.” Women’s identification as ‘persons,’ as ‘members’ in a group of ‘people,’ and as ‘electors’ changed slightly in 1789, when the new Constitution interpreted those words to include them; the new recognition did nothing to alter their subjugated reality, however.

Note, too, that not all ‘women’ were classified as ‘persons.’

Black women remained the ‘property’ of their owners, which negated their opportunity to defend themselves against their master’s brutalities. (That ‘ownership’ role was abolished in 1865 with the passage of the 13th Amendment, but subsequently, there was little actual change in how Black women were treated.)

Asian women were almost non-existent in the country through to the 1930s, with two federal laws (1924’s Immigration Act of 1924 and 1882’s Chinese Exclusion Act) explicitly barring both Asian men and women from entering the country.

The exclusion from the rights and protections conferred by law on men was also applied to Indigenous women and females from other cultures.

Curiously, single colonial women fared better. While they couldn’t obtain a license or college degree, they could form contracts, buy and sell real estate, and accumulate and own ‘personalty,’ which is any ‘thing’ that is movable. These opportunities arose by tradition in the colonies, where single women contributed significantly to the building and development of those early communities, but they weren’t actually ‘rights,’ as those are only invested through the passage of law.

The ‘person’ label did not provide women with autonomy or equality, either. Over time, each individual state developed its own standard for the rights offered to the women within its jurisdiction.

By 1777, even before the country was established, all existing states (colonies) had passed laws prohibiting women from voting.

In 1839, Mississippi allowed its married female residents to hold title to real property in their own name, but only if they had their husband’s permission.

In 1873, an Illinois rule excluding women from practicing law was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

In 1875, the federal high court also supported Missouri’s position that women didn’t have the right to vote because they (as a group) constituted a ‘special class of non-voting citizens.’

Consequently, by the late 19th Century, with no unifying national standard in place, women in the ‘United States’ were subjected to a multitude of differing rules and regulations based on where they lived, not on their fundamental status as human females. Not surprisingly, the confusion and inherent unfairness of the situation ignited the (still ongoing) drive to validate women as equal to men in general and equally valuable contributors to society. Only when this respect is universally accepted will women obtain and retain control over all aspects of their lives.

 

Validation and Control

Through the decades, campaign successes that established limited forms of validation for women as valued members of the community brought with them significant benefits. In addition to the right to own property (real and personal), women (married and single) also won the rights to form contracts, open businesses, participate in government, and speak out about things that mattered to them. Near ceaseless advocacy and political agitation beginning in the mid-1800s and continuing through to today have garnered many – but not all – successes, facilitating the American woman’s ability to do all those things and more.

Notably, one of the most significant gains for women was winning the right to work and earn as much as a man for doing the same labor, although those advances were hard fought and took years to accomplish. There was some forward movement in the late 19th Century (in 1879, the U.S. Congress overruled the Supreme Court and empowered a woman to practice in front of that body) and the early 20th Century (in 1938, minimum wages were made equal between women and men). However, real headway wasn’t made until the 1960s:

In 1963, the Equal Pay Act ordered that all workers be paid ‘equitably’ regardless of sex, race, color, religion, or other qualifiers. (Full enforcement of that Act remains elusive.)

In 1964, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibited employers from discriminating against people who weren’t Christian white men.

In 1965, restrictive laws curtailing women’s work hours were repealed, allowing women to take jobs previously held only by men.

In 1969, a federal court agreed that women with the physical capacity to do the same work as men should be hired to do that.

After that, Congress passed a plethora of laws that granted to women many (but not all) of the employment and work-related rights that men had.

 

For 175 years, America’s women have struggled to gain full equality within their society, and society has suffered for lack of those resources. The successes they’ve achieved and the processes they followed to attain them are indicators that, as a group, women will only rest in this endeavor once they’ve reached full and complete equality with men as valued and contributing members of society.

Delivering Women: Establishing Full Equality

Pam Sornson, JD on April 16, 2023

The battle to achieve fundamental human respect and equality isn’t limited to women. People of color, religious communities, those who are differently-abled, and many other marginalized populations continue to suffer from the injustices and inequities embedded in global social and political systems. Yet, despite the apparent challenges within their society, many communities fail to address these problems, believing them to be insurmountable or, worse, unimportant. The reality is that any level of inequity or inequality in an organized association erodes that whole community’s capacity to achieve its highest potential.

 

Exclusion is Expensive

When a percentage of the population is unable to offer its value but instead is compelled to draw resources from the greater community for survival, then even its wealthiest members suffer unnecessary social and economic losses. That’s the conclusion drawn by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis in its recent report, The Economic Gains from Equity. The authors evaluated data from the Current Population Survey that estimated America could add over $25 trillion in gross domestic product gain over the next 30 years by eliminating disparities that impede personal progress and community economic growth. The report’s findings mirror those offered by other notable global entities that have drawn similar conclusions regarding the connection between achieving equity and maximizing economic development.

The conclusion is not new, either. In 2016, the Altarum Institute and Kellogg Foundation released their joint dissertation making the Business Case for Racial Equity, which describes several economic and fiscal benefits that flow from closing the wealth and earnings gap between whites and ethnic minorities. In addition to generating higher total earnings for all workers – male and female – a more diverse workforce receiving equitable resources would also:

boost long-term economic growth,

increase tax revenues for both state and federal coffers, and

reduce the number of people requiring social safety services.

 

Inclusion Increases Incomes

The challenge now is to determine a strategy to achieve this level of equity and then execute it to pursue these economic goals. Analysts at PolicyLink suggest that communities adopt an intention of achieving “economic inclusion” by connecting vulnerable populations to new jobs while ensuring that those occupations provide the wages and benefits to support both a family unit and community-wide economic growth.

They identify four’ inclusion tools’ capable of moving the initiative forward:

Adjusting local and regional hiring policies and practices to engage women and minority workers and rewarding those entities that implement them.

Use government resources to develop and support minority and woman-owned enterprises, then contract with those companies to embed them into the community’s economic foundation.

Set living-standard wage and benefits rules to ensure all workers earn the value they represent, not just get paid what the market has established for their role or occupation. This strategy directly responds to the inequities revealed by the pandemic, when those workers deemed ‘essential’ to the economy were also typically the lowest-paid employees of the community.

Pour all necessary resources into the development of a well-trained and skilled workforce. The COVID-19 crisis eliminated thousands of jobs while creating a demand for thousands more new occupations. The emerging labor force does not yet have the tools or skills to perform these new roles. Societies looking to build a better future can invest in the resources needed to provide the training and education to ensure they have the employees needed to perform these new occupations.

 

Other entities, too, have weighed in on how to raise and empower marginalized workers. For example, UNWomen is an organization within the United Nations that champions gender equality for all women and girls, which, by definition, includes females of all colors, religions, and abilities. Notably, countries that follow the organization’s recommendations for empowering women see benefits across their whole population.

This group looks specifically at the barriers and obstacles women face in their everyday lives that impede their capacity to work, earn, and care for themselves. If successfully executed, its recommendations to remove these challenges would also unleash the economic value millions of women could contribute to their communities:

Invest in care services. Women perform the vast majority of global caregiving and caretaking services, and a large percentage of those efforts go uncompensated. One entity estimates that the annual value of these resources tops $1.5 trillion. The statistic demonstrates a double hardship for women: not only do they not get paid for their time or labor, but the men who are not doing this work are then free to manage their time and earn more money because they have no comparable obligation.  

Ensure funding for women’s organizations. In many regions of the world, the ‘women’s society’ provides a safety net for females that governments have not yet established. Too few resources, however, erode their capacity to provide the quality services women and girls deserve.

Protect women’s health. Poor healthcare systems for women cause multiple economic woes for both them and their communities, yet many societies continue to erode the few that are (or were) already in existence. The World Economic Forum estimates that a $300 million investment in woman-focused research could yield a $13 billion return by enhancing the gender’s productivity and longevity.

Support women’s leadership at all levels of government and throughout society. Women appear to be more attuned and sensitive to environmental issues, and countries with more women holding elected office have adopted stricter climate policies than those with predominantly male governing bodies.

Imagine the social and economic gains that could be achieved if these recommendations were applied to all groups of people.

 

The conclusion to be drawn from these circumstances, theories, and realities is that empowering everyone to contribute to their community to the best of their ability also empowers that community to achieve its highest potential. At this critical, pivotal moment in history, it may (finally) be possible to strategize a plan to achieve that goal.

Women in Labor: Generating Value

Pam Sornson, JD on April 4, 2023

Besides the obvious physical distinctions, the differences between men’s and women’s brains explain how and why their talents and skills differ so greatly from one group to the other. Women, for example, process information much faster than men, using much less of their mental capacity to achieve the comparable cognitive performance of men. Their brains have a heightened interconnectivity that simultaneously facilitates mental processing across several lobes. Men’s brains, on the other hand, are more specialized, using individual modules of brain anatomy to focus on one function at a time. Neither brain structure is preferable to the other; they each have their strengths and weaknesses as processing machines. But the differences between them do indicate that harnessing the capacities of both will bring better and higher values to the community. Continued reliance on the one – typically that of the male – to conduct all social business ignores the value and contribution capacity of the other.

These four women are examples of the benefits gained by a society when it elevates and engages the dynamic force of the female brain. Women’s individual styles, thought processes, and initiatives bring unmatched and unique contributions to their separate organizations in ways that the male brain can’t match, not as an alternative resource but as an equally competent and comparable one.

 

Julie Su – Nominee: U.S. Secretary of Labor

Ms . Su is the former California Secretary of Labor and President Biden’s current nominee to head the United States Labor Department. She has been serving as the deputy secretary for the U.S. DOL. In that role, she has worked with the President and his cabinet to amend federal rules and regulations to advance more equitable inclusion and worker well-being policies and practices. She was picked for the position based on her focus on human rights and finding justice for marginalized populations.  Her leadership in a 1995 legal case that changed California’s laws regarding sweatshops and the exploitation of immigrant workers is just one example.

As California’s top labor leader, Su was dedicated to prosecuting businesses that cheated workers out of their fair wages, including companies that inappropriately classified their employees as ‘independent contractors’ to avoid compliance with California’s labor standards. As deputy director for the U.S. DOL and as the potential top leader in that organization, Su will oversee 26 agency programs that provide services, guidance, and support to workers, employers, and industries across the country. The DOL focuses on work- and labor-related concerns that impact millions of Americans and provides governance and enforcement services for federal work-related laws, including the American Rescue Plan, the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), and the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

 

Dr. Sonya Christian – Chancellor, California Community Colleges

In February 2023, the California Community Colleges Board of Governors unanimously selected Dr. Christian to lead the country’s most diverse system of public higher education. As the 6th Chancellor of the Kern Community College District, Dr. Christian was instrumental in spearheading funding for the Guided Pathways model of community college program organization. As a consequence of her leadership in this initiative, the State provided a $150M investment to launch the project to further pursue its “Vision for Success” metrics.

Her leadership as the Chancellor of California’s Community College system (CCC) allows her to expand her creative educational philosophies across 116 college campuses state-wide. The CCCs host more than 1.8 million students each year, 69% of whom are from diverse ethnic backgrounds. More than half (51%) of the graduates of California State Universities (CSU) and almost one in three (29%) of University of California (UC) graduates began their education at a community college. The 116 individual institutions together offer over 377,000 course sections, providing students from across the state the opportunity to pursue virtually any occupation or career. Dr. Christian’s influence on this network and the millions of people will be significant.

 

Kelly LoBianco, Director, LA County Department of Economic Opportunity

With over 15 years of public sector experience at the federal, state, and local levels, Ms. LoBianco has held numerous executive roles, including Executive Director of Training and Sector Initiatives for New York City’s Workforce Development Division. She consistently uplifts community voices to achieve measurable, equitable, and sustainable outcomes and brings considerable skills as a change agent for social services policy and programs in workforce and economic development strategies.

The LA County Department of Economic Opportunity (LADEO) is the county’s workforce development hub. It offers county residents opportunities to pursue new career pathways, access occupational upgrades, and launch new businesses and organizations. The LADEO is now tasked to deploy more than $156 million in economic and workforce development resources provided by the American Rescue Plan Act, better known by President Biden’s phrase, the “Build Back Better” plan. The agency will administer approximately $99 million in federal grant money to facilitate grants to hundreds of LA County small businesses, nonprofit organizations, talent pipelines, and more.

 

Carolyn Hull, General Manager, Economic & Workforce Development Department – City of Los Angeles

Ms. Hull started as leader of this group – the EWDD – in February 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic began, and she and her team distributed more than $63 million in coronavirus response spending. The money supported hundreds of economic relief programs, including the City of LA’s Small Business Emergency Grant Program, the LA Regional COVID-19 Fund, and the LA COVID-19 Child Care Provider Grant Program.

The agency itself steers workforce development initiatives to create the job training and career opportunities that result in thriving businesses. Its $21 million budget funds six dedicated programs, including:

Nine BusinessSource Centers that provide access to capital, tax incentive information, and employee training, among other services.

Economic development strategies that leverage public assets in support of private business growth.

Seventeen WorkSource Centers that provide employment-related assistance to regional residents.

Sixteen YouthSource Centers that offer educational and career preparation services for “disconnected youth” between 16 and 24 years.

The “Hire LA’s Youth” summer employment program that provides six weeks of paid work opportunities for local people aged 14 to 24 years.

Seven Day Labor Centers that offer fixed locations around the city where people can gain job skills, and businesses can find short-term workers.

 

These four women now manage hundreds of millions of LA County’s public funding resources, all of which are directed at building the region’s economy on behalf of all its residents. Individually, their exceptional capacities and unique female perspectives will undoubtedly advance the work and success of their agency. Together, their combined leadership force has the potential to generate more economic success than the County has ever experienced by using cognitive capabilities – uniquely female – that its prior male leaders simply did not possess.

Women in Labor: Unsung Value

Pam Sornson, JD on April 4, 2023

How society values labor is very often determined by historical practices and premises. Consequently, today’s reality regarding the value of work doesn’t necessarily reflect the actual benefit conferred by a person’s effort. Instead, economic and social realities reveal what the historical community believed was of value regarding that worker as a person. And in too many cases, inappropriate, biased, and discriminatory labeling of the person has resulted in an ineffective and inequitable valuing of the effort they contribute to their culture. The cost to the community of this type of ‘norm’ has been – and remains – exceedingly high.

 

Progress Marked

Women’s History Month in America – March – has just passed, and we’ve chronicled the successes of notable women in the LA area who have had and are having a significant impact on our regional workforce development efforts. As laudable as their accomplishments are, however, further research indicates that there is still much to be done for women here and around the world to attain a level of equity that would be comparable to that enjoyed by men. Not only would women and girls themselves gain immense benefits from being fully recognized as valuable contributors to society, but data indicate that the entire community benefits across all sectors when the labor and efforts of women are appreciated and valued equally to those of men.

 

Progress to be Made

Despite the fact that women make up fully half of the world’s population, they remain woefully underrepresented in terms of economics, social standing, and educational achievements. According to a paper released by the World Bank, approximately 2.5 billion of the world’s women cannot access the economic opportunities that could improve their lives. Instead, they face formidable legal and social barriers that prevent them from even pursuing such options.

The statistics are alarming. In the 190 nations surveyed by the Bank:

One hundred seventy-eight countries maintain legal systems that prevent women from fully participating in their economies.

Eighty-six countries place restrictions on the jobs available to women, while

another 95 countries will not guarantee equal pay for equal work.

Further, around the world and in addition to their lack of access to economic development, women are afforded only three-quarters of the legal rights enjoyed by men, generating an aggregate score of 76%, with 100% representing complete legal parity between men and women. The challenges presented by these disparities are many.

According to Mari Pangestu, World Bank Managing Director of Development Policy and Partnerships, the estimated lifetime earnings gap between men and women now stands at US $172 trillion, almost twice the world’s annual gross domestic product (GDP).

By any standard, such a yawning void of earning capacity between a man and a woman reflects significant inequity and unfairness. To explain it away, some people may suggest that men work more than women or that the products of the man’s labor provide higher social value than those of women. Neither of those assertions is accurate, however.

Research shows that women simply aren’t paid for all the work they do. Women perform 2.5 times the volume of unpaid household and caregiver work than men. That fact is evident in both developed and developing nations, too. In developing countries, men contribute an average of 1:31 hours per day of unpaid labor (women = 5:42) compared to the 1:54 hours performed by men in developed regions (women = 5:09). The relative economic stability of the country in which they live does not have an impact on the volume of unpaid work performed by men as compared to that contributed by women.

The data also reveal that, when they are compensated for their work, women are paid less money than men, even when they do the same job. Globally, on average, a woman earns just $.77 for every dollar a man earns for performing the same function, and women with children make, on average, less than that.

Having children is, in itself, a handicap for the vast majority of the world’s women. In many communities, Women with children face additional barriers to finding a fair and well-compensated job:

A child-encumbered female employee is deemed less reliable than her male counterpart because employers expect that she will need special accommodations to attend to her family. The boss doesn’t have the same expectation for male employees.

Many companies set rigid workdays and hours schedules, which don’t facilitate the flexibility that mothers or other caregivers often need.

Society, in general, still expects women, not men, to attend to family-related details while also anticipating the woman to perform at the same level of capacities and attentiveness as her male colleagues.

These circumstances aggregate to put women under tremendous pressure to perform all roles and expectations all the time, even though none of those activities provides the economic or social support she needs to succeed. Not surprisingly, many women elect to work for compensation only part-time and spend more of their days in their unpaid role of mother and home keeper. They then, because of the nature of their circumstances, sacrifice their old-age benefits, which are frequently calculated by the number of paid hours contributed to an employer over their work life or career.

 

When measured as an influence on economic success and social mobility, these statistics underscore how much of the value that women provide goes unrecognized and uncompensated. Finding a way to address and repair these inequities requires an analysis of the facts that generate these situations and then taking action to reduce and eliminate them.

Why Harness Worker ‘Agency’

Pam Sornson, JD on March 19, 2023

Pam Sornson, JD

March 21, 2023

Measuring how employers value employees is only one element of the workforce development agenda. Another perspective examines how workers value their employers, which, it turns out, may have a bigger impact on current and future employment levels than was previously believed. Businesses that understand and facilitate their worker’s desire for ‘agency’ – the sense of having control over one’s actions and consequences – are more likely to have personnel who enjoy their work and are willing to contribute their valuable assets to share in the company’s growth.

 

Occupational Options Drive Employee Elections

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to rearrange how the world works, it is also shifting the relative perspectives – and power bases – of workforce participants at all levels of that strata. These days, workers are commanding – and receiving – more recognition and respect from their workplace, but not through the use of vocal demonstrations or public agitation. Instead, they are asserting their value as a significant corporate asset and not just a commodity to be purchased. Employers who heed and respond to these new declarations of ‘worker agency’ may end up gaining a better workforce and a stronger company in return.

The newly popular opportunity to work remotely is just one of the influences on a worker’s decision about where to work and for whom. Throughout the pandemic, employees compelled to work from home using their personal technology were rewarded not just with an income but also with better control over their time – more agency over their occupational decisions. In many cases, companies continued to receive high-quality workforce performance despite giving up control over where or when those staffers were laboring. As the pandemic began to recede, the opportunity to work remotely became an attractive option for both existing and potential workers and remains so today.

That shift of power in the employee’s favor is having a profound effect on today’s workforce numbers. A 2022 survey revealed that many formerly employed people have voluntarily chosen to remain out of the workforce. Rather than acquiesce to their former work environment, which they found to be either uncomfortable, unfair, or both, they have chosen other methods of maintaining their lifestyle instead of returning to a job that they did not like. Of survey respondents, 36% reported being unemployed or furloughed from their former employment. Of those:

Almost one in five (19%) had adopted the title of ‘homemaker’ to describe their new occupation.

Another 17% had fully retired.

14% were working part-time, while 8% had started their own enterprise.

Notably, only 6% reported turning to some form of schooling.

Remarkably, the majority of these former workers who were intentionally shunning traditional employment opportunities were not financially well off. Almost nine in ten (89%) were earning less than $75,000 per year, and 83% of those were earning less than $50,000 annually. That reality suggests that, at least for some, living a reduced lifestyle because of financial constraints was better than making money doing something they didn’t enjoy doing or working for an employer they didn’t like or respect.

The survey respondents gave several reasons why they weren’t invested in finding full-time employment any time soon (some offered more than one reason):

28% cited ongoing health concerns that prevented them from looking for work.

27% were tending to family matters that would otherwise go unaddressed.

23% said family members were taking up the financial slack created by their unemployment.

Perhaps most relevant to workforce development professionals: over 40% stated that the wages in their industry weren’t competitive for their skill set and that they weren’t going to look until that circumstance improved in their favor.

While the survey itself was just a small sampling of the general unemployed population, it does reveal at least some of the very real and relevant factors that are impeding the country’s post-COVID economic recovery. Workers who can’t find employment that gives them both job and personal satisfaction won’t be contributing to the economic recovery effort.

 

Employer Options Encourage Economic Engagement

According to Deloitte, only 17% of business leaders feel confident that their companies are prepared to provide their workers with the employment standards now expected by many of the country’s unemployed. While most (84%) of the respondents to that 2023 survey acknowledged that ‘worker agency’ is essential to corporate success, thus far, they had only looked at or initiated the three major employee satisfaction practices that had arisen during the COVID-19 concern: insufficient compensation, home or office location, and control over working hours.

There are other opportunities and themes for employer/employee relationship exploration available, however, that may also prove fruitful:

Adopt the premise that those who share the corporate success journey should also share corporate success outcomes. For example, adding merit bonuses to compensation practices and instituting an employee profit-sharing program can enhance productivity across the enterprise.

Strategize, develop, and execute programs that support the worker-organization relationship. business leaders can contemplate how the employee’s voice and opinion can improve corporate practices and policies, for example.

Design tracking and monitoring practices to follow newly instituted procedures to embed those more holistic employment satisfaction conventions in place.

Doing nothing in the face of these workforce evolutions could prove disastrous. The global scope of the ‘workforce revisioning’ process suggests that how, when, and where corporate productivity is accomplished is no longer just a C-Suite decision. There are pockets of laborers in almost all countries who are clamoring for both more power and more satisfaction from their occupation, and that may be the new ‘workforce development’ normal.

 

Here in the U.S., survey responses appear to indicate that a significant proportion of the now-unemployed or under-employed population would rather not work than work at a job they don’t like. If that situation continues, then America will continue to face a critical shortage of workers in its national workforce. Organizations without a sufficient or well-trained workforce aren’t able to maximize their investments, market share, or profits. Reduced corporate productivity results in reduced tax revenues for communities. Employers, companies, and industries should note these concerns and do what they can to remedy their organization’s workforce challenges if they intend to remain in business and compete in the global market.

Rebuilding Workforce Power

Pam Sornson, JD on March 19, 2023

Economic recovery and growth for all are – or should be – the fundamental goals of the emerging global workforce landscape. However, in many countries, the ‘status quo’ of shareholder/business owner dominance over all economic decision-making remains in place, even though it erodes the capacity of the workforce and threatens to derail the rebound and recovery process.

Instead, organizations of all sizes might consider embracing a more equitable corporate management structure that encourages and adopts worker input as a critical element of leadership strategy. The shift in perspective doesn’t just improve workforce conditions in general; it is also a more viable path to true economic recovery for the greater community.

 

Strategic Declines

Economists have tracked the rise and fall of worker power over the past ~70 years, as post-war industrial activities triggered union growth, and subsequent corporate evolutions suppressed those efforts.

In 1964, union membership in America was at an all-time high, with union participation in the Midwest and West Coast states averaging more than 33% of all workers. Union membership offered significant benefits for all participants:

It held wages steady through shifting economic times;

It helped to reduce wage gaps among workers, especially between men and women and whites and people of color;

It assured better working conditions and safety protections on the job, and

It often offered better paid-leave opportunities than those received by non-union members.

The primary power of that workforce voice was to influence where and how the company invested its resources. Maintaining a capable and confident labor force was deemed a priority, so corporate leadership focused as much of its attention on those values as it did on other enterprise activities. Consequently, company revenues were distributed more equitably throughout the workforce, a reality that drove the growth and success of America’s middle class.

By the 1970s, however, the perspective that encouraged worker satisfaction was changing. Company owners and shareholders were working to erode the standards established by union demands and often used nefarious tactics to accomplish those goals:

Union activists were often fired from their jobs to remove their influence from the general workforce.

Corporations introduced ‘captive audience’ (mandatory) meetings to promulgate views opposing worker rights, often using veiled threats of unemployment and firing if employees balked at their assertions.

The emergence of a ‘union avoidance’ consulting industry throughout the 1970s demonstrated the popularity among business owners of efforts to limit worker power.

By the 1980s, complaints about unfair labor practices had grown more than seven times over that number in the 1950s.

The primary reason why these evolutions away from worker power were so successful is that the country’s laws facilitated those actions. From the 1940s through to the 1970s, several laws favoring employers over employees were enacted; it wasn’t until the 1970s, however, that businesses began pursuing those legal remedies:

The 1947 Taft-Hartley Act authorized the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to prioritize defending lawsuits against unions for their ‘secondary activities,’ such as cases involving illegal terminations of labor organizers.

Laws designed to protect workers frequently had ineffective remedies that didn’t address the problems that were occurring or weren’t properly applied by the courts.

The U.S. Supreme Court also weighed business interests with more gravity than worker’s rights and agreed to limit the employer’s bargaining obligations. Without a legally enforceable mandate to collaborate on workforce concerns, companies were free to fire disgruntled workers in favor of hiring those who wouldn’t rock the corporate boat.

Consequently, as labor power diminished, so did worker wages, protections, and benefits.

 

Facing a New Economic Reality

Over the past three years, economic upheavals have triggered a resurgence in efforts to rehabilitate the worker’s rights agenda. While some industries shrank and sluffed off their workers, others expanded at an alarming rate, and businesses engaged in those sectors are now struggling to find the staff they need to capture emerging economic opportunities.

At the same time, more workers than ever were taking control of their (existing or potential) work situation to demand better pay, better hours, better benefits, and a stronger voice at the C-Suite table. Despite the economic chaos experienced in 2020 as the world essentially shut down its industrial operations, more than 47 million workers left their jobs in 2021 in search of a better quality of life than their previous occupation was providing. While many have found new work that better suits their tastes and capacities, many of the sectors they left behind have yet to regain their previous stability. Several of these industries are those that had traditionally hosted union activities, and one that is particularly hit by job losses (and now suffers a high percentage of unfilled job openings) is durable goods manufacturing.

The manufacturing industry has long been based in America’s Midwest and still holds a significant place in those regional economies. At the beginning of 2020, however, it lost approximately 1.4 million jobs because of the pandemic. In 2023, it is still seeking both entry-level and skilled workers to fill those vacancies, and those workforce gaps are having a profound – and negative – on those local economies. The situation is becoming more dire as time passes, too, with experts predicting a record 2.1 million unfilled jobs in this sector by 2030. There is a myriad of reasons why these job positions remain unfilled, one of which may be because, for so long, workers on those manufacturing floors had no voice or control over the quality of or satisfaction they derived from their work.

 

Today’s economic uncertainties are roiling the conversations and decisions happening in board meetings, director’s offices, and workspaces. The confusion creates opportunities for new employer/employee collaborations that promise to improve the good fortunes of both. They also offer hope that the overall community will benefit too.

Defining the New ‘Workforce Ecosystem’

Pam Sornson, JD on March 6, 2023

Pam Sornson, JD

March 7, 2023

‘Human Capital.’ ‘Talent Management.’ ‘Employee Experience.’ ‘DEI.’ ‘Critical Skills.’ ‘Work Models.’ ‘Contingent Workers.’ While these individual terms are now familiar to most business leaders, they are coming together these days in a new configuration. They are being used to describe an emerging philosophy of workforce administration. Conventional practices no longer serve the needs of either employers or employees. Instead, as the pandemic recedes and new business habits materialize, optimal productivity mandates embracing the whole spectrum of worker capacity and utilizing those unsung resources to build a better workforce and a better community.

 

Business as Not Usual

The work world is evolving away from ‘one-size-fits-all staff management’ practices (typically time clocks, ‘regular hours,’ paid time off, etc.). Instead, tomorrow’s employment professionals are discussing the aspects of a new ‘workforce ecosystem‘ concept that embraces the shift away from ‘work-a-day’ norms and toward happier, more enlightened ‘productivity assets.’

Several factors are driving these innovative developments in workforce management, many of which were triggered during the COVID-19 era and most of which appear to be inevitable anyway, given the swift advance of technology.

 

Labor Force Factors

Three elements in particular drive evolving expectations in the labor sector:

The absence of available workers – The pandemic didn’t just force thousands of people from their jobs. It also drove thousands of others to quit intentionally. And despite significant job growth in the past two years, the country is still struggling to get work done, with three million fewer workers on shift compared to February 2020. The impact of those labor gaps is felt in every industry because businesses can’t compete, grow, or thrive without a fully functioning workforce in place.

The rise of ‘worker agency’ – Almost three years of global economic disruptions have dramatically changed the employer/employee relationship. In many instances, a dwindling labor pool transferred power over employment details from the boss – who needs workers – to the worker, who has little, if any, competition for the job. Consequently, incoming staff have a stronger voice with corporate leadership regarding wage rates, working conditions, and enhanced opportunities for bonuses and promotions.

Generational challenges – The era of spending a lifetime in a single career is ending as the baby boomer generation ages out of the workforce. Not only is there no population of any size to fill in those gaps, but those subsequent generations – the Millennials, Gen Z, and now Generation Alpha – together are smaller than the boomer group, and they have a decidedly different perspective on the meaning of ‘work’ and how they want to pursue their careers.

Marketplace Factors

The nature of work is also changing rapidly. Companies are struggling to adapt traditional methods and assets to emerging opportunities, even when those promise greater profitability and success.

Technology has completely eliminated some jobs while making many others distinctly more complex. The capacity for staff to work remotely adds unprecedented flexibility for both company and worker while also adding layers of management needed to oversee the associated risks and logistics.

‘Skills-based’ occupations have replaced ‘job title’ postings for many companies. Hirers are looking for qualified workers who have the skills needed for the job, so potential hires are prioritizing their skillsets over their past employment positions. In some cases, a worker well-skilled in critical activities is more valuable to the corporation than a less skilled but ‘better educated’ colleague. The deviation toward skills and away from book learning as the fundamental training format is engaging new work and career options among those workers who might not have pursued a job at all.

The need for agility is also becoming more significant for corporate success. Today’s markets move faster than ever, and new, competitive products and services are introduced daily. Keeping up with the competition is imperative to organizational survival, and having a staff that is capable of adapting swiftly to marketplace changes is equally critical.

 

Think Outside the Cubical

Looking ahead, today’s business leaders should be contemplating how they can improve their organization’s productivity in three years, five years, or a decade. That new iteration will almost certainly not look like today’s conventional ‘business’ configuration. But it should not look like an unorganized mishmash of traditional and innovative work management styles, either.

Instead, today’s leaders can strategize through the chaos to an enlightened and energized new enterprise by addressing and overcoming the two biggest hurdles to growth – an unprepared corporate culture and entrenched, inefficient work processes.

The management ‘mindset’ should be the first target for innovation. The corporate culture will transition into its new, more fluid configuration when managers intend to lead it there. This new workforce management strategy will require ‘executive control’ to shift from ‘direction’ to ‘orchestration.’ Rather than marshaling workers and their individual efforts, leaders at all levels of the organization should think of orchestrating the aggregated outputs of those human resource assets to achieve corporate goals.

Eliminate the now obsolete ‘job title’ composition of labor hierarchy and embrace the “workforce ecosystem” mindset as the new “workforce development strategy.” This ecosystem can be whatever the organization requires; it is essentially ‘boundaryless’ in that it incorporates and values the contributions of all workers, regardless of their title, role, or worker status.

Establish an open workforce objective that emphasizes skills and contributions over traditional ‘laborer’ metrics and provides the support that each worker needs to be successful, whether they are full-time employees, contractors, or some other form of paid contributors to enterprise success.

 

These days, employees want – and can command – better recognition for the individual skills and abilities they bring to their job. Companies that do well at satisfying these newly identified requirements can harness those added values into a corporate ecosystem that builds both a better business and a better community.

Risk as a Value Proposition: Evaluating Workforce and Human Risk Factors

Pam Sornson, JD on March 6, 2023

Risk is rampant these days, especially after the pandemic and its subsequent economic upheaval upended the global homeostasis. Many conventional practices and norms have been eliminated, and, in some cases, their replacements have yet to emerge. As a result, there are now yawning gaps and voids currently roiling the systems society relies on for service and support.

Other realities have also become starkly evident as the health threat recedes, especially when it comes to valuing labor. Some jobs were discovered to be obsolete, so they disappeared. Other formerly ‘menial’ occupations were revealed to be ‘essential’ to society’s functioning. In both cases, communities were dismayed to learn that their fundamental beliefs about work and its value were so incongruous with reality and, therefore, also unsustainable.

As the world approaches the post-COVID future, the workers who lost their jobs are clamoring for new, as yet undeveloped positions, while those who stoically performed the difficult ‘essential’ services are now demanding to be recognized – and compensated – for assuming those risks. The question is: how will the industrial community respond to these new demands and expectations?

 

Risk as a Spot Light

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed elemental yet hidden risks that are often inherent in virtually every industry.

In many cases, the risk grew from simply maintaining a product or service that suddenly presented a threat to life and health. When the government declared the spreading virus a national emergency, all kinds of ordinary, everyday activities ended abruptly, which also terminated the jobs they generated. Movie theaters went dark, restaurants closed in the thousands, and any form of public gathering quickly disappeared.

In other instances, the risk involved relying on (what eventually proved to be) unreliable sources for critical supplies and materials. Throughout the global supply chain network, most producers experienced at least some delivery delays of materials due to a lack of supplies, workforce, or both. Many reported a related escalation in costs as they paid ’emergency’ rates for any available substitutions.

In still other cases, the risk involved maintaining a fully staffed workforce to keep up with production quotas and orders. Any occupation that required a physical, human presence often also presented the risk of infection, which then prevented millions of employees from working lest they spread the disease throughout their organization. Many businesses closed for this reason. Further, as the pandemic wanes, many of those workers who became unemployed then are finding themselves in high demand for their skillsets and experience now. Accordingly, they are expecting higher wages than they received in the past, which presents an emerging risk to potential employers that they won’t be able to pay sufficient salaries to rebuild their labor force back to pre-pandemic levels.

These pre-pandemic risks are primarily related to the organization’s operational and financial activities, and many boards of directors focus their discussions on mitigating these risks to the corporation.

What they’re missing, however, is that these hazards are even more significant for their impact on the human workforce, which often bears the brunt of their effect. These leaders haven’t yet built into their management philosophy strategies to mitigate the risks to their human capital assets (such as infection by a potentially lethal virus), which means they also fail to protect the enterprise when those assets become unavailable. Managing the human risks within their enterprise is just as critical to their company’s success as managing the risks to their operational activities.

 

Embracing New Workforce Fundamentals

Shifting the corporate mindset to accommodate these emerging ‘human workforce risk factors’ is perhaps the best way for the industrial community to respond to new and evolving labor force demands and expectations. Not only would any such changes positively impact the workforce in general, but they might also enhance the agility and resilience of the organization as a whole.

The new management style goes beyond ‘workforce safety’ as the sole ‘labor-focused’ standard. It adds accountability for both internal and external factors that impact how, where, and why work is performed.

At the very least, the C-Suite should consider the physical, mental, and psychological risks their workers face each day and design compensation and benefits packages that reflect those heightened concerns.

In addition, an overarching review of corporate culture can embed ‘risk assessment and management’ at all employee and occupational levels to ensure that each worker is clearly informed of existing and potential risks and given the opportunity to choose to assume those challenges.

It also encompasses the well-being of the communities in which that labor is produced so that the company is assured of a strong workforce well into the future. Well-paying work builds well-supported communities.

Not least, the full implementation of this new style of human workforce management requires input and attention at all levels of leadership. Boards of directors, in particular, are responsible for considering the welfare of the workers who are building the value of the enterprise. A strong workforce emerges from more than just a robust HR office.

Many corporate directors may consider these evolutions too expensive or disruptive to be considered seriously. However, the dangers of maintaining the status quo most likely far outweigh the cost of improving the occupational situation of their workforce. These days, workers themselves are demanding improvements in their occupational environments to not only reduce risk to themselves but also to add value to them as people, employees, and community members. In addition, the consuming public is more aware these days of the values provided by all workers, not just those in the public eye for their high compensation levels. And since many of them “shop with their feet,” it is imperative for the leadership of every organization to be aware of and respond to their customer’s preferences, especially where social concerns are involved.

 

Risk is everywhere and is unavoidable. The very real threats posed to human workers throughout the COVID-19 pandemic are becoming far less tolerable to a society that has seen firsthand how damaging unmitigated risks can be. Organizations that intend to thrive through the pandemic and into a stronger, more resilient future will work now to mitigate and avoid future threats to the health and welfare of their human labor force. By doing so, they will build a stronger, more resilient workforce, as well as a stronger, more vital organization.

CCCCO Progress on the Calls To Action for Equity

Pam Sornson, JD on February 20, 2023

Pam Sornson, JD

February 21, 2023 

Working towards an economic recovery that builds equity principles into society’s foundational fabric requires a reinterpretation of how we value labor. If, as a society, we intend to enhance the value of our most important natural asset – our human workforce – then we must reevaluate:

– how we ‘classify’ workers,

– the relative merit and utility they offer and provide,

– the risks they face,

– the benefits they bring to the community, and

– the social and economic outcomes they achieve on behalf of everyone.

There are multiple systems still in place that negatively influence how we value ‘labor.’ In too many cases, they act as entrenched barriers to the economic growth we are all now looking to achieve. However, agencies across the state, region, and County are actively dismantling these obstacles, including the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office (CCCCO) and its constituents. The country’s largest community college system may be moving slowly toward progress, but progress is definitely being made.

 

Guided by the Vision for Success

California’s community colleges aren’t new to the idea of equity as an economic driver. In 2017, the CCCCO introduced its “Vision for Success” (V4S), a series of goals and commitments intended to improve the likelihood of success for all of the State’s (then) 2+ million community college students. At the heart of the V4S lies its foundational principle: combat racism and embedded inequities by ensuring that all learners receive the supports they need to achieve their educational, occupational, and life-long goals.

The CCCCO enhanced its commitment to the V4S in 2020 by issuing a “Call to Action” (CTA), a plan to mobilize the strategies and efforts toward student and community  equity into six focus areas:

1 Evolving and modernizing the education, training, and curricula for law enforcement officers and first responders.

2 Facilitating open dialogues to reveal and address campus ‘climate’ realities.

3 Auditing classroom climates to be more inclusive and create action plans to develop an anti-racism curriculum.

4 Reviewing and updating the Equity plans mandated of District leadership boards.

5 Shortening the time frame for the full implementation of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Integration Plan (DEAI).

6 Joining and engaging with the Vision Resource Center strategy: “Community Colleges for Change.”

All of these approaches – those of the CCCCO and those occurring on the State’s 116 community college campuses – are geared toward establishing a system that treats no one learner differently from all others, provides the support needed for every student to achieve personal and occupational success, and engages the skills, talents and economic capacities of California’s entire eligible workforce in the State’s recovery from the pandemic and its aftermath.

 

Progressive Improvements

In June 2021, the CCCCO published an update on the system’s CTA progress, which demonstrates its overarching commitment to fulfilling the goals of both those directives and those of the V4S. And while that forward momentum is slow, it is absolutely happening across the vast complex of the California Community College network. Incremental advances at individual schools and within districts and regions improve its capacity to provide its students with the best possible chance for economic success, regardless of their race, age, ethnicity, or ability.

 

Call to Action Updates:

Review law enforcement and first responder training and curricula.

Injuries suffered during the civil unrest caused by racially driven incidents shone a bright light on the overuse of physical and sometimes deadly force by California police agencies. In response, the CCCs hosted many policing practice and accountability initiatives to raise awareness of both the issues at hand and discuss new ‘best practices’ for policing approaches. In 2022, the State passed the Peace Officers Education and Age Conditions for Employment Act of California, which mandates raising the eligibility age of officers from 18 to 21 years and requires that all incoming officers have, at minimum, a bachelor’s degree. The CCCCO has launched an interagency task force to design the new degree program. Recommendations are expected by June 1, 2023.

Improving the DEI Campus Climate

To improve anything, one must establish a beginning baseline. Over the past two years, the CCCs have hosted events, community circles, and listening sessions, inviting their marginalized and underrepresented constituents to share concerns and fears. At the administrative level, colleges have used the DEI theme as the centerpiece of conferences and collaborations and as the central focus of the Trustee Fellowship conference, which gathered CCC Trustees from around the state. Within the CCCCO, ‘equity’ as a distinct focus has become a more explicit component of the Guided Pathways program.

Auditing classroom climates to be more inclusive and to create action plans to develop an anti-racism curriculum.

Entrenched biases are more difficult to eliminate because, often, they are simply invisible within a culture. However, across the CCC network, leaders are openly discussing equity and bias challenges and holding workshops for chief instructional officers and other school leaders to reveal and explore these conditions. Additionally, college districts are looking to embed DEI criteria into their staff tenure and evaluation processes. The goal of the CCCCO is to establish a statewide model that replaces obsolete and damaging hiring and retention practices with strategies to enhance the inclusion of all participants at all levels of the Community College sector.

Reviewing and updating the Equity plans by District leadership boards.

In 2018, the CCCCO partnered with the USC Center for Urban Education to create a Student Equity Plan Review report. The report clearly shows how ‘equity’ plans at each school fail to “produce and sustain racial equity between groups.” More recent analysis indicates that existing programs don’t comport with the CCCCO’s CTAs, either. However, its clarifications have helped each school and district see where they missed the mark, and provide guideposts for developing policies and practices that genuinely focus on reducing and eliminating hidden biases from fundamental school activities.

Shortening the time frame for the full implementation of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Integration Plan (DEAI).

In 2020, the CCCCO embraced a ‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Integration Plan (DEI Plan) that encompasses three of the six CTAs. The task force that was convened to develop the DEI Plan was subsequently tasked to assess how well the network and its schools were working towards its goals. That group determined that the CCCCO and its agencies had made significant progress. Among many other successes:

They codified the DEI statement into Title 5 of State Regulations.

They provided equivalency guidance across the CCC network to assure accessibility and equity in hiring practices.

They introduced the student voice by adopting strategies from the CCC Student Senate into the Anti-Racism Student Plan of Action.

Through to the end of 2022, the task force continued its work developing campuswide bias and cultural competency training, creating additional professional development opportunities, and enhancing DEI training for classified staff and part-time faculty.

Joining and engaging with the Vision Resource Center strategy: “Community Colleges for Change.”

The community college-focused webinars available through the Vision Resource Center straddle the multitude of complex and intertwined themes that overlay all CCC activities. Its digital status facilitates access for all CCC personnel, and it shares the knowledge and experience of industry experts with attendees. Diverse topics inform stakeholders of critical and emerging trends in their sectors; bias and racism cross into all aspects of the CCC system. The portal’s success was revealed early: its two 2020 webinars (June 3rd and August 19th) attracted over 35,000 participants.

 

Looking forward, the CCCCO is contemplating new tools to track post-completion outcomes using an equity evaluation. It is also working at aligning its investments and resource allocations to more broadly and thoroughly encompass equity principles. As indispensable stakeholders in the economic and workforce development sector, the CCCCO and its 116 community colleges are doing all they can to move toward producing a highly skilled, well-trained workforce that represents the full scope, depth, and breadth of California’s diverse community.

Outcomes, not Activities: Equity as a Consequence

Pam Sornson, JD on February 20, 2023

The past two years have marked a sea change in how the world views its diverse and colorful population. Reports of racially motivated hate crimes against individuals and whole communities are published globally, highlighting how deeply rooted biases can override the essential humanity of almost anyone. In consequence, more organizations than ever before have pledged to reduce their contribution to the debacle by investing in programs and strategies addressing the mostly silent biases inherent in their enterprise.

What they might consider doing differently moving forward, however, is to focus on equitable outcomes, not equitable practices. To achieve an entirely equitable and diverse workforce, every company must begin tracking and measuring the products and results of its equity-development practices – does it employ and advance more people of color? Differently abled people? How are they represented in leadership positions? Are compensation levels commensurate with skillsets? Job risks? Corporate value?

Deloitte suggests that too many organizations don’t see or don’t address the challenges within their DEI programs or corporate systems that interfere with their ability to engage a fully and genuinely diverse labor force.

 

 

Investment Does Not Equal Success

Global investments in DEI commitments have skyrocketed since 2020. Multinational corporations are developing strategies and implementing programs to address and rectify the adversities suffered by their ethnic, LGBTQ, and differently-abled employees. By doing so, these companies have demonstrated their awareness that bias is socially corrosive and, at least outwardly, their intent to eliminate it from their corporate culture.

Along with those investments come promises, however. Either explicitly or implicitly, the labor force impacted by those assertions is now expecting them to be fulfilled. Consequently, companies must do more than simply perform their “DEI strategy”; they must also track the results of their efforts to ensure that worker outcomes match the new standards they’ve set. Achieving those diverse workforce outcomes requires an additional step beyond strategizing toward it as a goal.

 

 

Barriers to Equitable Success

There are barriers, however. Researchers have revealed four common challenges interrupting an entity’s movement toward achieving its DEI goal.

Spending too much time and energy on activities without a comparable investment toward outcomes.

According to the Deloitte 2023 Global Human Capital Trends survey, almost one in four responding organizations (23%) measured their DEI progress through compliance activities. However, compliance programs often register only outputs as a metric and not the outcome that that body of metrics comprises. For example, the number of formerly fostered students is an important metric for all schools to report. Often these learners need a different set of supports to succeed in college. The more significant data, however, would be how well those educational structures facilitate their economic and occupational successes after they leave school. Those outcomes reveal the true ‘success’ of the DEI strategy.

Solving company concerns, not individual worker woes

While it is true that a ‘company,’ ‘organization,’ ‘enterprise,’ or ‘corporation’ is, in itself, a single entity, for DEI purposes, it should be viewed as a constellation of its entire workforce. Keeping that concept clear can be difficult in many organizations, especially large entities with far-flung offices and worksites. In these cases, the C-Suite may declare its DEI efforts successful if it has in place the professional development, inclusivity, and bias training opportunities that signify awareness of the problem.

In too many cases, however, having these high-level training capacities available isn’t enough to trigger the system change that true equity requires. The company must also find and measure the equitable improvements experienced by individual workers, such as pay raises or promotions.

Collecting insufficient or inaccurate data

In some cases, an enterprise may measure and report its “diversity” status (and therefore ‘success’) by counting the number of people of color it has on its payroll. While that statistic may appear impressive on its surface, it fails to capture the true extent of the company’s DEI reality. Organizations that want to capture data relevant to DEI outcomes should add systems that track more granular information, such as employee retention, advancements, leadership roles, and job satisfaction, to name just a few. This body of data will reveal how well diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives are woven into the corporate culture because they will show that both the company and its workers are advancing and succeeding.

Silo’ing DEI actions away from other corporate objectives

True corporate success integrates DEI principles deeply into the corporate culture by enmeshing it with all other corporate goals and objectives. Companies can grow and evolve when they embrace the broader panoply of opportunities inherent in the wider, more diverse base of their entire community. Deloitte describes this phenomenon as ‘the Purpose Premium,’ suggesting that organizations that ingrain all their activities with DEI and other socially valued elements experience a competitive advantage through six key market drivers: improved reputation, innovation, market valuation, operational efficiency, risk mitigation, and talent outcomes.” Companies that display their culture of purpose see significant benefits from the practice:

78% experienced higher brand recognition over their competitors;

53% gained new markets and their consequential new revenues streams;

64% of companies with a product sustainability purpose were able to lower their logistics costs, and

78% of job seekers reported choosing a company with purpose over one that did not assert that attribute.

 

Investments in the development of DEI initiatives and programs are well worth the time and money they consume. However, those investments are just the beginning of the transformation of a company into a truly equitable enterprise. To achieve equity for the business and its workers, leadership must focus on how their expenditures generate economic and social outcomes that reflect their purpose-driven goals and benefit their workers and their greater community.

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