In the wake of post-pandemic challenges, securing and retaining talent has become increasingly difficult. As a result, companies are exploring diverse hiring strategies and tapping into various talent pools.
Many employers are now partnering closely with community service organizations to co-create and implement progressive hiring mechanisms like career pathway models. These models encompass tailored interventions addressing high-demand job opportunities, industry-specific training, comprehensive pre– and post-employment support systems, and hands-on learning experiences. The goal of these interventions, usually completed within six months, is to equip jobseekers facing employment barriers for successful transitions into in-demand, quality jobs defined by factors like salary, benefits, predictable shifts, autonomy, training and growth prospects.
Career pathway models are adaptable to evolving industries, offering relevant skillsets aligned with a dynamic job market. By tailoring training programs to specific employer and industry needs, these models effectively address skill gaps and extend support to jobseekers beyond training, including childcare, transportation and counselling.
While not groundbreaking, the collaboration between the community services and the private sector in these workforce development strategies holds significant promise. These partnerships can bridge the substantial gaps that currently exist between employers with real hiring needs and talented jobseekers facing barriers to employment.
Through these initiatives, which foster robust partnerships between community-based organizations and businesses, individuals are better prepared for target opportunities. Such initiatives significantly contribute to economic growth by enhancing productivity, reducing unemployment and minimizing unfilled job vacancies within our society. Importantly, these interventions create pathways for individuals from diverse backgrounds to access high-quality training and jobs, thereby increasing social mobility and reducing economic disparities.
But how are we evaluating these interventions and determining success? Demonstrating return on investment (ROI) for career pathway models that grant access to diverse talent pools requires a multifaceted approach and poses considerable challenges.
Traditional recruitment models typically target jobseekers who are presumed to have certain skills, whereas career pathways involve training and preparation, requiring additional time to prepare candidates. A logical approach to measuring success might involve quantifying and comparing the human and financial resources used in hiring through these two distinct channels, but this is a complex exercise.
Career pathways often have high initial costs linked to pathway and curriculum design, which might seem financially daunting compared to traditional hiring models. Replicating these initiatives can be a solution to achieve efficiencies and spread startup costs across multiple iterations of the model. However, employers might become discouraged after the initial implementation, missing out on the chance to leverage lower implementation costs through replication.
“Aside from employment outcomes, career pathways can also enhance employee engagement, allowing existing employees to contribute through training, mentoring and support for new entrants.”
Beyond tangible inputs, long-term indicators like graduate performance, retention and progression are fundamental in capturing ROI. Tracking these outcomes requires commitment and capacity from employers and community partners. However, maintaining connections with graduates and measuring long-term outcomes pose challenges for career pathway models primarily due to resource limitations in establishing effective alumni networks and conducting long-term evaluations. Collecting comprehensive data about graduates’ career progress often relies on their willingness to share information, which might be limited due to privacy concerns.
Additionally, the demand for the target occupation and the employer’s talent scarcity is crucial in the ROI analysis, considering the high costs of maintaining unfilled jobs.
Aside from employment outcomes, career pathways can also enhance employee engagement, allowing existing employees to contribute through training, mentoring and support for new entrants. Yet, employers might attribute different significance to these opportunities when evaluating the model’s performance and value.
Employers also integrate these interventions into their corporate social responsibility (CSR) and environmental, social and governance (ESG) strategies, showcasing outcomes as part of different internal key performance indicators and as part of various promotional materials. Once again, these approaches may vary significantly among different employers.
For employers, similar workforce development strategies – even in the same sector – may lead to diverse approaches in evaluating outcomes and calculating ROI. This challenge intensifies due to difficulties in tracking long-term outcomes, calculating costs associated with unfilled jobs, limited opportunities for multiple iterations of the model, and diverse ways employers utilize and promote these interventions.
For a workforce development organization, calculating ROI for these models is relatively straightforward. The primary measure of success lies in the successful movement and retention of jobseekers into quality jobs. Additionally, crucial indicators include employers’ satisfaction with the training offered and graduates’ satisfaction with the comprehensive support they receive. Both these factors reflect the intervention’s capacity to fulfill the needs of both employers and jobseekers effectively.
Aligning employers with genuine hiring needs and skilled jobseekers encountering barriers to employment isn’t a precise science. Workforce development organizations need to employ an individualized approach, addressing the distinct expectations of each employer. This means jointly creating adaptable models that effectively tackle diverse needs for both employers and jobseekers.
Despite the challenges in measuring its ROI, the career pathways model has great capacity to cultivate a more resilient, adaptable and inclusive workforce, generating positive impacts for employers, individuals and our economy.
