Businesses to Hear Pragmatic Side of Hiring Aid Recipients
President Clinton has called it a “moral obligation” and the “responsibility” of businesses to hire former welfare recipients.
But organizers of a national welfare-to-work conference to be held in Los Angeles next week are making a decidedly more pragmatic appeal--one that portrays these workers as a valuable new source of help in a tight labor market.
“A Smart Solution for Business” is the theme of the first national conference of the Welfare to Work Partnership, a nonpartisan, nonprofit group that’s assisting the private sector in hiring people on public assistance.
The Wednesday conference will show business owners the nuts and bolts of assembling a successful program, including linking them with federal, state and local agencies that can provide training assistance, wage subsidies and other help, says Eli Segal, president and chief executive of the Welfare to Work Partnership.
A former advisor to Clinton, Segal concedes that a lot of lofty rhetoric has been tossed around in the nation’s great welfare-to-work experiment. But he says business owners won’t be persuaded unless they’re shown that doing the right thing can also be the profitable thing.
“They have to see that there are bottom line benefits,” Segal said. “. . . There’s a built-in suspicion that this is too hard. We want to give them the tools and educate them about what’s out there.”
Formed in May by a handful of large companies, including United Airlines, Burger King and Sprint, the Welfare to Work Partnership has since expanded to more than 2,500 companies nationwide, most of them small businesses. Firms joining the effort have agreed to hire at least one worker off the dole.
Among them is Delco Machine & Gear, a Long Beach-based precision machine shop that makes parts for the aerospace and airline industries. The 95-employee firm has already hired one former welfare recipient and is preparing to take on a second.
One of the biggest misconceptions about applicants who have been on public assistance is that they are somehow damaged goods, says Sarann Graham, Delco’s director of human resources who will share her company’s experience at a conference workshop.
“His attendance has been perfect, he’s got a great attitude and he wants to work,” Graham said of her company’s recent hire. “I think he’s pretty typical of what’s out there.”
Others have found that polishing that diamond in the rough takes considerable time and energy, a commitment many small-business owners can’t afford to make.
“We started with basics like grooming and went from there,” said Victoria Fullerton, chief executive of Managed Care Solutions, a Long Beach-based company that provides cost containment services for health plans. “I ended up with a great employee. But businesses need to know what they’re in for.”
But those devoted to teaching job-readiness skills say employers needn’t take on that burden alone. Greater Avenues for Independence, California’s principal welfare-to-work program, arms workers with myriad “soft” skills before they show up at an employer’s door.
In Los Angeles County, the program has placed 92,000 welfare recipients into jobs over the last three years. About 70% of those employees have stayed at those jobs at least a year, according to John Martinelli, director of the program for the L.A. County Department of Social Services. He’ll be pitching this work-ready pool of job seekers at next week’s conference.
“We don’t ask them to hire anyone they otherwise wouldn’t hire,” Martinelli said. “It doesn’t cost the employer a cent. All we ask is that they give us a try.”
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Opening Doors
What: Welfare to Work Conference
When: Wednesday, 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Where: Regal Biltmore Hotel, 506 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles
Cost: $200 for members, $250 for nonmembers
Registration: (202) 887-6307 or https://www.welfaretowork.org
Who Should Attend: Businesses interested in hiring former welfare recipients
