Which benefits do hourly workers care about most?

Daniel Blaser (00:00):

Thank you so much for joining me. I'm really so excited to chat with you today.

Sara Wasserteil (00:06):

It's so great to be here. Thanks for having me, Daniel.

Daniel Blaser (00:09):

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. To get things started, can you maybe just brief introduction and explain your role at Cara Collective?

Sara Wasserteil (00:19):

You bet. So Care Collective is a 30-year-old workforce development organization based in Chicago, but with a national presence. And what we specialize in is helping individuals who historically struggled to get into the workplace or advance in the workplace into quality jobs, often into frontline roles. So we work in industries such as healthcare, hospitality, manufacturing, food service, and professional services. And we help move people into about a thousand jobs a year at a one year, same firm retention rate, about 20 points higher than the national average. What I do at Cara is I have the distinct privilege of being able to learn from so many of the job seekers and employers that we work with to help companies think through how they can shift their practices to do a better job of accessing talent pools that they may have overlooked in the past and doing what they can to support them to make sure that they can grow and advance in their firms and help them contribute to the bottom line.

Daniel Blaser (01:16):

That's awesome. I first read about you a little bit because you were one of the contributors on a really interesting report that was released by McKinsey and Company, and it was something that immediately caught my attention because of what workstream does. And anyway, here we are chatting, but could you just maybe provide a quick overview of that report? I think you could do a little bit better than I could. A quick overview of the report and maybe the method behind it and maybe even your role with that as well.

Sara Wasserteil (01:52):

Yeah, absolutely. So after having moved folks into about 13,000 jobs, one thing that we were finding consistently was that frontline workers were struggling to find opportunities to advance when they were advancing or when they were trying to advance. So often career paths were so simple that they didn't know how to get there or so complex that they still didn't know how to get there. And even more what we were seeing is companies didn't always know what frontline employees cared about often because they just never had the opportunity to ask. So what we wanted to do was do a few different things. So number one, we wanted to better understand what frontline workers cared about when it came to advancement and upward mobility and how that might be different from what employers thought that they cared about. The second piece we wanted to look at was what the experience was and specifically when frontline workers were advancing what was happening or when frontline workers were bumping into barriers, why were they struggling to get ahead?

(02:53):

And then lastly, what we really wanted to make sure we could do is make this a very actionable report for employers who did want to do a better job of advancing frontline talent in their firms. So we wanted to walk away with very tactical recommendations that employers could adopt to better engage this talent pool. So from a mechanical perspective, we surveyed more than 2100 frontline employees around the country. We define frontline employees as hourly workers making below $22 an hour, and we did that across a range of industries, so healthcare, hospitality, manufacturing, retail, professional financial services, pretty much anywhere where you would see a large swath of frontline employees. The other thing we wanted to make sure that we did when we were surveying those employees was have a big enough sample so we could cut it in different ways such as gender, race, geography, but also look at populations that make up a significant portion of the workforce.

(03:55):

But there isn't a whole lot of data. So think about individuals who may not have achieved a four year degree or people who had been involved in the criminal justice system. We really wanted to understand themes from those populations because we know they're often underutilized and they represent a major opportunity for several industries. The last thing that we looked at is in addition to surveying the employee pool, we also wanted to survey employers. So we ended up surveying about 305 employers, which included representatives from human resources leadership, people like talent acquisition specialists and business partners, but also a lot of frontline managers who were really working closely with those frontline employees and had their own perception of their experience.

Daniel Blaser (04:39):

Awesome. Just to call out a couple of things that you said and the frontline workers as you define them, that obviously stuck out to me because a lot of those workers are the same employees that workstream is kind of built to serve. And then a lot of the people, the companies and the hiring managers and whatnot that you ended up also chatting with, those are a lot of the people that are coming to workstream and saying, we're trying to hire these workers, we're trying to retain them, and we're just having a lot of challenges. And so when I saw the focus of the report, it was just so spot on because that's literally exactly what we hear all the time. We know that we need to compete in this crazy job market right now. We think that we're doing it the right way, but maybe we're not.

(05:29):

And so I just loved the focus of the report, which is no, there is actually a disconnect. And here's where that disconnect lies between like you said, what the frontline workers actually want and value, and then what employers think that they want or what they're guessing or they're trying their best. But there is this disconnect. And so hopefully through our conversation today, and then as people also consume the report after this conversation, I really think they're going to have some aha moments and hopefully it'll be really enlightening for them. So to get things started to dive into the report a little bit more, one thing that I do hear from a lot of our customers and non-customers is this kind of ever increasing wage battle where it's just like you got to keep turning up the volume on wages in order to continue to attract these hourly employees. And I feel like the implication behind that is sort of that wages themselves, what that number is, is the single most important priority to attract hourly workers. Is that the complete story or is there something else going on there?

Sara Wasserteil (06:38):

Yeah, it's a great question, and I think when we were looking at advancement, one thing that was very loud and clear with frontline employees is, first of all, frontline employees want to stick and stay with the same employer versus wanting to jump to another employer. And so there's a lot of opportunity for companies beyond just pay to think about how they can retain and grow that talent. That being said, you can't ignore pay came up as the number two priority for frontline workers, and that makes sense. They're making on the lower age, lower end of the wage spectrum. And so if you are ignoring that, you are at risk of losing them. But it wasn't the only thing that came out and the other themes that came out in terms of top priorities, they ended up being really aligned. So the number one priority for frontline workers across ages, demographics, et cetera, was the opportunity for job growth.

(07:31):

This showed up as early as people want to see it as early as the job description. In fact, 73% of frontline employees said, Hey, we want to see this as early as the job description, not just saying advancement opportunities are available, but really spelling out what they are yet only 20% saw them when a job was advertised. Beyond that, what frontline employees really cared about when they were thinking about their next role were things like skills alignment, so doing things that they know how to do and doing versus just being put into a role learning opportunity. So again, really tying into that growth theme and then having a supportive manager. So having someone who is going to support them in not just helping them stay in the firm but grow in the firm. And those came out loud and clear. And I think where there's a real opportunity for employers with those is that yes, of course we cannot forget, we cannot forget pay, but if you think about things like opportunities for growth, learning opportunities, skills alignment, and a supportive manager, they're all really clustered around a single theme that employers can really invest in as they think about how they advance their talent.

Daniel Blaser (08:41):

Yeah, obviously workstream, we do a lot in job listings, getting job listings out there, making sure they're seen, but I totally agree with you. Sometimes those listings themselves feel very, like you said, it's like opportunities for advancement and it's like, well, if everyone says that and some of them mean it and some don't, obviously just including that bullet point, it's not actually going to change much. It's not going to really resonate with potential applicants. So I love that you called out that stage in particular as being so important to signal those opportunities. And obviously just in general, the other thing that I really liked is having giving employees the feeling like there's some sort of customization to their progression. I don't know exactly how you position or how you worded it, but kind of feeling like your strengths and your interests, they're seen and then they're able to be part of that progression in your role because everyone does have strengths and interests that they would like to make the most of them, but maybe they've just never had the opportunity before. So I really like those couple things that you called out as employers. You kind of talked about this is all sort of the one package deal and they all kind of tells the same story, but there's different components to it.

(10:19):

If you're an employer and you're trying to figure out, okay, what do I prioritize, where do I start? Could you maybe just provide an example? I saw there was some interesting examples in the report itself of here are a combination of things that you could offer that are going to be more important or catch someone's attention a little bit more than this combination. So can you kind of talk about that when you think of that package, what it could actually look like?

Sara Wasserteil (10:48):

Yeah, it's a great question. So I think there's three things that employers can do immediately. So the first thing and the good news is I think a lot of employers are actually spending a lot of time thinking about this and putting things together. It just so happens that oftentimes frontline employees don't know that those things are in place. So for example, say you're in a human resources department or you are an employer of frontline employees. When we talk to those companies so often they said, we have advancement opportunities. We put it in the jd, they hear about it in the interview, they hear about it from their manager, and they give all of the various places where frontline employees find out about advancement opportunities. And yet, as you ask frontline employees when they found out about it, it is dramatically different. It is more often, oh, I heard about it from a colleague, or I heard about it if I ask.

(11:41):

So the first thing you can do is just when you are doing that great stuff, shout it from the rooftops and do it repeatedly, which means you don't even necessarily in some cases need to add. It's more just if people are aware of the benefits that you're already providing and the opportunities you're providing. So that's number one. I think the second piece that you can invest in is, this might sound obvious, but ask, I think so often one thing that we find is even when employers provide wonderful benefits such as training opportunities, we see a relatively low uptake. And sometimes again, it might be an awareness issue that employers are providing it and employees are not aware of it, but more often than not, it might just be because it doesn't resonate. Is it aligned with their skillset? Is it within the hours that they can do training?

(12:32):

Is it paid? So understanding what are the benefits that people value? And then aligning with that is a second piece. And then the third piece, and I can't emphasize this enough, and this was really one of the big things that came out of the report is one thing I think employers do get right when they're talking about advancement is the importance of a supportive manager. And that also shows up for frontline employees. But what we end up seeing is even though employers talk about it a lot, we don't always see the investment in training up or making sure those frontline managers know how to support those team members, especially those who've bumped into barriers. I think one of the things that was the most telling in our findings was that when people did advance, there were three things that were in common. So number one, they knew what advancement opportunities were available to them and they knew how to get there.

(13:27):

So that's that awareness piece. The second piece was that they had several manager led conversations every year, and I emphasize manager led because it didn't mean that the frontline employee was being proactive, but rather that that manager was investing in them to help them think through how they could achieve their advancement goals. And then lastly, in a similar vein, those were people who had managers who gave them positive feedback. So often we hear from frontline employees if we ask them, how often do you check in with your manager? It's never, or if the answer is yes, it, it's only when they've done something wrong. So you really see that investment. So those would be the three things is awareness, make sure you're providing things that people value and are aware of. And then third is really investing in those managers, not just through training, but helping them have those more meaningful conversations that show that they're investing in their employees.

Daniel Blaser (14:21):

Those all make a ton of sense, and I can see where there would be especially a big challenge right now with training the managers, because a lot of managers were not a manager just a few months ago. The market is such that there's been a lot of turnaround and a lot of movement. So I definitely agree that I've spoken with customers that really prioritize the training up of managers, and I think that they see the return on that investment. It does make a big difference, like you said, in retention and overall job satisfaction as well. So we've kind of talked about what matters to these frontline workers. Maybe let's shift over to one of the next points that you mentioned, which is what employers think that frontline employees want. Because as we kind of teased a lot of well-meaning employers that are trying their best, but maybe there is this disconnect. So what would you say is the biggest misconception that employers have about what they think their employees value?

Sara Wasserteil (15:32):

Yeah, great question. So this showed up in a couple of different places. So number one, employers tend to overvalue titles and recognition. The only place where titles tended to rank a little bit higher, but still not in the top five was for frontline employees 18 to 24. But for the remainder frontline employees, getting that title bump just really didn't make as much of a difference as, Hey, I can make a dollar more or I know I can grow in this organization and see a brighter opportunity ahead. So I think that was number one. I think number two, again, it came down more to what employers say that they value versus what they're actually doing. So many of them did say, oh, we value pay, and then you look at it and they're paying minimum wage or they say, we really believe in frontline managers or supportive managers, but you see them invest in managers at higher levels, not necessarily in that frontline employee population because to your point, Daniel, oftentimes people have been moved into that position maybe somewhat rapidly.

(16:38):

They didn't assess for those people management skills. I think the last piece that employers tend to undervalue is, and I misquoted this before, was just that pay piece. So they do tend to undervalue pay. When you're looking at people who are making less than $22 an hour, it does tend to be make or break. And so even adding that 50 cents, adding that dollar again in addition to those job growth opportunities can really be the difference between being able to keep frontline employees versus that burn and churn that we so often seeing when there is that lack of investment

Daniel Blaser (17:20):

And kind of having that $22 threshold. I thought that that was really interesting because I am sure there's some variation according to locality or whatever, but to kind of think about, okay, once you get past this, maybe some of the priorities change a little bit, but up until that point, it really is a very important part of the overall picture. What about, one thing that I kind of hear a lot about is flexible schedules and that that's really important. Do those matter as much as employers think they do or where do those net out?

Sara Wasserteil (18:02):

Yeah, it's a great question and that's where I'd say the devil's in the details. So when you start going up to different income levels, flexibility becomes a much more important priority for workers, especially as you start getting into more mid-level managers and above. I think when you get to the frontline employee level, again, just because they're looking for growth because they're looking for more income opportunities, we really don't see flexibility. It wasn't even in the top 10 out of 20 different factors that we assessed against. The only thing I'll say with flexibility is we did see it go marginally pre and post covid, but again, it really paled in comparison to saying, Hey, I just want to know that I can use my skills, build new skills and get ahead. You'll hear a theme as I'm talking.

Daniel Blaser (18:51):

Yeah, I think one thing that was interesting, I was having a conversation with one of our customers who owns an auto dealership, and he just mentioned that sometimes he learned that sometimes talking about flexible schedules actually tells some of his employees that it's inconsistent hours. I was like, that's an interesting double-edged sword. I guess you think that you're offering flexibility, but that might, if you're not doing it the right way, that might signal like, oh, well maybe you can't depend on X number of hours a week, which is obviously nobody really wants to be in that situation either. So anyway, that was one part that I thought that was an interesting thing to think about.

(19:36):

We've kind of talked about what employees value and what they most care about, and then we've talked about some of the disconnects. So I figure maybe the last thing we should talk about is how we can better align the employees and the employers. So we've talked about advancement being one of the most important things in these opportunities and signaling the possibility of advancement as early as the job description. How can employers, other than the job description, how are some other ways that employers can really make sure they're not just saying this matters to us, but they're actually kind of putting their money where their mouth is, I guess?

Sara Wasserteil (20:23):

Yeah, it's a great question. So we think about five different buckets where employers are able to invest to really see strong dividends in this area. So the first is one you already mentioned, Daniel, around communicating clearly and frequently. So we already talked about the job description, where you should be shouting from the rooftops, here are the types of positions you could ascend into. Here's the type of professional development or training we provide. And I harp on that one so much because when we've worked with companies who have made that shift, they've seen an increase in yield in their qualified job applicants by up to 30% because they're seeing people who maybe had other job opportunities on this table say, Hey, I'm going to apply here because this seems like it's worth my time because there is future growth here. So it starts with that job description, but it doesn't end there as people think about things like onboarding when they're learning how to do their job, when they think about some of those first conversations with their managers as well as the conversations three months out, six months out, nine months out, it should be a constant theme of what they're hearing about and they should be able to get exposure to people who may have been in the role before, who might have similar backgrounds, who have been able to move up so they can see that it's possible.

(21:40):

So this goes around that awareness gap of here's creating the opportunity for people to believe and have there be credibility that advancement is possible internally. So that's number one. The second piece is just providing opportunities that leverages and grows employee skills. And so there's a lot of ways to do that. So at the end of the day, you're going to be hiring someone to fulfill certain duties, fulfill certain requirements, but we also encourage companies to look at where can you leverage different rotations or shadowing opportunities where people might have skills that they either have or want to develop. The other thing that we see is MIT came out with research in the last year that lateral moves increase retention by 250%. So we're not even talking about necessarily a pay increase or a level increase. It is really just aligning people with the skills that they already have that they want to use that's going to increase your retention.

(22:37):

So again, continuing to provide those opportunities to align people into jobs where they can use their skills or help them build those skills. Third is equipping those managers to support and grow those employees. I know for me, and for many people I know people management was a very steep learning curve and it still is some days, and so not just investing in one-off trainings, but number one, really assessing frontline managers for having those skills. And then two, if you can't do that, making sure they have the support early on. And then as you move up the ladder, thinking through how is that modeled? Are their managers asking them how their team is, or are they just focusing on really production related KPIs? Does it show up in their performance reviews? At the end of the day, I think most people want to support their teammates, but they're going to do what they're incentivized to do.

(23:31):

So the more that they can be trained on how they can have better conversations and have those behaviors reinforced, the more successful they'll be. Fourth is prioritizing what frontline employees care about. So I mentioned earlier that younger workers do actually prioritize higher titles more than other populations. We know that parents also prioritize transportation subsidies and supplements and whatnot. So literally asking your frontline employees what they care about when it comes to advancement, most people, if you ask them, they'll tell you. And so really understanding what people care about and then aligning those incentives, especially as you think about how that might differ based on your frontline employee population. And then the last piece, number five, is investing in motivated talent pools who've demonstrated eagerness to advance and grow. I think one of the most important findings in this report is among all demographics, people who had been impacted by the criminal justice system, just as one example, not only did they apply to advancement opportunities more frequently, and not only did they invest in upskilling outside of the workplace, 14 points higher than other groups, they were successful in advancing in their roles across other genders, other races and other ages.

(24:52):

And yet we know that 79 million people in the United States who are adults and working age, they do have criminal backgrounds. So we see things like this. So people, whether it be justice involved or the 70 million adults who have not achieved a four year degree, we saw through this report that they're very motivated to get ahead if given the chance, and if you can assess them more based on skills versus some of those proxies that might prevent them from even getting in the door.

Daniel Blaser (25:21):

Yeah, well, a lot of fantastic recommendations and things that you just pointed out. I feel like I'm already like, oh, that could be like a 20 page ebook of recommendations. I think of everything you just mentioned. I just want to drill down if that's okay too. You mentioned one segment being those who have been involved with the criminal justice system at some point in the past, and that is maybe an untapped opportunity for a lot of companies to find really motivated driven employees, like you said. What have you seen employees do to really make the most of that opportunity and to reach those individuals and provide them that chance to really prove themselves?

Sara Wasserteil (26:08):

Absolutely. So I'm going to start with a question you didn't ask, but it's really around the biggest barriers to hiring people who've been justice impacted. And so many companies we talked to say, oh, we can't do that, and they can't do it for a lot of really good reasons. They have client requirements that don't allow them to. They are highly regulated industries. So there's a lot of really valid reasons why companies have historically not been able to tap into this talent pool. And so when we think about where there's possibilities, I would say there's different tiers. And so I'll start with some of the easiest things that you can do. So if you do a background policy, what we recommend is communicating very clearly what that is. So often what we find is people who have been justice impacted, if they just see you're going to run a background check, they'll automatically preclude themselves from applying just because they've had doors slammed on them so many times.

(27:02):

So the more that you can be explicit about here are the felonies that we look for, or here is how far we look back, you don't even necessarily have to change your policy and you'll already open the door to people who may have thought that they would not have an opportunity at your firm, but do. So that's number one. The second thing we look at is things like look back, period, so many background checks look back as far as 20 years or so, I know that I would not want to be held responsible for something I did 20 years ago. And so we always encourage folks when they can not to look back more than five or seven years. So take a look at what that look lookback policy is and then assess accordingly. And then lastly, just thinking about where you source that talent.

(27:45):

So number one, even if you do those first two things, you are going to find people who are coming through the typical channels you already use through LinkedIn, through Indeed, through other job boards who might not have applied otherwise. But we also recommend you working with community-based organizations or other nonprofits in your community because so often they're working with these populations, they're help making sure that they have the professional competencies and capabilities, and they're also making sure they have some more of that holistic support around their stability so that they almost have a friend or a coach that they can lean on as they work on the job

Daniel Blaser (28:21):

Some more. Great recommendations. Definitely, I love those. They're all very practical and things that I think a lot of businesses could start implementing soon. Now, you've given so many good recommendations, and I'm sure everyone watching this is already has some takeaways in mind, but keeping in mind that a lot of people watching this are HR directors and HR managers and those in ops that are over hiring, if you could recommend that this group change maybe just one thing over everything else, they change one thing about hiring and retention practices, what would you recommend?

Sara Wasserteil (29:05):

Absolutely. So if we think about how you retain talent, you can't not think about of the front of the talent pipeline, which I know our friends in HR have so much involvement with. So what I would say is when you are providing wonderful opportunities to advance for frontline workers to grow their career, and you have a wonderful culture, shout it from the rooftops. We've talked about jds, create videos that showcase the environment so people look at it and say, Ooh, I want to work there. And then really make sure those advancement opportunities are communicated in all of the areas where you have a sphere of influence that jd, that phone screen when they start getting into the interviews, remind those hiring managers as soon as they have the interview, remember to talk about X, Y, and Z, because that can be the difference between someone who looks at a job and maybe doesn't show up for an interview because they're like, this is probably just another one of those throwaway jobs and something where they say, Hey, this company really demonstrates that they want to invest in me because they just keep talking about all these opportunities to grow and that doesn't cost any money.

Daniel Blaser (30:12):

Yeah, absolutely. You're already doing the hard part, and I think obviously I'm in marketing, so it's different for me, but it's actually one thing that I've noticed in my career is in marketing, a lot of times you think that you've already put a message out there or you've talked about a product or whatever your objective is, you think you've already done it, and most of the time you actually haven't done that enough to get anyone's attention. You think that you might be talking about something too often, like you're saying, you might be talking about these advancement opportunities or training programs, whatever they are, and you're like, oh man, we're really talking about this a lot. But in reality that's just what is required to actually get people's attention and stick out in people's minds. So I think that's such a phenomenal recommendation. I think we're coming up to time, but thinking back to everything that we've talked about, like I said, I feel like there's just so much more we could probably go on for another hour, but I just kind of wanted to give you the chance to maybe leave one final takeaway. You've already given some excellent recommendations, but maybe one final takeaway and then if you have any recommendations for further reading or anything else that you think the audience would appreciate following up today's conversation.

Sara Wasserteil (31:40):

Absolutely. So I think one thing I think a lot about is so often in the industries where we see a high population of frontline workers is that frontline workers are often just seen as burn insurance. So people are going to come in, they're not going to stay very long, and so employers treat 'em as such. They see turnover as a cost of doing business, and it makes me wonder that if we know that frontline employees very much want to stay in their own companies at an overwhelming rate, and if we know that what they care most about is the opportunity to grow, we began to think of them as this is the future pipeline for our next positions and our next positions after that. We know frontline employees care a lot about advancement is how does that shift the whole talent life cycle for them from who you recruit, how they're onboarded, who are they communicated to, how they're supported, and how they're offered different opportunities to grow. I guarantee that if companies are able to look at frontline workers through that lens as a really motivated talent pool and share those opportunities and get their feedback and understand what they care about, they will see a reduction in turnover and we'll see some happier teammates as well.

Daniel Blaser (32:55):

That's awesome. Well, I thank you so much for sharing your time with us. On behalf of everyone watching this, I just think this has been great. So thank you, Sara.

Sara Wasserteil (33:07):

Thank you so much, Daniel.