Empowering the Workforce through Skills-Based Hiring and Community Building with Michelle Sims
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Speaker 1: Welcome to The Future of Teamwork podcast. My name's Dane Groeneveld, CEO of HUDDL3 Group. And today I'm joined by Michelle Sims. Michelle's the CEO of YUPRO Placement. And we were just having a great conversation about skills- based hiring and public benefit corporations, and a whole bunch of cool stuff that I think our listeners need to know more about. So welcome to the show, Michelle.
Speaker 2: Thanks, Dane. Happy to be here.
Speaker 1: So maybe for the benefit of our listeners you could provide a little bit of a story on you. Who are you and how did you come to be doing this great work with YUPRO?
Speaker 2: Oh, well, happy to. Thank you for being a great host. So I started with YUPRO Placement about 12 days before the pandemic hit, so we can get into that fun story. And I use fun lightly. But prior to, I've been leading HR teams in various industries and also the staffing industry. I started early in my career, my first job as a YMCA day camp counselor. And so I think my love and passion for mission- driven work has stayed with me through my career and graduated college and started selling afterschool Latchkey kid programs in marginalized school districts, of which I was one of those kids early in the day in grade school. And have just found a passion and love for finding dignity in all works for all people. And that's what led me to staffing and came across this organization, certainly networking leads us to places and was on the board of directors for this organization prior to the role. And we found a need to grow out of being a startup and that led us to the CEO search and led the board to say, " Why don't you just do it?" So I put myself in the running and interviewed for the role, and here I am.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. And when you put yourself in for the running, you didn't know COVID was going to land. So that's an interesting way to start that job, 12 days before the shutdowns and disruption really started to strike.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what a time and what an interesting change. I was in the hospitality staffing space and as you know, 12 days after this job every hotel shut down. And so I could have had a really different journey had I not taken this role, but certainly incredible empathy for the organization I left. But then saw this as a crisis opportunity to ensure that all of our talent didn't lose their job. That was truly our mission the moment this happened. And thank goodness we were already a fully virtual organization. And so that shift that so many people had to make, that's not a box I had to check. But I had to check so many others being a brand new leader to an organization that was like, oh my gosh, what is going to happen? So yeah, it was a stressful time.
Speaker 1: Oh, I bet. And we'll dig into some of those successes that you had in working in the early days of that role. But just to take one step back, Latchkey, that's a term growing up in Australia I'm not familiar with. So that might be a cultural thing, but could you explain that to me, to the listeners?
Speaker 2: Gosh, that is a term that was out of the late'70s and most of the'80s where the idea of the housewife started to diminish and it was a term that came about with two income families. And so a time where kids would come home after school with no parental supervision you would wear your key around your neck on a string so that you didn't lose it, because you're at grade school you're going to lose your house key. And so we wore it around our string and it was kind of labeled this latchkey kit phenomenon of dual income households that really became prominent in several decades ago. And so we don't use typically that term. It still exists, kids come home today without parents home, but the ecosystem has certainly improved in many ways with programs that I sold many years ago.
Speaker 1: Neat. No, that's really helpful. And it's interesting when you think about the experience of our youth and how we're positioning our youth to bridge into careers. I was doing some work with one of the school districts down in New Orleans a couple of years ago, and they were talking about the mission of the school district is to move from employable graduating students to employed graduating students. So they were starting to do a lot of work from grassroots community activities, getting in and helping families, even providing access to internet at home for some families that didn't have that access so that the education, the learning, the opportunity could be made available. And they were doing a lot of work with trade schools and starting to think about building a trade school campus, like a post- secondary campus for some of their constituents to carry forward into. So it all ties in, doesn't it?
Speaker 2: It truly does. And starting at that foundation, if we can get the public school system to support that at a very early age and that digital divide is real. We've done some work on that in Washington state with some of the Indian reservations and our BIPOC community in Washington where it's really severe in Washington state. And so, great to hear that you've done that work also in New Orleans. And I know that there's collaboration among the ecosystem with workforce development. And a lot of boot camps now provide free opportunities for learning for grade school and high school after school, so that we keep our kids busy and working and involved in something and off of their phones and helping them with social interaction that we're even seeing in early career talent now that... Okay, talking about some of the skills gaps, we've got new skills gaps today that are larger than they were several years ago because of the pandemic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course.
Speaker 2: It's really interesting.
Speaker 1: So maybe we could jump into that. So as I understand it, Michelle, you're doing a lot of work with early career talent coming out of some of these trade schools or other vocational learning environments and bridging them into the workforce with some peripheral support to meet some of those gaps. What are the services, the gaps that you are really seeing as a focus right now as you're preparing these people to go and join teams in the workplace?
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, great question. So to ground a little bit where we are building our talent community and support for a talent community, our talent come from nonprofits workforce development organizations that are preparing early career talent. And typically talent that are underrepresented they're non bachelor's degree talent that are seeking skills through alternative pathways for lots of reasons, financial, life, there's the lack of social capital that many of our underrepresented talent and marginalized communities experience. And our nonprofit partners are mission aligned and focused on ensuring that we're building employable skills, so that we can really focus on economic and career mobility for all talent. And at YUPRO Placement, we are building awareness for skills first placement so that we can expand talent acquisition strategies for them to access untapped talent. And we are curating that talent community in one place. And while we're doing that, we are supporting building skills, we are providing talent resources through social networks, building social capital with them and for them, providing wraparound supports, social services. And the other piece that's so important is we've been able to secure partnerships with organizations such as IBM Skills Build, Cisco Academy for All, Grow with Google, because we're a public benefit corporation, which we can talk about and we are a wholly owned sub. We are owned by the largest training provider program nonprofit Year Up. And so all of the talent that go through this amazing program at Year Up along with so many other training provider and boot camps across the country, we act as the extension of that program for additional career readiness, additional upskilling. And at the end of the day job placement in roles that will build to family sustaining wages and truly change the community and the economic process in a community when talent have access to careers that they otherwise may not have had access to.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, that's actually a much broader talent community and host of pathways that you're opening up. I think I was thinking more... I'd seen on one of your articles around cosmetology and some of the more hands- on skills, but you are talking a very wide array of workforce development initiatives and career pathways.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. And certainly we're seeing boot camps for IT. We focus on all spectrum of IT roles, customer service which certainly have transferable skills from so many different jobs and life experience, digital marketing, entry to HR. So roles that again, move the needle on that economic mobility so that we're changing and affecting a positive cycle and trades 100%. We need them to support them, but we're also trying to move the needle in some of those professional roles that talents don't have access to or haven't had access to because of what we call the invisible barrier of the four- year degree.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I heard you call it on one podcast I listened to, the paper ceiling, which I thought was brilliant.
Speaker 2: Well, and we partner with Opportunity at Work, you really want to have great folks over there. And they started the Tear the Paper Ceiling Coalition and other employers and all of us that in this ecosystem want to remove that invisible barrier, certainly for roles that are entry level, mid- career, early career, non- specialized, where we can really map transferrable skills because that four- year degree is an assumption of skills. It's not proof. And a lot of times I'll get big eyes when we share the statistic, when only 34% of our working population over the age of 25 have four- year degrees, you are omitting this huge percentage of the population for entry level and mid- career degree for opportunities if you still have this degree inflation. And that's tearing the paper ceiling.
Speaker 1: It really is. And it's not just the degrees. We're seeing it in all elements of... And I think industry for some time has done this, they've been very protective. They've brought people in, they've restricted opportunities for who's near to them. And that means that if you are coming from a non- traditional demographic or community or location, you don't have that network even if it's not a degree requirement. So I think opening up access to networks, awareness of what could be out there, maybe building some muscle memory, accessing some skills along the way before you go fully fledged into a career pathway. I think that's really powerful in and of itself.
Speaker 2: Right. No, I completely agree. And we have built what we consider for corporations like a low risk, high touch transition to skills first consideration of some entry level jobs. And so we package it as such to say we are matching talent to your early career roles. And during a six- month period of time, we are going to have coaching sessions and they are required to come to professional development and then we assign them a certification pathway during that six month time period. So you're giving your talent on the job experience and we are packaging it as an informal apprenticeship per se. We certainly have DOL registered apprenticeship programs. And then there's this whole other solution of, we can call it an informal apprenticeship because the difference between an internship and apprenticeship is that market wage. That you're committing to pay folks a market wage while they are in the job, but we are an added support with the certifications I mentioned. So they're getting hard skills, they're getting soft skills. And what is so great is with that six month wraparound support and certification program, we have a 95% completion rate and moving into that full- time or they continue on a contract role with our clients until that full time is available. And so it's really unique. So we're a staffing organization providing a unique solution with only supporting the nonprofit and mission aligned partners that we're saying we put to work. So we don't post our jobs out of the world. You're not going to see our jobs on Indeed. You're not going to see them on Monster. We only put our jobs to our nonprofit and partnership community, and that's where our uniqueness comes in to help solve an untapped talent community for organizations that either want to adopt skills first or are struggling to fill their jobs. So it's good work. We say job placement with social impact is just better business.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like it. And I like the fact that you've got these anchors in the communities through these not- for- profit organizations because like you said earlier, it drives economic development in the community. It drives vibrancy in the community because you're bringing these people who live near each other, who have gone through some nature of learning development opportunity together. And now they get to work together as well, which is pretty cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is. It's very cool. And I mentioned we're a PBC, a Public Benefit corporation and-
Speaker 1: Yeah. Tell me more about that.
Speaker 2: Well, what's so great about being a PBC, we're for profit. We don't pretend that we're not. But the difference is we're incorporated in Delaware and they're one of very few states that have a PBC association. And you are required to have a mission that is driving your profit and you must have a social aspect to your strategy. And so certainly our social aspect is driving equitable job opportunities throughout the country. But where we also give back from a mission standpoint is for all of the nonprofit organizations that we partner with, as their talent become part of our talent community and we place them in jobs that employers pay us for, part of that fee we give a proceed back for every single placement. So we don't keep all the money, we give it back.
Speaker 1: That's neat. That's really neat.
Speaker 2: Pay for ourselves, which we do and then we give our proceeds back. And so last year we celebrated our largest return for all of our placements and it was close to$400, 000.
Speaker 1: Fantastic. That's what I'm hoping we start to see more wholesale if... A lot of the work I've traditionally done has been in large heavy industry. And what we're seeing as the world changes with technology with lower carbon shift is that some of those large plants that have traditionally provided a lot of jobs and economic vibrancy are going to either be decommissioned or reduce their labor as technology improves. And so I'm sensing that large corporations need to be teaming up a lot more with organizations like yours with other learning and development pathways in the community to say, " We've got all of this talent, we've got this balance sheet. We need to start proactively building the businesses to career paths that are going to sustain this community in 10 years once we're no longer here." And I'm not seeing it yet, not intentionally or not widely spoken of, but it has to be a part of the shift. And when you look at generative AI, I think some of those new career pathways are becoming far more open and accessible as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you're touching on ESG and all the components of that. And certainly I think talent has... Employees are the engine of our organizations, and so not having that as a piece of it. And how you are curating talent and treating talent are part of that ecosystem but you also mentioned making the connections. So we consider ourselves that connector in the ecosystem. We're connecting workforce development. We're connecting training programs in the communities and connecting the employer, and pulling all of that together for a workforce solution for organizations to be able to accomplish some of the things you just mentioned.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's neat. And when you talk about skills- based hiring, I like the way you've described it as far as being able to bring existing talent communities into the workplace for these entry level roles with the wrap. But if you roll forward and think about replacing the inaudible and creating a more digital approach to assess what talent exists in the community and what roles may be created for them in an organization, are you seeing technology play a role in that or is your certification through your apprenticeships a big part of that? How do teams need to be thinking about skills- based hiring in the medium term? Where's that going to take them?
Speaker 2: Ooh, super good question. Very infancy stages of a couple of organizations they are doing it well. So you have a of couple large entities doing it well, and then it drops off to figuring out how to adopt it. So it's the middle that we need to bridge. And so I would say organizations such as Accenture, IBM, Merck and three of our clients they are out in the world touting that they are figuring out and hiring talent, removing four- year degrees and hiring talent based on skills. But they've also done the work that requires technology to determine the matching of skills from other experiences, other jobs. And what we say is the term stars is coined by Opportunity at Work as well, called talent that are skilled through alternative routes. They're stars. And there's AI organizations scrambling to do that matching through technology because today we do it through human touch, through human reviewing of information and skills. And it still has an incredible amount of bias in it because we're human. I think that we're seeing AI come up to remove bias. Once we figure out the skill matching, how do you determine talent can do the job without the bias piece? And I don't know that we've completely figured that out. We use skills assessments. We certainly do in- person interviews. We do video interviews and we help our talent with interview prep and we put skills- based resumes in front of clients that the skills are on the top, and here are all the skills this individual has and this is why. And then we back it up with skills assessments. So have we figured out how to remove all bias? No, but I think that AI will help us do that. It's just not quite doing it yet because folks are afraid to remove the human component. And if you have a name on a resume and we're biased to a name or we see any type of demographic or racial information on anything, we're human. So how do we take AI in tech and use it to our advantage? Because unfortunately we're seeing it's actually to a disadvantage right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes absolute sense. And I've seen it also in the military world. You see a lot of people come out of the military with skills that have certain terminologies that are different to the civilian world. All of a sudden they've been doing a job in the military for five years, 10 years, 20 years, and they come out into civilian world and they're like, well, your certification and resume don't say that you can do this. And you create this huge imperfection and you're failing to match very capable talent.
Speaker 2: Right. And we do have some veterans in our talent community, that there are some really amazing nonprofits that do just that. Help with the narratives on resumes and help vets with their narrative on how they present themselves to corporations and are much needed.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Earlier in my recruiting career, we used to do a lot of call center staffing and we used to run real assessment centers in those days. Do you see assessment centers like short format assessment centers like we used to do for call centers coming back in a wider range of career pathways just to create that opportunity to see people interacting with others doing real work? Is that something that's emerging possible?
Speaker 2: Yes, and I think there will be a new iteration of it, especially the format of the office and what we consider being in office or how we consider doing business has changed. So even the traditional call center, I've also done call center back in the day, huge call centers, but that's also a job that you could truly teach somebody to do really well and they don't need a degree. They do have to have the skills and being able to... Sometimes it's high pressure, call center, ooh, God bless all of them. But I think that how we do work differently and what's expected out of a call center is different. And so how we figure that out with tech will be interesting. We don't fill a lot of call center jobs today in what we do but it's definitely needed and Accenture has figured it out, definitely figured it out.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And when it comes to teams and project- based learning, project- based work, particularly through your partner network, are you seeing any really innovative ways that organizations are bringing people together to work in actually delivering a product or a piece of work that builds on some more of those social skills above and beyond the task- based skills?
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, that's a really good question. From what we are seeing... And I can give you what our clients are asking for. So from a project- based work perspective they're asking for assessments, for skills that you in the past were using an in- person interview to determine, if that makes sense. So interacting in- person is very different than you and I right now are interacting on a camera. And so why folks are so scared about these skills- based is because they can't see the person in action. And so much project- based work right now is done either hybrid or online. So how do you assess somebody's skills and how do you manage them and how do you support them in the manner we're doing this podcast today is really, really difficult. And so what they're asking us for is how are you assessing skills and how are you doing that if I'm going to manage them on camera? And they're early career, they may not have had as much work experience. They haven't gone into that college environment. And I think folks think that that college environment inherently gives you all of these skills that you can get in other places. And so we've determined to take some skills assessments on collaboration and communication and even some basic Microsoft Office skills. So I would say we are being asked how we are assessing to do work differently for early career talent so that they can get project work done, so that they can trust folks to do their job. And you don't have to micromanage them because we can't micromanage, I don't know how. I can't micromanage. And I think micromanage in today's world is looking at your Zoom or looking at everybody's calendars and looking and seeing who's on camera or not. We have ways to be able to do that. But if you're spending your time all day monitoring who's on camera and who's not and who's doing their job and policing their camera, you're not doing your own job. And so how do we determine if folks have the skills to do their work in the environment we do work today? It's not perfect, and all we can do is still follow along with here are the skills assessments we do, here are the interview questions we've done, here's the experience that they've had. And that's why we offer an insulated contract support assignment that is like a project for six months, so that we bridge what you say the gap to be able to do that in the future.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's neat. And in that sort of bridge, that wrap that you do in those first six months, are those people coming back in through a digital environment as a common group or is it more like one to one's check- ins? How do you see best practices emerging for supporting these individuals that have taken on that entry level role in those skills and in that support that's required because it's kind of big? Taking on a new job for anyone even if they're experienced is stressful, but a first job, super stressful.
Speaker 2: Super stressful. So we believe that it's both. So we've created across all of the organizations that we support, all of the talent that are on assignment for our organization come to what we call on Wednesdays, Professional Development Hour. It's required. They come on Wednesdays to meet our program team at 3: 00 PM and we create community. We have found that creating community is the key to building early career talent, putting social capital and confidence, and they help each other. And we talk about what's going on in the workplace and we talk about how to give feedback, how to take feedback, how to manage up, how to manage across. And it is incredible to see because I drop in and I do the guest speaking on feedback, and it's so fun. It's the best part of my day. And you're seeing folks from all over the country across different industries and different clients, but they all come together and they're all in the same situation. And they end up connecting with each other and supporting each other and mentoring each other. And so we create community. So we found that and we do one- on- one coaching sessions and then we do on a monthly basis coaching feedback sessions with the hiring manager, with the manager that is our client. So again, kind of pulling together the ecosystem of the assignment in different forms and fashions. But I can tell you that once we put this community call together across the organization, it was a game changer in engagement, retention, problem solving and just again, creating and extending your network and social capital that a lot of early career talent haven't had, exposures you how to do. And we're supporting that and giving them a safe place to learn to do that. And it can be truly career changing because that is what has held them in a role, to give them the support they need and to gain the opportunity for a full- time job. With a Fortune 500 company then would've not known how to apply for or gain exposure to that. We're supporting them in getting that, they're doing the work. They're doing the work.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think that shouts out a really important point, which is that the reason that a lot of people fail is not because they can't do the work, it's because they're not provided the psychological safety to go and talk to a boss or a colleague. It's because they're not provided clarity on what their role is. So I think from what you are describing this community environment, the one to one and particularly the strength of having a meeting with a manager once a month, I've seen so many examples. Unfortunately, I've been a part of a couple and responsible for a couple where you just let that feedback go for three or four months and everyone's trust and confidence is so created by then that you can't turn it around.
Speaker 2: Right. Well, and the weekly touch points help, so that our account manager that is supporting our talent builds that agenda for that monthly call with the hiring manager. And then coaches and supports the talent in having that conversation. And so many skills are being built in that. And it's a really great safe environment to build skills, and also get that hard on the job access to the job itself and all of the professional and soft skills that go with it.
Speaker 1: How many years, Michelle, of YUPRO Placement doing this work? The early cohorts that went through these programs, are they two years, three years, five years out? How long has it been running?
Speaker 2: So Year Up, our parent company has been around for 20 years. We opened our doors though in 2014, so nine years. But I will tell you the first five and a half were very different, very startup trying to figure out where we fit in the world of that continuation of support for workforce development organizations. And truly the pandemic gave us the opportunity and opened the door for us to create this so that... We created this out of ensuring that our talent stayed in jobs. So when the pandemic hit and everybody panicked and we thought there were going to be layoffs and this and that, we were like, holy cow, this is early career talent. They don't have a lot of job experience. They just started in a role. How do we build something that we can go to corporations and say at this moment in time, it would be tragic if our talent didn't have their market wage at a time and a moment that we can't predict and that we could really go backwards from a social impact standpoint. You know that we had those conversations in April of 2020, by December we had only lost five on assignment.
Speaker 1: Wow, which is big because those customers didn't... And you are mainly Fortune 500, so those customers weren't relying on government programs to maintain payroll. They were just committed to the course.
Speaker 2: Nothing. They weren't committed. We were like we will build an additional support, all of these things and all of them were like, no, we get it. We don't know what's going to happen but we get it. And I commend these organizations for them following true with their commitment for this program. And there was, like I said, a handful that just said, " We don't have the capacity." They couldn't figure out how to go virtual or they didn't have the funds. We know there's a list of things, but I will say 97% of our talent stayed on assignment through the pandemic and they're still partners with us to this day. And most of those talents were provided with full- time jobs come mid 2021. And through the pandemic we actually grew our organization 300%.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's big.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was very fast, very nuts and all in a good way. And we just took the opportunity to showcase what our talent can do and built up these systems in a virtual environment. In some cases, we've provided the laptops and very high touch support wraparound services at a time that it was so needed. And really grateful for the impact we've been able to make.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's fantastic. And I would imagine that a lot of people can emulate some of these practices. Larger organizations probably have the resource to be building some of these six month programs for their early entry hires. But are there examples where you've got smaller customers that are in there starting to engage with you to bring people on just because of the power of your support, your community?
Speaker 2: We do. We definitely work with all shapes and sizes and many industries. I will say to your point, the larger organizations are bringing in cohorts of early career talent anywhere from three to 10 and more, but that's really our sweet spot. When we're working with a smaller or mid- size organization, it's typically a one or two position either direct hire or a traditional contract to hire. Though we still offer all of the services. So no matter what solution and no matter where you're at, we meet talent where they are. All of our services are free to all of our talent, whether you're on assignment with us or not.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's cool. So they can check back in later on.
Speaker 2: We are a lifetime support, lifetime certification organization. And again, being unique in that come to us anytime for resume support, interview prep, upskilling, et cetera. So that is why nonprofits like to work with us because yes, we support job placement, but all of the things we do to keep talent engaged and give them the support that they need. And then if you get laid off or something happens, come back to us and let us help you. But in the meantime, we still have all of these great resources. So there's that.
Speaker 1: That's huge.
Speaker 2: But overall, when we're working with a smaller or mid- size we say, we still have all of these pieces. So if you want a certification during the contract phase, not a problem. Let's do it. So it doesn't have to be this formal cohort tough program. It's not tough. We can walk you through it. And then if talent... There's some organization to just say, I just want you to be my staffing firm because I want to tap into your talent community. And so we act as a traditional staffing organization in that manner as well because of the talent community that we do have available to us.
Speaker 1: That's neat. And talent communities are a big, I think they're a growing focus. I think they're a big part of the future. I don't think many companies are really doing them well yet. It sounds like you guys have got a good jump on that. But if you think about the value of a talent community, you've got to think over time that you'll be able to show that members of this community had more impact. Maybe they accelerated through promotions, maybe they were able to recruit more peers into the business because referral hires are a big thing, particularly in the talent crisis that some organizations suffer. So you've got to think that that sense of community, that sense of connection is a currency in and of itself.
Speaker 2: For sure. I think you're right. We have alumni activities, we call them talent community activities. We do a lot of webinars on different topics and come join us for office hours to have a discussion about this. And we put it out to our entire talent community. And similar to a podcast and listening to a podcast, you might have 10 people listen, and then the next day we could have 100. And so just offering up the resources and then we stay to our talent community, refer friends and family if they need our services so that we're creating that community. And certainly corporations have their own referral programs. And so once our talent become employees of their organization, they can certainly refer direct as familiar with. But for us we absolutely build a community within and ask for referrals, and just so that folks have the resources available to them, career readiness, job placement supports, free certifications. You can't go wrong.
Speaker 1: Nice. Yeah, that's awesome. So if you roll forward, so let's say optimistic outlook, next five to 10 years we see a greater shift that's no longer just Accenture and Merck and those guys that are doing it well. What do you think that looks like for people entering the workplace for HR departments, managing teams? How does that really change the landscape if more people are doing it well?
Speaker 2: I think that if we're doing it well, we have created a workforce or we're building a workforce that non- specialized entry level roles do not require four- year degrees. So that our workforce is based on access to equitable job opportunities where non- specialization is the key. We absolutely put value in stock in four year degrees. That is not the message and I think sometimes it gets muddled. What we're saying is today 66% of the workforce don't have the degrees, but if we still have over 80% of our early career roles posted, require that we're stifling our own business opportunity. We're stifling our own communities. We're stifling economic development, all because we've inflated the degree from years past when we could. We did it because we could. We can't afford to do that any longer I think with so much movement in DEI. And we hear now too like this focus on DEI is slowing. It's sad.
Speaker 1: Sadly. Yeah, I think the economic headwinds have been abused in that setting.
Speaker 2: We use that excuse for a lot of things, don't we? So from an equity lens in job opportunity, doing it well means opening up the workforce. If we haven't done that five years from now, shame on us. And so we're creating... We're still a small organization, we're just doing our part to create awareness around what a skills first job looks like and how we can help you be successful in doing that. And I will say everybody's open to the discussion, but understanding how to do it and do it well is another ball game. And we say, start small. Start with one or two roles. Let us help you. Let's map it out. Let's do the thing in pairs. Don't do it with just one talent because again, we're also trying to create community and have a champion in an organization to do it. So not doing it well to me just isn't an option and maybe I'm the optimist. But we also have 12 states now that governors have removed four- year degrees from the majority of their entry level roles for them, because we also see sometimes companies follow some of the social and government pathways like, okay, let's celebrate companies that are doing this as well. But because the data isn't there in their organization to map out, well, here's what this individual did without a degree and here's what an individual did. And that's sensitive information. And we don't necessarily always want it to be because of the degree, we're just saying map out skills and open up jobs for people that have the skills, period. No matter where they got them.
Speaker 1: I would love to see based on your vision that you shared, and I really appreciate the way you tie in community and economic vibrancy to that, because that's real. We're talking about housing crises, we're talking about so many social dilemmas right now in the US and in other countries. But if you start by giving people like you said, a wage that allows them to support a family, that really does drive a lot of the other efforts, initiatives in a community. And I'd love to see some of the empirical data in five years to prove what you are talking about now, what you are opening people's eyes to because I would imagine in communities where there are more skill- based hiring programs, where there are companies that are leaning on organizations like yours to build this fabric, to develop these communities, you're going to see a lot of social outcomes that are very positive right across the board, early learning, housing, education, small businesses. It has to be a grassroots movement for a lot of those things.
Speaker 2: It truly does. And let me tell you, if the empirical data doesn't show in five years, I'm going to either have been retired or have been removed because the empirical data isn't good.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But I have all kinds of optimism and hope that it will be very positive. But it does seem like baby steps when we're having to celebrate a governor removing degrees. Really think about that for a minute, we're patting him on the back for doing the right thing. Great. And then, okay, then what is the actual data behind that to say, okay, now let's look at your hiring pre and post. Let's look at your productivity pre and post. Let's look at your time to fill pre and post. Let's look at your turnover and your engagement. And so there are a lot of things that you can measure, but if you're not measuring them today and being honest with yourself on the measurements compared to where you're recruiting from, and then keeping that same data and doing that year after year after year for five years, it will take time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it does.
Speaker 2: It takes time. And then also certainly measuring and looking at the makeup of your workforce, and the diversity of your workforce and mapping that to productivity. But if you're not transparent and measuring some of that today, inaudible have any confidence-
Speaker 1: Which baseline.
Speaker 2: Okay, baseline. So we ask a lot-
Speaker 1: Yeah. That's super neat.
Speaker 2: We ask a lot of those questions to the client. Okay, talk to us about your time to bill. Where are you recruiting from? What's your turnover? What's your engagement? And so many, oh, yeah, I don't have that number. Okay, let's start there.
Speaker 1: Well, someone needs to go out there and pick that up too. Baker Hughes became famous for their rig count reports on a weekly basis. Someone should be surveying companies in communities and saying, where are you at on this? And I know a lot of companies are private, they're not going to share that data. But for those that opt in, that would be a really helpful barometer and maybe help create some at least generic baselines for other people to compare themselves to if they're not sharing their data. But I think it's fascinating, and I really appreciate the conversation today, Michelle, because I've learned a lot. I've been in the staff industry for a long time and often seen some really good programs around entry level, particularly when we've done work in new developing economies with large projects. But the fact that you're doing that here in the US and you've built this platform, this community that provides this support, that it really opens my mind to so many cool projects and initiatives that we should all be thinking about.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, I appreciate it. And podcasts and post on social, and the support and just the pure awareness and definition of what skills based and skills first hiring really means, that's a lot of work in and of itself. So thank you for the platform seriously.
Speaker 1: No, you bet. So if our listeners want to reach out and learn more about engaging YUPRO Placement to put a program together in their organization, or find some of your partner organizations they might want to be sending their kids or family members to, what's the best way to find you?
Speaker 2: Well, certainly visit our website @ YUPRO, Y- U- P- R- O. com. Reach out to me on LinkedIn @ MichelleD. Sims. Then I'm also at MSims @ yupro. com.
Speaker 1: Well, thanks for your time today, Michelle. I look forward to collaborating in the future.
Speaker 2: It was great. Thanks so much.
Speaker 1: You bet.
Speaker 2: Bye.
DESCRIPTION
Join us for an enlightening episode of "The Future of Teamwork," where we delve into the transformative world of skills-based hiring with Michelle D. Sims, a visionary leader at YUPRO Placement. This trailblazing organization is reshaping early career talent recruitment and development, focusing on advancing traditionally overlooked talent and building career pathways for non-degreed talent.
In this episode, Michelle shares how YUPRO Placement fosters a supportive community, cultivating connections and social capital through ongoing mentorship and innovative programs. Their commitment to talent goes beyond initial hiring, offering lifelong support that includes resume assistance, interview preparation, and free certifications. This comprehensive approach is changing the landscape of career development.
We'll explore the metrics that truly matter in measuring the success of these initiatives and the far-reaching impact they can have economically and socially. Through a skills-first approach, YUPRO Placement has uncovered opportunities for better workforce diversity, reduced turnover, and improved engagement. Discover how this shift in perspective is revolutionizing recruitment and creating a more inclusive and dynamic workplace.
Today's Host

Dane Groeneveld
Today's Guests
