Transcriber:
Over the last few years,
corporations have made a major push
to prioritize diversity, equity and inclusion
in all aspects of their organizations.
But DEI is left incomplete if you don't consider individuals
that have been involved in the criminal justice system.
Involvement in the criminal justice system can impact someone's life,
someone's work status, someone's experience at work.
It can even impact someone's mental health,
just as much, if not more than other factors we think about,
like race, age, gender and sexuality.
It's not like we willingly ignored this topic in corporations,
it's just a massive blind spot.
I mean, one of the reasons is nobody really openly talks about this.
You, your own wife or son, could be in jail right now.
You could spend every night missing them,
every weekend in a visitation room
and never mention it to your coworkers.
The other reason this topic isn't really touched on in corporations
is because we're just uninformed.
When we hear that someone is involved in the criminal justice system,
our first thoughts might be "murderer" or "violent criminal,"
and that's just not the case for the 2.3 million people
involved in the US criminal justice system right now.
And the fact that we focus on the worst of the worst
is why nearly 75 percent of justice-involved individuals
are unemployed a year after release.
So the question for us to consider is:
"As corporations, what can we do about this?"
I've served in leadership roles across American Family,
including overseeing our corporate social responsibility strategy, or CSR.
Like many companies,
we partner with local and national nonprofits,
we organize employee volunteer opportunities,
and we donate to meaningful causes.
In 2018, we launched the American Family Institute for Corporate and Social Impact,
to drive change and to close equity gaps across America.
And within that mission,
we're partnering with experts and organizations
that are working to support families and individuals
that have been impacted by incarceration.
So the more and more we talked to these partners,
and we heard about criminal justice reform,
the more I started to think.
What are we doing internally about this issue?
Maybe we need to think about getting our own house in order.
And the most obvious place for us to start was hiring.
95 percent of individuals serving time in jail and prison right now
will be released,
and finding employment is difficult,
particularly if you have a criminal record.
Some companies will just flat out refuse to hire you,
and even if you have the skills and the qualifications,
once they find out you have a record, it's over.
And this is a huge problem,
because we know that one of the best ways to prevent someone returning to prison
is employment.
And in some cases,
employment is a condition of someone's parole.
A colleague of mine told me about a man she'd met,
who was released from prison on parole.
The garage where he'd been working was closing,
and he was unable to find another job,
which meant he would have to go back to jail for violating his parole.
He shared with her that he would prefer to commit suicide than go back to jail.
She spoke with him for about 45 minutes,
and she's not really sure if anything that she said changed his perspective.
Hiring justice-involved individuals is not just the kind thing to do,
an act of charity.
It could quite literally be a matter of life or death.
So for us, the fastest, easiest way to improve our hiring practices
was remove any up-front questions about criminal history
on our job applications.
We got rid of anything that said
"Check here if you have a criminal record."
We then updated our public-facing job postings
to indicate that we consider qualified candidates
with criminal histories.
These two interventions were simple.
They required minimal effort on our part,
and I believe that other employers should follow suit.
But then, we took things a step further,
and we created intentional partnerships
to make sure justice-involved individuals were included in our talent pipeline.
Many companies -- and we're no different --
have partnerships with colleges and universities.
You know, we recruit from a pool of graduating seniors,
knowing they’ll have the talent and the skills to perform a job.
But what we also know is that today,
many prisons offer advanced professional training
on skills like coding.
As corporations,
we can form relationships with these programs as well
and include them in our talent pipeline.
For example, we have an employee,
after serving time in jail,
that joined us through one of these talent partners, in our claims area.
We'll call him David.
David joined us earlier this year,
and with the support of his manager,
he is outperforming his peers.
He is on a path to higher opportunities and promotional roles.
By providing a positive work experience for justice-involved individuals,
we can change what’s possible for them and their families.
Financial stability can have an incredible impact
on our day-to-day life,
and the support of a manager
can instill the confidence in someone, for the first time,
to see themselves in a career.
Now, some people worry.
They ask us,
"Aren't you sacrificing the quality of your candidate pool
by including justice-involved individuals?"
Just to be clear --
fair-chance hiring is about increasing equity,
not about reducing our hiring standards.
In fact, the Society for Human Resource Management
has conducted extensive research in this space,
and they've found that 82 percent of hiring managers
and 67 percent of HR professionals
find that the quality of fair-chance talent
is the same or higher than employees without records.
To assume that because someone has a criminal record,
they're not qualified,
is just not a correct assumption.
In fact, for so many reasons,
for so many reasons,
they can become your most dedicated, your most motivated,
your most hardworking employee,
because for them, the stakes are so much higher.
But we knew, for this program to succeed,
we had to take a look at our internal culture as well.
We had to provide training for our leaders and our employees
on the realities of the criminal justice system.
Individuals involved in the criminal justice system
are subjected to a broad range of dehumanizing labels
that are meant to marginalize and stigmatize them.
Instead, we use language that reflects their full identity
and acknowledges their future, not just their past.
So we say “justice-involved” or “returning citizen,”
which allows individuals to reclaim their full selves, as people first.
And so what's funny,
the more and more we started talking about this internally,
the more people started coming out of the woodwork,
sharing their own experience
and impact of the criminal justice system.
For example, one of our leaders in our claims area --
I'll call him Michael --
he came out in one of our internal fair-chance hiring webinars
about the story of his daughter,
who struggled with addiction
and was subsequently convicted with a felony charge.
Michael was so moved by his daughter's experience
that he supports ongoing education for justice-involved individuals.
His wife volunteers in jails and prisons,
because they both realize the importance of support
in someone's reentry success.
And Michael, he believes in investing in whole people.
He doesn’t think that it’s right
that society would make decisions for someone
based on perception, or how they look.
And he has become one of our biggest champions in our organization
in hiring fair-chance talent.
Our fair-chance hires are anonymous.
It's up to them if they want to share their experiences
with their coworkers or their managers.
But it's my hope for the future that we shift our culture
from one of ignorance and blindness towards the formerly incarcerated
towards one of possibility and reconciliation,
and that this is no longer a taboo subject --
that coworkers will speak openly about their experiences
and their family's experiences,
and we can support each other fully, as individuals.
There are 1.8 million people in jail right now.
And you may be thinking:
"Is anybody in my corporation affected by the criminal justice system?"
There's a very good chance that they are.
And you may also think,
"Well, I don't know anybody
that's been impacted by the criminal justice system."
Well, at the very least, you know me.
I have a loved one that was incarcerated for over 14 years,
and that was a struggle for my family,
trying to support him and stay close to him,
but also move on with our day-to-day lives.
And for 14 years,
I didn't say a word to my coworkers.
And that was a secret that took a toll.
When he was finally released,
he was so motivated to find employment near his home,
near his family.
But he couldn't find anybody that would employ him.
Eventually, he did find an employer
that saw past the worst thing he'd ever done
and gave him a fair chance.
He had to move across the country,
but I'm happy to say that, 12 years later, he's thriving,
all because someone took a chance on him.
And what's true for me and my family is so true for so many Americans.
For current employees and future employees,
criminal justice involvement must be included in DEI strategies.
So based off of what we've learned,
here are some steps to help you implement fair-chance hiring in your organization.
First of all ...
consider the qualifications for a candidate
based on the role that they're applying for.
It sounds obvious when I say it --
hire someone for the skills needed for a job.
But the fact of the matter
is justice-involved individuals are excluded from opportunities
for trivial reasons.
For example,
if you're hiring somebody in an IT role that calls for coding experience ...
isn't the most important qualification coding experience?
It matters less that they have a criminal history
or a gap in their résumé for the time they were incarcerated.
Ask yourself:
Do they have the skills and qualifications to perform the job?
If yes, consider hiring them.
Toss out antiquated criteria and methods,
and consider a strengths-based approach instead.
Second,
make sure that there is a path for career growth and promotion
for your justice-involved employees.
Now the insurance industry is highly regulated,
and there are certain roles due to licenses
that may be off limits for certain past offenses.
We don’t want to hire someone in an entry level
only to find out that they can't be promoted later.
So make sure that there is a clear path for growth and success
in your company.
Third ...
realize that justice-involved employees may need help adjusting
to your corporate culture.
You want someone that’s self-motivated and self-directed and autonomous,
and that's the opposite from what they've experienced in prison.
Some managers have told me that their justice-involved employees
didn't even realize that they didn't have to ask
their supervisor's permission to take a bathroom break.
So it's a big culture shift,
but just know, with patience and grace,
you can help your employees thrive.
And then finally,
just make sure that education and training in your DEI strategies
include human-centered language
and antibias training.
At the end of the day ...
justice-involved jobseekers are human beings first,
and jobseekers second.
If you nurture that human being,
just imagine the impact that you will have on their life,
their families, the community
and your organization.
Thank you.
(Cheers and applause)