Ready To Work Business Collaborative Announces Initiative to Promote Hiring of Long-Term Unemployed and Other Highly Capable Job Candidates

Corporations Join to Address Need to Recognize Proven Skills and Remove Bias

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Ready To Work Business Collaborative

Jan 10, 2017, 08:30 ET

NEW YORK, Jan. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Focusing on the pool of skilled workers who have been seeking employment for longer than six months, corporations representing diverse industries today joined together and launched the Ready To Work Business Collaborative (RTWBC), a non-partisan initiative to help employers achieve their goals by hiring highly capable candidates who may have been inadvertently overlooked in traditional recruitment. Ready to work candidates are the long-term unemployed, under-employed, veterans and individuals with disabilities, as well as opportunity youth, ages 16 to 24 years.

The program responds to a White House call to action in which 350 employers signed on to address the issue of long-term unemployment. These corporations and employers are prepared to improve their recruiting processes to identify and hire pre-evaluated, ready to work talent; deepen their connections with the local community; lower recruitment costs; and achieve corporate social responsibility goals.

"The Ready To Work Business Collaborative helps businesses by connecting them with the government agencies and workforce intermediaries that bring qualified and pre-screened talent and employers together," said Beverly M. Riddick, Executive Director. "The Ready To Work Business Collaborative is leading the way for employers to partner with public and nonprofit workforce intermediaries, as well as colleges and universities, by creating best practices for hiring, and also advocating for policies that benefit the long-term-unemployed."

The RTWBC will serve as a convener of best practices, benchmark data and industry insights regarding public/private partnerships, with the goal of increasing the employment of ready to work talent. The first of these quarterly events for employers will be held on March 15, 2017 in New York City.

According to Riddick, research conducted by Deloitte shows that employee groups, such as the long-term unemployed and veterans, have an above-average retention rate compared to other employees in the same industry.

Notably, many companies are unaware that aspects of their hiring practices may present unintended barriers for the long-term unemployed. For example, simple adjustments to advertisements for open positions, such as referring to significant experience with a specific skill, rather than current experience, will expand the candidate pool to include qualified jobseekers who apply for such roles and are not presently employed.

Employers perceive multiple benefits from implementing this skills-based hiring practice:

50-70% reduction in time to hire
70% reduction in cost to hire
50% reduction in time to train
22-75% reduction in turnover

according to research conducted by Deloitte.

To help increase opportunities for ready to work candidates and institute best practices in hiring this talent, representatives from a diverse group of corporations and organizations have contributed financial and knowledge resources and are actively promoting access to these candidates among their industry peers and other companies, including:

Pacific Gas & Electric Company, San Francisco, CA
PeopleScout, Chicago, IL
Principal Financial Group, Des Moines, IA
Prudential Financial, Newark, NJ
Robert Half, Menlo Park, CA
The Rockefeller Foundation, New York, NY
U.S. Bancorp, Minneapolis, MN
Wells Fargo & Company, San Francisco, CA

RTWBC Advisory Board companies and their representatives are noted below.

Other companies are expected to join the RTWBC in the coming months.

For more information, please visit www.RTWBC.org or contact Beverly Riddick at [email protected] or 917-519-2642.

About the Ready to Work Business Collaborative

The Ready To Work Business Collaborative is a non-partisan business-led organization that brings together employers who are interested in successfully hiring and retaining ready to work talent consisting of the long term unemployed, the under-employed, veterans, people with disabilities and opportunity youth. For more information, please visit www.rtwbc.org or connect with us on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

Members of the RTWBC Advisory Board:

Company	Contact	City
Pacific Gas & Electric Company	Ananda Baron	San Francisco, CA
Principal Financial Group	Kerry Gumm	Des Moines, IA
Prudential Financial	Marietta Cozzi	Newark, NJ
U.S. Bancorp	Christopher Hill	Minneapolis, MN
Wells Fargo & Company	Lance LaVergne	New York, NY