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One of the most commonly held – and provably false – beliefs among employers is that past behavior is a reliable indicator or predictor of future behavior. This narrow viewpoint proves to be one of the biggest hurdles for formerly incarcerated individuals who are looking to make gainful employment part of their fresh start.
Real-world data tells a far less intimidating story: 82% of surveyed managers said that the value that justice-involved people brought to their organization was just as high or even higher than that of workers without records. And 66% percent of managers who hired previously incarcerated individuals at their company rated the quality of their work as comparable to those who had not been incarcerated.
The Bureau of Labor and Statistics projects that the U.S. labor force will only grow by about 0.5% a year between 2020 and 2030, and that the overall labor-force participation rate will decline in the same decade. This dismal outlook, combined with a nationwide labor shortage exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, is leading employers to find employees in new ways, including considering the hiring of individuals with records.
Savvy and informed hiring managers realize the importance of context when reviewing a candidate who has a record and understand that the mere existence of a record should not necessarily be, in itself, a disqualifier. While some offenses may reasonably give a company pause (such as a person with a history of financial crimes applying to work at a bank), most employers seem willing to forgive more minor infractions or isolated incidents.
People with criminal records have always faced an uphill battle when searching for employment. Individuals with a history of incarceration are up to six times more likely to be unemployed than those without a record. For those individuals lucky enough to snag an interview with an employer, those with a record are 50% less likely to receive a callback.
Employers’ biases, both formal and informal, and traditional refusal to consider formerly incarcerated individuals have perpetuated these trends. Given that approximately 70 million Americans, or one in three working-age adults, have some form of a criminal record, employers who disqualify people based on criminal histories are neglecting a vast network of otherwise qualified prospective hires.
The idea of offering second-chance employment to people with criminal histories has found increasing support among fellow workers and the general public as well. In a SHRM research survey, 79% of respondents said they would feel comfortable working for a company where some of their co-workers had records for nonviolent offenses. The same survey found that 82% would feel comfortable patronizing a business that they knew employed nonviolent offenders.
Several high-profile businesses have enacted fair-chance hiring initiatives, including Starbucks
SBUX,
Slack, and J.P. Morgan
JPM,
This includes “banning the box” that asks candidates whether they have a criminal record.
Research trends even show that inclusive talent pool companies like these are likely to turn a greater profit than companies that remain less diverse and inclusive.
The benefits of these practices are reflected not only in employer satisfaction, but in employee retention, with justice-involved individuals remaining at their jobs for longer than their counterparts without records.
In addition, monitoring solutions can be used in tandem with these fair-chance hiring practices to further mitigate hiring risks. Standard background checks that reveal static, point-in-time information are being augmented with systems that can monitor the performance and behavior of all employees (both those with and without criminal histories) in real time. Alerts can be sent instantaneously to management in the event of misconduct, allowing them to intervene and address it immediately.
Business leaders across all industries looking to improve their organization’s diversity, inclusion and equity practices can jump-start their success in today’s labor market by implementing fair-chance hiring. This will give millions of Americans opportunities to find quality employment as well as reduce the rates of recidivism among justice-involved individuals.
Brian Matthews is senior vice president and general manager at Appriss Insights, a technology, data and analytics provider that seeks to mitigate people-driven fraud and abuse.
