Work Forces

Adriana Dawson oversees Verizon's Strategic and Social Impact programming across the eastern U.S. She leads and expands Verizon's partnership network, community investments, and collaborates up and across the business supporting regional and national initiatives. She also serves as a Global Lead for SOMOS, an enterprise-wide Employee Resource Group (ERG) amplifying the voice of Verizon's 6K+ Hispanic/Latinx employees. Adriana shares how her childhood and two decades of professional experience shaped her role as a cultural broker and practical steps that corporate leaders can take to bolster their approach to social impact.

Please follow, rate, and review Work Forces on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you are listening. Also, please follow Kaitlin and Julian on LinkedIn.

Transcript:

Julian Alssid: Welcome to Workforces, I'm Julian Alssid.

Kaitlin LeMoine: And I'm Kaitlin LeMoine. And we speak with the innovators who shape the future of work and learning.

Julian: Together, we unpack the complex elements of workforce and career preparation and offer practical solutions that can be scaled and sustained.

Kaitlin: Let's dive in.

Julian: Welcome to episode two of Work Forces. Thank you to all who listened to our first podcast. We've had over 100 downloads in our first week, which we're so excited about. We also appreciate the feedback we've received from our listeners and we'll continue to incorporate and refine the show to make this as useful to you as possible. On today's episode, we're speaking with Adriana Dawson, who oversees Verizon's strategic and social impact programming across the Eastern US. Adriana and I both live in Rhode Island. We first met over a decade ago when I was asked to assess Rhode Island's workforce development efforts. And today she leads and expands Verizon's partnership network, community investments, and collaborates up and across the business, supporting regional and national initiatives. In addition, Adriana serves as a global lead for SOMOS, an enterprise-wide employee resource group, or ERG, amplifying the voice of Verizon's 6,000 plus Hispanic and Latinx employees. Welcome, Adriana.

Adriana: Thank you so much. Super excited to join you and Kaitlin. I appreciate the opportunity.

Kaitlin: Adriana, we appreciate you. It's so good to be with you today. And we look forward to speaking with you more about your work and background and experiences. So, as we jump in on today's conversation, can you tell us a bit about your story, your background, and how it connects to the work that you do?

Adriana: Threads of my origin story really have influenced and informed the career decisions that I've made and the career that I decided to step into. So again, I'm very anchored in my origin story. My family is from Columbia. I am first generation. My parents were factory workers when they arrived in the early 70s. As you can imagine, the anchor institutions and the resources that exist for new arrivals today was not the case many, many years ago. So it was a very, very different transition for them. I am the only child. I spoke Spanish. While I was born in the U.S., Spanish was my first language for the first five years of my life. And so that really helped again, sort of shape my identity. And there were lots of challenges, growing up at that time, and I attended a small Catholic school and it wasn't very diverse. I was an only child, my parents only spoke Spanish. And at a very young age, I was activated as a navigator, as a translator for them, as a translator for my family and for many of the coworkers that they worked with in the factory. And what that looked like was, can you translate what this piece of mail says? Can you come with me to this doctor's appointment or to this appointment? And so very early on, as I was learning the English language and sort of growing up in that environment, navigating within the community, helping amplify their voice, helping them navigate systems, and being activated as a translator, was sort of a thing, but I didn't realize it was a thing. And then as I got older, again, just very mindful of the challenges that new arrivals and folks that are underestimated, overlooked, and sometimes made to feel less than have to deal with. And so as I stepped into my career and tried to navigate sort of my own pathway, my two plus decades of professional experience has really been anchored in amplifying community and being a cultural broker. And when I've engaged in a partnership with my employer partners, and notice how I say employer partners, it has always been at the intersection of allowing them to better understand communities and populations that they historically have not stepped into before. And so I have been a contributor across six different sectors. And I feel like I've been very honored in being that cultural broker and leveraging my cultural fluency to support both business and humanity.

Julian: Tell us about the work you're doing with Verizon and across Fortune 500 companies to amplify community, to be that cultural broker.

Adriana: Absolutely. Well, again, I have the distinct pleasure of being the director of community engagement for Verizon. And so what that means is we have what's called Citizen Verizon. And those are our three priority pillars that we fund around, where we have deep legacy. And so that is our commitment to society. That is how we have committed to show up for society and where we will be directing our investments to support programming and activity around those three pillars. And also where we will direct our human capital and our volunteer efforts. So I oversee and support the entire East region. And so in that role, I collaborate with the amazing talent and my colleagues that are anchored in those priority markets. And we build relationships. We engage with community partners to identify how best Verizon can weave ourselves very intentionally into the fabric of those communities and make investments to support the existing good work that's happening on the ground. Again, that aligns to our three priority pillars, which are digital equity and inclusion, climate protection, and human prosperity which has a deep focus on small businesses and workforce development.

Kaitlin: So what are some of the successes you've seen and experienced in your work? And in the other direction, what are some of the ongoing challenges you've experienced as well?

Adriana: So across my career, which I mentioned, I don't like to date myself, Kaitlin, but over two decades there have been instances throughout that career trajectory where my employer partners in the past perhaps haven't necessarily gotten it right–where they perhaps haven't centered community or have not involved the community to help inform and influence the strategy. And it can feel very transactional. And so not putting community first and not pulling in the right stakeholders and just being led by all the things that perhaps should not lead community-centered engagement. Where I have seen it right is again, where we bring community in on the front end. We ask questions. It doesn't feel intrusive. Where the partnership feels very complimentary when we're not sort of taking the lead, but we allow the community to take the lead and to help inform where we belong and how we should step in and what that looks like. And doing it in a very culturally contextualized way, where we're honoring the historical context and the cultural context of the communities we're stepping into. And we're recognizing the flavor, all of the flavor and those nuances that are going to look different in one market versus another market. We're not homogeneous communities of color and we all have sort of varying degrees of needs, expectations, flavors, trauma. And so what that means for us in the private sector is we need to be better informed. We need to educate ourselves in terms of the communities we're stepping into, what they've experienced before with private sector partners. Have they been strip-mined previously of information of assets? And it was parachuting in and then parachuting out and then they never saw those private sector partners again. And so where it's done right is where there's a mindfulness around partnerships and relationships and cultivation and pouring into that relationship and what that means. So it's not one dimensional, but it truly becomes magical when all of our assets kind of coalesce and the impact is really community-focused and intended.

Kaitlin: Is there an example that comes to mind of a time when that worked really well? And like, what made it work well? What brought all those pieces together, as you said, to really contextualize and make the experience personal for the community?

Adriana: I mean, not just because I work for Verizon, but I'll have to say it really is Verizon and the work I'm doing now. I am going on my fourth year work anniversary. And what I really appreciate is the openness to the evolution of the work. And as we've been stepping into different communities and as I personally have expanded my territory, it's the, I would say the openness and the support for my leadership to be better informed. Adriana, what are you seeing? What are you hearing? What can we do differently? What kind of resources do we need? So the fact that it's not just one person's responsibility. That as we're seeing and doing all of this good work and the needs, because there are other things that come up as you engage in these conversations with your partners about other needs that they have or other ways that we can show up that we perhaps hadn't identified, it's me feeling a level of comfort that information doesn't only have to live with me. That it is bubbled up, that it is encouraged, and that my leadership also truly wants to know how can we support this work that you're engaging in. And again, whether that's the financial investments or whether that's the human capital. And again, I'm feeling really, really good about the work. And I am thrilled about the way in which my employer partner has decided to partner with me to continue in this human impact work.

Julian: Based on your experiences, can you offer a practical step or three that social impact and business leaders can take to become forces? You know, you are a work force here on Work Forces. What step or three that they can take to become forces on these matters in their own organizations.

Adriana: What I would ultimately love to see more of are individuals and professionals that come from impacted communities be more deeply involved with social impact work. And so, and I'll say we, we have this lived experience. I have experienced poverty. I have been a recipient of career and job readiness programs as a youth. My family was a recipient of different resources. So I understand it. I get it. I understand the barriers. And I'm finding that there's such an opportunity to cultivate and develop a pipeline and introduce emerging professionals and other folks like me that perhaps aren't very familiar with what the social impact space is. What is corporate social responsibility? What does this work mean to introduce more of us with this lived experience, not only into the work, but to lead the work. There are many folks in this space leading this work that are extremely well-intentioned and are amazing professionals. And they're great at developing strategy, but perhaps again, don't come from these impacted communities. So I would challenge our leaders in this space, make space for others who can help cover your blind spots, that bring a lived perspective that perhaps you don't have. And that's where a lot of the magic happens. And in addition to that, I would also say, continue to be mindful of what I had mentioned earlier. As you're thinking about volunteer efforts, you're thinking about stepping into community to engage in conversations with stakeholders. How well informed are you as you're stepping in these communities? On the front end, there needs to be a level of education that we need to not only be mindful of, but I'll give you an example, for instance. And so one of my new markets is Philadelphia. And so what does that mean for me as I'm stepping into Philly? So I dug into neighborhoods. I dug into census data. I dug into the population, and the breakout of the demographics, because it was my responsibility to them to be informed as I stepped into these communities. And so those are just two examples. I'm happy to dig a little bit more deeply, but it's not the community's job to educate us consistently. It's taxing, it's draining. We need to own some of that as we're looking to continue to engage in this work.

Julian: You're doing work within Verizon, but also across Fortune 500 companies or with counterparts in other companies who are addressing the same issues. Can you speak a little bit to that work?

Adriana: Absolutely. And so, again, as a result of my role with SOMOS (which is Verizon's employee resource group that supports our 6,000 plus Hispanic and Latinx-identifying employees) I've taken it upon myself to connect with other leaders within ERG resource groups across other Fortune 500 companies. And it's all with the goal of... What are you doing to support your workforce? As an ERG, what are your tenets? What are your employees of color or just employees period? What are they gleaning on? How are they looking to continue to amplify within your workforce? How can we share resources? What are some professional development takeaways or things that you're hearing from your workforce or from your ERG community? And I'm also curious as I step into those conversations, what are you doing externally? How are you showing up? What are some best practices that we can glean from? And so it's really getting a large lay of the land in terms of how we're coalescing resources, how we're showing up together, how we're leveraging our assets. And so that's the role that I've been playing within my own ERG, but thinking about what are others doing in the same space that I'm in. Who are representatives across these larger entities? And then how can we identify best practices and continue to level up and show up both for our internal communities as well as external.

Kaitlin: Have you identified any best practices you'd wanna share? Have any nuggets or specific ideas kind of risen to the top?

Adriana: There are a few. And I think I would land on more internal for now because this has been a fairly new practice. But again, what we're finding is, you know, while ERG's are funded by our corporations, there's a lot of work that can still be done. And there isn't an endless amount of funding. And so we have found that there are experts within our particular spaces. Let's say there's an expert in LinkedIn, someone who is a marketing executive or leads a marketing department. So we're kind of figuring out and developing sort of this competency model and identifying who does what and activating each other across our respective spaces based on our needs. So if we've got a group at Hewlett Packard or another group within another tech company, another ERG who's identified, our community would really love to focus on personal branding. They really need help with that. They're looking to really amplify. Some of us have raised their hand to say, you know what, we're pretty active on LinkedIn, or, you know, not for nothing, but we've done pretty well in building our personal brand. We're happy to facilitate a session for you and your team. And so again, shared resources to meet our needs, but also to be mindful of our respective budgets across the board.

Julian: It's so wonderful to see, you know, we talk a lot about workforce development as this kind of multidisciplinary undertaking where, you have to have all these different actors: employers and educators and trainers and so on. It's just so great to see a corporation and you taking the lead on so much of this, because ultimately you're the ones with the jobs, and as hard as the public side of this tries, they have jobs but they don't have your jobs. And many of the very well-paying ones.

Adriana: No, absolutely. And the other thread that I would lift here, being a first-generation professional is real, and it's a thing. And so in many of the spaces that I'm in, I find that while people really appreciate the professional development modules and opportunities that they've been given, it doesn't necessarily speak to them. Because it has been facilitated and presented, again, either by a facilitator who's a non-impacted facilitator, who shares or leads the workshop or the training program through the lens of a level playing field. And it's just very challenging for someone who comes from a particular socioeconomic background or who has dealt with trauma or other hiccups along their career, to really glean on having the ability to see themselves kind of navigate through what's being shared. And so talking to other professionals about what is talent and development, what does professional development look like for a particular workforce, that is first-generation professional, looks and feels different. And it has to be culturally contextualized. It has to take into account our cultural norms, our history, our barriers. And so that's another thing that I'm also very passionate about, because we often talk about first generation college students. And what does that mean in terms of access and making sure that we help them with their transition? Well, the same applies. First generation college students become first generation professionals. And who has decoded the world of work? Who has helped demystify in addition to working hard, there's other things within sort of that secret sauce that no one has ever really shared with you. If you don't come from a household where that's been normalized for you, that can impact your ability to have your upward mobility supported because you don't know what you don't know.

Kaitlin: And there are all these unspoken norms and ways of being right that we have to be explicit about because otherwise not everyone knows they're there.

Adriana: Absolutely. And so, you know, in my case, just very quickly, what I knew was hard work. I knew grit. I knew how to make a dollar out of 15 cents. We just had to figure it out. You know, so I just kept my head down and I worked really hard with the hope that someone would tap me on the shoulder and be like, "hey, congratulations, you're working really hard. It's promotion time". You know, that wasn't the case. So my career early on stalled and I saw my peers advancing and I internalized that. I was like, what am I doing wrong? But that's because I didn't understand that sort of the system really wasn't designed to support me. I had to work around the system, but I didn't know what that meant. Again, nobody had decoded or demystified for me and said, Adriana, you really need to start networking. And you know those kind of events that you really don't wanna go to, it's kind of important you go to that because it's face time. People need to see you. Oh, thanks for telling me. Oh, and by the way, mentors and sponsors, so all the things. I started learning slowly but surely, but again, early on in my career, it was very challenging. So that's another sort of practical kind of takeaway. An example I would share with folks, especially those leading HR talent development is, as you're thinking about onboarding for new employees or for existing employees, how are you capturing a segment of your workforce that are first generation professionals who might not raise their hand and ask questions, and you assume that they know the things? So not assuming and creating a baseline or further contextualizing it for them and getting back to real basics would be a game changer for some folks stepping into this corporate environment for the very first time with no blueprint or playbook.

Kaitlin: Well, thank you for sharing so much of yourself and your background, your work and these really practical, tangible steps that leaders and people really, everyone can take to create an inclusive, and as you're saying, explicitly built environment where everyone kind of understands, here are the rules of the road and here are the ways you can continue to position yourself or upskill. Because there are so many steps that, you're right, I think they just, they get glossed over and it's like, you know or you don't know. And as you were saying earlier about building almost like a set of competencies for the ERG work you're doing, right? These are all competencies and skills that if we're explicit, if we're clear and transparent about what they are, it helps everyone. So really appreciate you offering these practical steps toward the end of our discussion today, Adriana. How can listeners learn more about your work?

Adriana: LinkedIn has been an absolute gift. I am an extreme extrovert and when the pandemic hit and I, you know, we all were impacted by human connection, I really leveraged the power of that particular social media platform. And it allowed me to build community. So it was like Adriana had all this energy because I was so used to moving and shaking and meeting folks and attending events. And I still needed that and I got it in a different way. And so I have made myself available on LinkedIn. I invite people to connect with me there. I have taken our online connection offline. Schedule 15, 20 minutes with folks because I'm really curious. I'm very relational and I love to better understand who I'm connecting with and how we can be of service and a resource to each other. And so I would say LinkedIn would be a great way to take a look at my content. The stories that I've shared, the things that I find interesting, but also connecting with me personally, and would love the opportunity to do that.

Julian: Well, and Adriana, it's so great. We hadn't been in touch for a bit, and we reconnected on LinkedIn. So there you go. Absolutely. And it's such a pleasure to reconnect and have this conversation with you. Fantastic, amazing work you're doing. So look forward to continuing to track your story and to keep finding ways to work together. And really appreciate your taking the time.

Adriana: My absolute pleasure. I look forward to staying in touch and continuing to do the good work. Thank you both. Thank you so much.

Kaitlin: That's all we have for you today. Thank you for listening to Work Forces. We hope that you take away nuggets that you can use in your own work. Thank you to our producer, Dustin Ramsdell. Work Forces is available on Apple, Amazon, Google, and Spotify. We hope you will subscribe, like, and share the podcast with your colleagues and friends. If you have interest in sponsoring this podcast, please contact us through the podcast notes.

Jamai Blivin is founder and CEO of Innovate+Educate, a nonprofit focused on big system change to create new employment pathways for workers based on skills and competencies. She is also the author of the new book Status: Reversing Degrees of Discrimination, which argues for an emphasis on skills over degrees when seeking talent. Jamai discusses her background as a connector, her pioneering work in skill-based workforce development, and the next steps needed to realize a truly skills-based ecosystem.

Please follow, rate, and review Work Forces on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you are listening. Also, please follow Kaitlin and Julian on LinkedIn.

Transcript:

Julian Alssid: Welcome to Workforces, I'm Julian Alssid.

Kaitlin LeMoine: And I'm Kaitlin LeMoine. And we speak with the innovators who shape the future of work and learning.

Julian: Together, we unpack the complex elements of workforce and career preparation and offer practical solutions that can be scaled and sustained.

Kaitlin: Let's dive in.

Kaitlin: Welcome to this episode of Work Forces. We're thrilled to welcome a shining star and good friend working at the intersection of the future of work and learning, Jamai Blivin. Jamai is founder and CEO of Innovate+Educate, a nonprofit focused on big system change to create new employment pathways for workers based on skills and competencies. Jamai is an advocate for youth employment, successful reentry after incarceration, and second and third chances. She's also the author of a new book, STATUS: Reversing Degrees of Discrimination, which argues for an emphasis on skills over degree attainment. We're so glad you can join us today. Welcome, Jamai.

Jamai Blivin: Oh, thank you. It's so good to see both of you.

Julian: Yes, it's so great to see you, Jamai. And we're so thrilled to have you as our inaugural interviewee here on Work Forces. So many people know you professionally, Jamai. I mean, you are the Supreme Connector. And over the years, your conferences and your projects have brought together the most amazing individuals. I usually dread going to conferences, but when I come to yours, I know I'm going to come away with amazing connections and projects and it's all because of you. And the people you bring together really are innovators who are pushing the envelope and getting things done. And so with this in mind, can you give us the highlights of your personal journey that led to where you are? How did you become the connector that you are?

Jamai: Yeah, that's a fun question. I still am teaching our skills training to high school kids. And one of the lessons that we teach is your brand. And I say, you guys, you're going to have a brand. It may not always be good, but you're going to have a brand. And it's really important to know that brand. And my brand is that I connect people and I get shit done. Now people may not always like me guys, but I always get things done. I'm a connector of people. So, taking that back when…I don't know…I was probably was born that way. In my book I talk about my childhood and having to sell donuts door to door until they were all gone when I was nine or 10. So I've been a salesperson forever, but, I guess I'm a sales person with a passion. And I can't sell anything unless I believe in it and skills has been my passion for a long, long time (since I was substitute teaching middle school back in the 90s).

Julian: What got you so interested in skills to tell us a little bit about how that even like what, what was it that you think in skills back way back then.

Jamai: I was teaching in a low income school in Durham, North Carolina, and I always wanted to be a teacher. But instead I went into the finance world, and then was fortunate to get to retire from the finance world and be a stay-at-home mom. And I started teaching. And I just saw this, like, disconnect. I mean, after [being] in business and then you go into the classroom, especially with middle school kids, you're like, they are totally disconnected from the real world. And, and how are these kids really going to understand what jobs are and what careers are. And so I just started really thinking about that. Then, not long after, I got an opportunity to work for the North Carolina Tech Association. And that is really, thanks to the leader there, Joan Myers, who became my mentor and always will be. She really taught me about that connection between industry and education and I was hooked. I just believe so much in that connection being workforce-related. I also mention in my book I had a conversation with the governor's education advisor, about 15 years ago in New Mexico. And he and I had an argument about what college was for. And he was saying, it's to teach you to be a better citizen and all that I'm like, no, it's not. It's about a job. And we just really got into it and agreed to disagree, but it's just my passion as you know.

Kaitlin: So building on that last point, Jamai, the theme of emphasizing skills over degrees is central to your book and much of your background and your work. We can feel the passion in your book on that topic. Can you speak a little bit to that theme and some of what you're what you've seen and more about where those beliefs have stemmed from?

Jamai: Julian knows Dr. Merrilea Mayo. And when I was in North Carolina, I stumbled across Merilea and I'm not going to get into that because people can buy my book and find out how.

Julian: Now that's a teaser.

Jamai: Yeah, but, yeah, but Dr Mayo, when I first met with her, she was like skills are way more predictive than degrees and I'm like, really. And you know, I don't consider myself a researcher, but over the years of Innovate+Educate, I saw the value and the importance of the data and the statistics and all that. And it just made common sense to me once we started looking at the data. And so that's really when the journey began. It's kind of like as a stockbroker I was taught by my firm to look at the data. That was my background. I was raised to understand stocks and bonds. And, and you know, it was always about what the P/E ratio is, what the valuation is of a company. I mean it just made sense to me. So as soon as I learned that skills were more predictive for hiring over a degree, and learned what percentage didn't have degrees which people still freak out, especially people from high income families who don't have a clue about that, I was like, well, good Lord, this is just common sense. So I just started this march around common sense. You know, everybody should believe in skills and obviously it's been 15 years of beating that drum but now, Lord, it is everywhere. And then yesterday a new skills organization launched under the Rockefeller Foundation (right Julian, I don't know if you saw that). It's a combination of multiple foundations that are all around skills.

Julian: Yeah, and as you know we're big proponents of a skills based approach dating back to the work Kaitlin and I did about 10 years ago with College for America, the competency-based education model at Southern New Hampshire University, and it continued on through the mechatronics technician training program we developed with Amazon and Unmudl, an education startup. And skills are central to our current efforts. But I have concerns. And I guess for you, my question is, could this emphasis on skills, push people into jobs that don't lead them to a long-term sustainable career path, especially with the rapid technological advancements. So the question really is, how can we ensure that learners who have strong skills with no degree (because that's really a big part of what is being talked about), how can we ensure that those people are able to continuously make a living, and aren't just getting pushed into a job because they have skills that match with that entry level job?

Jamai: And that's the biggest problem we face. I think we're still, if you were, we're at the 30 yard line on the opponent's side right now. Everybody knows skills makes sense now. Now the problem is how do skills not undermine good jobs. Because it's really all about good jobs, and we're a long way from that. You know, our working Colorado led by Scott Fast is building out pathways for the Colorado workforce department, and really looking at the importance of those credentials and how much you make on those credentials. So I think what we have to really be careful of is that skills don't push people into only the low paying jobs. You know, CDL is a great example. I worked with a young man who didn't have any skills. He had been incarcerated for 13 years. And now, because of our scholarships and because of the skills training that he got and the CDL, he's making really, really good money. And his future is so bright. But it took, you know, really thinking with him about those areas you're interested in, and how do you make more money. So it's tough. We're still a long way from figuring it out, I think, from an industry perspective.

Julian: Jamai, you mentioned scholarships. Can you speak a little bit to what you're referencing there?

Jamai: Well, with what Innovate[+Educate] is doing. I know we used to be pretty large, but we are now a boutique consulting nonprofit. We take specific contracts related to our expertise, which is skills. Skills and workforce workforce boards. We're working with a couple of boards now. And so very specifically related to skills pathways, credential attainment, etc. Most of the funding that comes in. A large percentage of that, and all the sales proceeds from the book are going to scholarships, mainly in New Mexico. I mean, if somebody called me from somewhere else, but we've got plenty of need in New Mexico, and it's for scholarships for non credit. We're very, very focused on Santa Fe County and northern New Mexico. There's two community colleges. And we're really looking at the non credit side of the house where people need to get to work quickly. And they don't get the funding to be able to get those credentials. So that's our focus.

Julian: So, in other words, you're paving the way for what the government really needs to be doing.

Jamai: That's right. Exactly. And I think that's the next big thing. Our President of Santa Fe Community College says that our biggest growth is non credit.

Kaitlin: Fascinating conversation. I feel like I have like 20 other questions. I'll go back to the question. So, and you began to mention this, Jamai, some examples of where you're seeing skills based approaches working well. But when you think about skills based approaches to educating, training, hiring, where do you see pockets or areas of success, and especially recognizing that, historically our legacy institutions haven't done this particularly well? Where are you seeing positive innovations in the space and potentially scalable ones?

Jamai: I'm not sure. I mean, the most interesting work to me is what's happening across states, as they're all dropping their degree requirements. And, you know, Byron Auguste is really involved in that. Shannon Block in Colorado is doing amazing work. Most of our work is in Colorado and New Mexico now. So Scott Fast is very involved in all that Colorado work. I think where it falls off is in how are they measuring skills. Just like the office of personnel management at our federal level. I called them twice and they said we'll get right back to you. They actually emailed and said we'll get back to you and they never did. Because I don't think there's an answer. It's like if we're going to do these skills. How do you do it? How do you really create a whole system change? We are doing this. We are launching an effort in Santa Fe. Our city was funded by National League of Cities and DOL for Good Jobs, Great Cities, and I'm on that task force. And we are launching the Go Educate platform, Julian. I know you're familiar with that. And we are launching that with the two northern colleges and we're going to get all the employers to load their jobs based on skills.

Kaitlin: Wow, that's exciting!

Jamai: It is exciting because it's not that big of a region. And then we're going to get all the community coaches loaded and try to map it. Right now, we're just starting it. It's going to take a lot, but I really would like to know who's doing it right and effectively because it's not easy.

Julian: So the question is, what are some practical steps that you believe that folks can take, listeners can take away from this podcast to begin to move in the right direction?

Jamai: First thing that just hit me is the Department of Labor should have a skills-based hiring conference. Why wouldn't they do that? Every concern our Department of Labor has pretty much affects the non-degreed person. So that's my number one. Wouldn't that be great? So that would be my first thing. What the states are doing with policy is great. Now, Shannon Block is another person that would be great to interview around this because she's working neck deep with the businesses in Colorado, and seeing all the technical assistance issues required and channels for the Markle Foundation and Skillful. Hopefully with the NGA [National Governors Association] and the work she's doing, you can really identify where those holes are because I do believe if the Department of Labor could identify some assessment tools that allowed this to occur and created some kind of waivers. You know, I mean, it's going to take some action. It just reminds me so much of when President Obama said we're going to release the Race to the Top and anybody that adopts this curriculum will get a chance at Race to the Top. Everybody adopted the common core, and I'm sitting in our legislature and we had adopted the common core. Nobody even knows how to implement the damn thing, but we adopted it because there was money. Right? So I think the federal government has a real opportunity here to be that bully pulpit. And so that's what I think it's going to take is money, resources, and some real policy. We still have a lot of random acts of skills-based hiring, which is great. I so appreciate it. But, but, you know, it's going to take, I believe, some real real policy change.

Julian: Well, you know, it's interesting because Kaitlin and I just did a piece, an article this past week about about the need for policy at the top to really break down the silos, because it all emanates from the feds, and there's a lot of money there now.

Jamai: It's got to happen at the federal level.

Julian: And otherwise everyone else is kind of fighting the tide, right?

Jamai: That's right. So it's interesting. But I think we're closer to that shift than we have been ever. It's staring us in the face, and all the data's there, and all the reasons are there. Angela Jackson her podcast for Future Forward, which is her organization. I just listened, listened to and it was an amazing podcast on somebody that had been in prison and, you know, is now doing extremely well. And his training and how he got there and how he got that second chance. But I didn't know this. There's a third of people with college degrees, approximately. There's a third of people in our country that have some kind of record. And that includes DWIs. I did ask her that when I spoke to her yesterday. But still, that's a lot of our population that needs a second chance.

Kaitlin: You've covered a lot of ground. As we think about closing out our discussion, we'd love to hear a little bit more about how people can learn about your continued efforts and your work. And we will put all the information that you share in the podcast notes so that people know where to find more info.

Jamai: And you know that the reason I wrote that book is because it really has been my calling for the last 15 years. This has been my calling and my personal and professional journey all combined. And I didn't do it perfectly, but I always had my passion behind it. The book is the entire journey. It is data. It is the stats. And, it does help give scholarships if anyone wants to read it. And we also have a Kindle version, but, but all the data there if you just want to go to the data, that is the journey. Now what we're doing is being really selective on the work we take that we feel is meaningful to say policy in New Mexico and Colorado. Scott wanted to hunker down in his home state. I wanted to hunker down in my home state. Scott was with Accenture for many, many years and brings great, great expertise to our organization. It's going to be so exciting to see what happens in the next decade. And I am so appreciative of you, Julian. I remember over a decade ago when you and I sat in some conference and talked about how much our brains were aligned around this, and how we needed to stay in touch.

Julian: Well, life is full of inflection points and meeting the two of you both about 10 years ago were inflection points for me. It's been great to hear about some of your inflection points, culminating now with the book, and I encourage folks to get a copy. It's been such a pleasure talking with you as always and I look forward to our continued work together.

Jamai: Yeah, thank you and thanks to your listeners for caring about skills and the future of working and learning.

Kaitlin: Thank you so much, Jamai. That's all we have for you today. Thank you for listening to Work Forces. We hope that you take away nuggets that you can use in your own work. Thank you to our producer, Dustin Ramsdale. Work Forces is available on Apple, Amazon, Google and Spotify. Subscribe, like, and share the podcast with your colleagues and friends. If you have interest in sponsoring this podcast, please contact us through the podcast notes.

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