Hospitality ranks among America’s fastest-growing sectors, but millions of hotel workers are not reaping the rewards. Boston Education, Skills & Training (BEST) Corp. is solving this problem by providing best-in-class training that prepares workers to excel and engages hotels in discussions about the value of training. BEST was founded in 2004 as a nonprofit workforce development program focused on helping individuals develop skills and find good jobs in Boston’s hospitality industry. BEST serves nearly 500 job seekers and hotel workers each year, with training in English, computer skills, culinary skills, and industry-specific certifications like food safety. Through career coaching, BEST helps participants secure quality jobs and provides hotels with the skilled talent to thrive in an increasingly competitive industry. As the third prong of a productive labor-management partnership, BEST works closely with Local 26, the hospitality worker’s union, and its high road hotel employers. These 35 hotels pay a starting hourly wage as high as $21.43 to BEST graduates, and provide a generous benefits package, which includes career advancement training through BEST. BEST’s model programs benefit workers, hotels, and Boston’s regional economy by placing engaged employees in stable jobs. BEST reaches the working poor – particularly immigrants and people of color – and provides them with the opportunity to obtain a quality job and enter the middle class. Hotel partners report that BEST-trained workers bring the critical thinking skills and cultural competency to perform better with decreased turnover, contributing to stronger financial performance. The Aspen Institute’s interview with Alex Pratt, Area Director of Human Resources at Omni Hotels & Resorts, speaks to BEST’s vital role in preparing top talent and enabling operational excellence. The Aspen Institute recently caught up with Marie Downey, the founding Executive Director of BEST, and Joan Abbot, BEST’s Assistant Director, to learn more about how BEST partners with high road employers to prepare workers to excel in quality jobs.

In July 2017, the Aspen Institute convened its second annual Economic Security Summit, “Reconnecting Work and Wealth: Constructing a New American Middle Class.” Where a cross-section of leaders from industry, academia, philanthropy, government, and nonprofit organizations grappled with how to restore widespread economic prosperity to families and communities all across America. This report captures the ideas that emerged as participants debated factors contributing to the growing economic divide, what inequality means for our democracy, and potential opportunities to strengthen family economic security and upward mobility in the 21st century.

This case study of a company in Milwaukee is part of an Equity in Apprenticeship series highlighting programs that use apprenticeship to extend career opportunities to historically marginalized groups. Employers and practitioners can glean lessons related to achieving equitable outcomes through apprenticeship programs.

This report details the findings of a stable scheduling study conducted at Gap stores by an interdisciplinary team of academics. During the pilot study, stores in San Francisco and Chicago implemented stable scheduling practices, including two-week advance notice, elimination of on-call scheduling, tech-enabled shift swapping, and targeted additional staffing. Findings included a 7% increase in median sales and 5% increase in labor productivity at treatment stores. This study’s findings help to demonstrate the potential business benefits of stable scheduling.

This policy brief is designed to inform the development of paid family and medical leave policies that can reduce inequalities for workers. It provides guidance on specific elements of paid leave policies such as ideal duration, eligibility requirements, and outreach strategies. While the primary audience for this tool is policymakers, it could also be useful for businesses who are crafting or re-shaping their paid leave policies or for providers advising businesses and policymakers.

In recent decades, workers’ paychecks have remained stagnant, despite increases in productivity. At the same time, returns to wealth have increased. Strategies that transform workers into owners, such as employee share ownership strategies, have the potential to give working people a stake in our growing economy and include them in the nation’s prosperity. With employee share ownership strategies, employees may hold a majority of shares as participants in an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP), be members of a worker cooperative, or have a meaningful stake in a public company or start-up. Business leaders often emphasize the value of employee engagement, and many have found that these strategies contribute to higher levels of worker engagement, relative to that of peer companies. In this event, panelists discuss how employee share ownership strategies help workers to share in the success of their companies, while promoting business success.

In the coming decades, the success of the US economy will become increasingly tied to the success of Latino Americans. With 58 million Latinos in the US today and projections of population growth in the years to come, Latino workers, consumers, and business owners will shape the present and future of the US economy. How can we secure economic stability and mobility for Latino workers, families, and communities? What policies, practices, or strategies could help to improve job quality, increase skills and access to high-quality jobs, and expand business ownership opportunities?

The Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program (EOP) and the Latinos and Society Program (AILAS) invite you to watch “Drivers of Opportunity: How Will Latinos Shape the Future of the American Dream?”

Out of sight and out of mind for most of us, at least 1 million farmworkers (estimates vary) in the US harvest tomatoes, strawberries, melons, oranges, and more. These workers endure strenuous working conditions, low pay, long hours, and all-too-frequent abuse, mistreatment, and exposure to chemical and other hazards.

In Florida’s tomato fields, a group of farmworkers came together to improve their working conditions. They formed the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and won industry agreements to the Fair Food Program, a partnership of farmers, farmworkers, and retail food companies that ensure humane wages and working conditions at participating farms. In her new book, I Am Not a Tractor! How Florida Farmworkers Took on the Fast Food Giants and Won, Susan Marquis tells the story of the Coalition and draws implications for other industries. This event featured a discussion of the book, the Fair Food Program, and the potential for worker-driven social responsibility strategies to improve job quality throughout the nation and world.

Headlines warn that changes in retail will lead to disruptive job loss for frontline workers such as cashiers, salespersons, stock clerks, and order fillers. But there may be more to the story. New technologies, the rise of ecommerce, and shifting business strategies, marketing approaches, and customer expectations are altering the way businesses sell, customers shop, and employees work. How will these changes influence retail businesses’ employment practices and the shape of retail jobs? Will the response to these changes vary across segments of the retail industry, whether companies are publicly traded or privately held, small or large, brick-and-mortar or online, or local or multinational? What are the opportunities to create new jobs with potentially more productive, meaningful, and rewarding work?

We invite you to watch What’s in Store: The Future of Work in Retail, a panel discussion on these questions as part of the Economic Opportunities Program‘s Working in America event series.

We like to think that the US labor market is a meritocracy — that people who work hard will attain good jobs, climb the career ladder, or start and grow businesses. The experience of Black Americans, however, raises questions about whether the reality lines up with the ideal. The unemployment rate among Black Americans is roughly double that of White Americans, and Black college graduates are roughly twice as likely to be unemployed as White college graduates. Over the past three decades, Black workers have attained higher levels of education and experience, but have not seen a commensurate increases in earnings, benefits, and economic standing. In this event, panelists discuss how we understand the experience of Black workers in the US, and what it tells us about working in America today.