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 brief describes a strategy that helps connect young adults to “now jobs” that address their immediate income needs while continuing to prepare them for long-term career opportunities.

This publication details seven key components of a modernized tuition assistance program, including flexibility, inclusiveness, affordability, and support. This information can be useful to employers seeking to develop or enhance a tuition assistance program and to practitioners who work with businesses to improve worker mobility.

This step-by-step guide by Upskill America, an initiative of the Economic Opportunities Program, and the Institute for Corporate Productivity details the steps to change an organization’s tuition assistance program to a tuition disbursement program, providing financial support for education up-front rather than offering reimbursement after a worker has completed a program. This simple change to the structure of a tuition assistance program has important job quality and equity implications; it can make education and upskilling accessible to workers who are eager to learn but lack access to resources to pay for school. This tool is useful for employers and all practitioners who work with them to strengthen job quality.

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 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.

This brief outlines some key metrics to consider when designing paid family and medical leave programs. These insights are drawn from the National partnership for Women and Families’ research, consultations with organizations that work with low wage workers, and experiences providing technical assistance to advocates and policymakers. The brief focuses on seven main aspects: setting the benefit amount and duration, eligibility requirements to access paid leave, definitions of “employee” and “employer”, definition of “family member”, waiting period before accessing paid leave, job and benefits protection while receiving family and medical leave insurance benefits, and public education and outreach. This resource can be particularly helpful for policymakers, advocates, researchers, and practitioners.

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.