This playbook from UpSkill America, an initiative of the Economic Opportunities Program, is designed to highlight examples of employers investing in upskilling strategies to support worker advancement and business competitiveness. This playbook has relevance for employers interested in adopting training and education strategies or for practitioners advising businesses to invest in their workers.

This guide outlines steps to create and implement an employee financial health strategy. When paired with adequate compensation, these services can support workers to save. We recommend turning to page 21 for an actionable, 7-step approach to developing a strategy. This resource also explains the need and business case for supporting worker’ financial stability, with helpful data indicating the impact of financial instability on worker productivity, morale, attendance, turnover, and health, as well as guidance on available financial products to consider. This tool has application for businesses and for practitioners that engage employers to support workers.

This toolkit includes a primer to workplace financial wellness services, questions to consider when exploring these services, and employer experiences with provision of these services. These supports can contribute to job quality when paired with adequate compensation by helping employees manage finances and build assets. This resource includes descriptions of common services, such as financial counseling and coaching, debt management, savings products, and online financial management tools. This tool is most useful for businesses interested in adding or expanding financial wellness benefits. Partners could also share this tool with businesses or could use it to strengthen their own organizations’ financial wellness supports.

This toolkit provides leaders in the restaurant industry with practical resources for assessing, planning, and implementing steps to embed racial equity in workplace practices. Through partnerships with two restaurants, the toolkit highlights skills and tools critical to supporting restaurants on their racial equity journey and provides tangible examples to support implementation. This toolkit can help employers and their partners identify where racial bias may be operating in a restaurant’s policies and practices and implement solutions.

New ways of developing skills, expanding access to jobs, and encouraging the creation of quality jobs are critical for building an economy that works for everyone, including businesses, workers, and communities. To accelerate such strategies, we are pleased to announce the release of the Communities that Work Partnership Playbook. The Playbook emerges from the Communities that Work Partnership, jointly launched by AspenWSI, FutureWorks, and the US Economic Development Administration in April 2015. Since then, the initiative has documented and accelerated the development of employer-led regional workforce partnerships across the country. Seven regional teams — composed of leaders from diverse sectors in Buffalo, New York; Phoenix, Arizona; Houston, Texas; the San Francisco Bay area in California; northwest Georgia; New York City; and Washington, DC — engaged in a learning exchange focused on strengthening local talent pipelines and improving access to quality employment. The Communities that Work Partnership Playbook, published by AspenWSI and FutureWorks, highlights key takeaways from the seven regional teams’ work. The “plays” describe strategies that will be useful for those creating talent development approaches that leverage knowledge, capacity, and resources of not only education, workforce, and economic development partners, but also business partners.

Central to effective employee ownership is active, genuine engagement of employees in workplace decision making. This guide from the Democracy at Work Institute provides an overview of the pillars that cooperatives should center when framing an engagement plan. Brief examples are provided, as well as links to further information.

This visual guide illustrates how different forms of ownership are structured. The resource focuses on two primary approaches to employee ownership: worker cooperatives and employee stock ownership plans. Using diagrams, the resource compares employee ownership structures to conventional, privately held companies. The guide also includes a visual depiction of potential benefits of business ownership for worker owners related to factors including profitability and decision-making. Topics mentioned include profits, governance, management, and types of control. Employers, policymakers and stakeholders working with businesses or workers interested in employee ownership may find this brief, visual guide useful in understanding employee ownership structures and their potential benefits.

This is a framework for helping business owners understand three main ways to transition a business to employee ownership: worker cooperatives, employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), and management buy-outs. This tool may also be used by practitioners who work with businesses — especially small businesses — to increase awareness of employee ownership as a tool for transitioning businesses as owners retire. It can also help inform employees seeking to join or push for values-based workplaces.

The Racial Equity Toolkit provides a process and set of questions designed to analyze how policies, initiatives, programs, and budget issues benefit or burden communities of color. The toolkit can be used to guide the development, implementation, and evaluation of strategies and solicit input from community members and staff. Although the toolkit includes some information specific to the City of Seattle, it can be adapted by a range of stakeholders within and beyond local governments interested in centering racial equity in job quality strategies. This page includes the Racial Equity Toolkit alongside other resources from the Seattle Race and Social Justice Initative.

This topline organizational self-assessment can be used to measure staff competencies and awareness of racial inequities in your organization. The assessment includes questions related to competencies as well as organizational operations. The resulting racial equity score corresponds to potential next steps and tools that can help support your organization wherever you may be on your racial equity journey.