This story is featured in the Michigan Justice Fund’s 2023 Annual Report.
Headquartered in Lansing, Michigan Works! is deeply integrated into local communities through offices and physical service centers throughout the state, offering access to training and networking activities for Michigan residents and employers.
In 2022, the Michigan Justice Fund awarded a planning grant to Michigan Works! to invest in research on the employment service gaps for returning citizens. Collaborating with Public Policy Associates and MJF grantee Nation Outside, Michigan Works! spearheaded an initiative to enhance the Michigan workforce ecosystem by improving development trainings, programs, and resources to address the unmet needs and concerns of those impacted by incarceration.
Read our interview with Michigan Works! CEO Ryan Hundt to learn more about their impactful work and vision for the future.
Q: Can you provide an overview of the services Michigan Works! provides, specifically those services that are related to impacting and helping returning citizens?
A: Michigan Works! is a demand driven system. By that, we mean that the voices of the employers are important in understanding what the short-term and the long-term talent pipeline needs in a range of occupations and industries are. We still have a dual customer throughout the Michigan Works! network: both the employer and the job seeker. We have 99 physical service centers throughout Michigan, so whether you’re a job seeker or an employer, you have readily available access to workforce development services near you. On the job-seeker side, there are a number of baseline services, from matching individuals to employment opportunities and helping them maintain their unemployment benefits by searching for work in their area to supporting them in exploring career pathways. We serve as a main hub for career navigation in Michigan, connecting people with training opportunities to help them upscale and transition into new roles. Apprenticeships are also a key piece of what we do, and those serve both the employer and the job seeker.
There are many different resources that can be leveraged at the federal and the state level that employers may not always be aware of, so we can help them reduce the overall cost of hiring or retaining or training people through a number of those services. We also work with community partners to make sure that the people they’re bringing on are set up for success. Oftentimes, people may also face complex barriers to employment. Transportation, childcare, housing, and food access come up quite a bit. We work with a range of funding sources and community partners to help individuals overcome those barriers so they can stay in their jobs and hopefully continue to upscale themselves alongside many other available workforce services.
We embarked on this work as part of the planning grant from the Michigan Justice Fund to figure out how disjointed some of those efforts can be. The Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) is involved to a certain extent in workforce development services for formerly and currently incarcerated individuals. There’s some programming coming out of the state’s Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity geared toward formerly incarcerated individuals. We also have some local programs that run workforce reentry services. Over the past couple of years, the Michigan Works! agencies themselves have been instrumental in the expansion of the Clean Slate Initiative throughout Michigan.
Oftentimes, eligible individuals have to interact with the local Michigan Works! agency to help get their records expunged, which gives them an opportunity to get connected with employment opportunities as well. Through this planning grant, we partnered with Nation Outside and Public Policy Associates to do a survey and host focus groups that honed in on the service gaps for formerly incarcerated people and how can we streamline processes so that we’re delivering more effective workforce development in the short and long term while also helping employers understand the importance of hiring individuals from that population. There is still a lot of hesitancy from the employer community on how to employ individuals with a criminal record. We hope to help them understand why that could be important, how it can be a game changer, and why it’s an untapped talent pipeline that is not being serviced effectively.
Q: Were there any key findings in the report that really grabbed your attention?
Nation Outside focused on doing surveys and focus groups with individuals who were formerly incarcerated. They also engaged with 13 out of the 16, Michigan Works! offices, giving them a good sample size of our ecosystem. The feedback was not just about Michigan Works! services, but what the Michigan Works! teams are hearing from businesses in their community as well. The report highlighted four significant barriers for formerly incarcerated people, including their perception that there is limited work available, which speaks to employers being hesitant to hire individuals with a criminal record.
Expunging records to secure job placement continues to be an issue, even with the passing of Clean Slate legislation and automatic expungement. Jonathan Garcia and Tony Gant from Nation Outside said that even with automatic expungement, individuals often aren’t aware that their records are getting expunged. There’s still outreach that needs to be done there.
They listed a number of barriers to employment, not just getting matched with a job, but also housing issues, reliable transportation, obtaining vital documents, and basic needs.
Finally, there’s a lack of job skills. Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) has worked to make vocational villages more of a focal point for workforce development. I think it’s critically important to set people up for success once they are released from prison by building more job skills while they are incarcerated, so that we can put them on a positive path immediately after reentry.
Q: What perspective have you gained from working with Nation Outside in developing this report?
A: I think the most eye-opening piece for me was really seeing the difficulties faced by formerly incarcerated people in navigating so many complex systems, even those within workforce development. It’s not just about matching people with a friendly employer who understands the hiring process and why that’s important. It’s also about meeting those individuals where they are. It’s about being able to assist them with technology training so that they know how to use a computer or a cell phone and develop basic skills to get them matched with a job quicker. That means we need more in-reach resources developed and implemented so we can offer specialized workforce development services instead of assuming that our general workforce development resources for any job seeker fit the bill for formerly incarcerated individuals. Having a deeper knowledge of the complex systems that are in place at all times, in a way intentionally serving as a barrier, was very eye opening for me. Can we remove those barriers and provide effective workforce services to these individuals? That’s the question we have to answer now.
Q: Why do you believe employers are hesitant about hiring formerly incarcerated individuals, and why their hesitancy is unwarranted?
Everybody deserves a second chance. Oftentimes, when we hear from employers that do have a strategy around bringing in targeted populations like formerly incarcerated individuals, they are frequently the employees that have the highest retention rates. Their formerly incarcerated employees are showing up early and willing to work overtime. They understand that this is a unique opportunity for them to have a second chance here in society, so they’re not going to squander that opportunity.
It can be difficult for employers to embrace what is unfamiliar. That’s not just with formerly incarcerated individuals. We see it with the immigrant and refugee population. We see this with individuals with disabilities. There’s a lack of familiarity, and employers feel like they will need to make accommodations or change the company culture to bring these individuals on. And whether that is the case or not, companies that take that leap of faith to invest in this particular talent acquisition strategy often end up earning dividends in terms of talent retention and upscaling further down the road. Most of all, I think there’s a lack of understanding of the process and the importance of tapping into those unique populations. That’s where Michigan Works!, Nation Outside, and other entities can step in to create awareness around formerly incarcerated individuals and workforce reentry and help employers become more familiar.
Q: What do you think employers need to hear or see to be open to the possibility of hiring someone with an incarcerated past?
I think they need anecdotal success stories from companies that have made that investment. Oftentimes, companies don’t want to be the first ones that go about hiring an individual with a justice-impacted background. But if they see other companies, especially in similar industries or occupation sets that have made those investments, that helps. It’s not just the State of Michigan or the public workforce system saying this is important. There are real companies, colleagues in the private sector that have made that investment. That type of marketing outreach and communication to them will hopefully open their eyes more than us continuing to tell them why this is a good idea.
Q: How can companies develop best practices for supporting returning citizens in their workplace?
The best thing companies can do is establish relationships with entities that focus on workforce reentry services. Ideally, that would be local Michigan nonprofits in the field, such as Nation Outside, that can help them understand the benefits, walk them through what that process looks like for onboarding, and make sure that they create cultures within their companies that are not resistant to change or to people with certain backgrounds. Companies often cannot make that effort on their own — they have to establish relationships with subject-matter experts. There isn’t a ton of investment that takes place in building those relationships other than investing time. Reaching out to an organization or community partner that focuses on reentry services doesn’t create a financial burden. Starting there and building from that initial success will have a significant return on investment in the long run.
Q: When you think about the future, what opportunities for growth do you see?
One thing that we can do in the Michigan workforce system is to increase staff sensitivity training on how to effectively address the needs and the barriers for formerly incarcerated individuals to get them on a path to successful employment. It may not be matching them with a job today, but it could be addressing other barriers so that we can successfully match them with a job tomorrow.
One thing we can do on the employer side through the Michigan Works! system is create a felony-friendly employer list, which was recommended in the report. Having a list of employers who have made investments in the past and understand the importance of hiring these individuals would go a long way. In addition, developing job preparation courses offer an opportunity to address the technological challenges of applying for employment. Some people have been incarcerated for 15 or 20 years. Consider how much the world has changed in just the last three or four years — much less the past 15 or 20. Investing in technology preparation and vocational training for individuals are all opportunities for the workforce system to assist in addressing barriers and providing support to those individuals.
Q: Is there anything you want us to know about Michigan Works!, the work, how you support this community?
I think there is a willingness in this workforce system to learn from this report and its findings — whether positive or negative. There is also a willingness to continue working with the Michigan Justice Fund, and organizations like Nation Outside, so that we can better and more effectively address the needs of formerly incarcerated individuals.
To learn more about Michigan Works!, CLICK HERE.