
“The challenge facing the United States today is to rebuild the links among work, opportunity, and economic security for all Americans in the face of accelerating technological change.” – U.S. Council on Foreign Relations
By Alice & Mary Hayes, Workbay
The domain of people who earn below median income—together with those who support them in education, worker retraining, apprenticeships, and local economic initiatives—forms a massively valuable network crucial to everyone’s economic and social future. This network serves approximately 30 million Americans who are underemployed and unemployed, connecting them with government and community resources as well as employer HR teams. An initiative to provide a system of support for people without jobs and jobs without people emerged from Orlando Florida in 2015. This effort evolved from over a decade of experience in delivering occupational training for Fortune 500 companies. The goal was to address the issue of frontline workers losing their credentials when moving between employers. Consequently, a platform was developed to help job-seekers attain, promote, and maintain their credentials pre-hire, during employment, and post-hire, and making these credentials available to employers and economic development agencies across communities.
Hidden Workers Represent a Massive Economic Potential
As an example of this network in action, a trial statewide initiative aims to see 10,000 people who would normally be expected to earn close to minimum wage placed into
employment at least $18/hour (approx. $36K/year) – a better paying job than would be normally expected. This represents a potential $100 million/year economic impact. The technology platform teaches, practices, and assesses skills, matches individuals to employment opportunities, and provides digital support through recruitment, onboarding, and retention. Partnerships with government and community resource partners, chambers of commerce, and employers – both national and local – are vital to this endeavor.
Utilizing AI in Workforce Matchmaking to Overcome Barriers for Low-to-No Income Workers
A few decades ago, nearly all major decisions that impact our lives – employment, mortgages, credit, government services, healthcare – were made by humans. Today, automated systems rank, filter, and make predictions about people, with digital data gathering and tracking becoming routine. Machine Learning (ML), a subset of AI, involves training computer systems to automatically improve their performance on
specific tasks by learning from data and experience, similar to how Netflix and Amazon use ML algorithms to provide personalized recommendations for movies and products. Since 2015, the development of Machine Learning recommendation algorithms has enabled the connecting of people to the best regionally available education and employment opportunities for their skills.
Igniting Workforce Potential
National and international recognition has been given to these efforts by organizations such as the JFF/Schmidt Foundation’s “Billion Dollar Wage Gain Challenge,” the White House’s “Using Technology to Improve Community” symposium, the Retail Opportunity Network, Unreasonable Futures’ “Future of Work,” the Pearson Digital Advisory Network, the National Science Foundation Learning Data Institute, the US Dept Education Future Finder Challenge, and through statewide adoptions and selections for regional initiatives like the EDA Good Job Challenge. By connecting education, workforce development, and employment opportunities through appropriately designed and used technology, there is a promising pathway to rebuild economic security and opportunity for all Americans.
About the Authors
Alice and Mary Hayes, the mother-daughter team behind this initiative, founded their company Workbay in 2015 after over a decade of delivering occupational training for Fortune 500 companies. Together, they have built training programs for 30 Fortune 500 companies across 45 countries in six languages, impacting millions of frontline workers. Recognizing the need for a system to help job-seekers maintain and promote their credentials, they created this platform to support employment opportunities and economic development. Based in Orlando, Florida, Alice and Mary are dedicated to advancing workforce development and leveraging technology to connect untapped talent with meaningful careers, thereby driving economic growth and community improvement.