It’s Been One Year Since the Economic Shutdown. What Have We Learned Since?

In March 2020, the pandemic changed the labor market for all — how can we change it now for STARs?

At Opportunity@Work, we believe that talent is equally distributed across communities, but opportunity is not. We observe unwarranted exclusion causing skills gaps, not the reverse. We know “low-wage” does not equal “low-skill” and skills matter however they’re gained.

Now we have the receipts.

Last March, Opportunity@Work and Accenture released Reach for the STARs, a report that measures the skills of workers who are Skilled Through Alternative Routes (STARs); such as community college, workforce training, bootcamps, certificate programs, military service, or on-the-job learning, rather than through a college degree. Our report and corresponding NBER academic paper found that of the 70 million+ STARs in the U.S., 5 million are already in high-wage jobs, and 30 million more demonstrate skills suited for roles earning at least 50% more. If employers find effective ways to value, signal, and seek STARs, STARs are the answer to much of the “skills gap” employers fear.

It was a monumental day, but a tough pandemic year had already started. The day after releasing these reports, Opportunity@Work’s team left our offices; we’ve been working remotely ever since.

But we have been working.

Inspired by the heroism and adaptability of millions of essential workers (two-thirds of whom are STARs), we were determined to do our part to avoid a K-shaped recovery which left STARs behind.

A year later, as 2021 begins to show light at the end of the pandemic tunnel, I’m writing to share what Opportunity@Work and our partners have done this last year — and what’s next.

Despite the dramatic drop in hiring, we launched the Stellarworx platform beta test to #HireSTARs in the Washington D.C. region and Los Angeles, and integrated with Workday’s skills cloud to facilitate better matching. These platforms helped employers hire STARs, like Sikeetheya Hudley, from quality training programs such as Merit America, Per Scholas, and Year Up into better-paid jobs and careers.

2020 was not finished with tragedy. The unjust killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and other Black Americans brought into sharp relief the extent to which Black lives are shaped by systemic inequities.

As Opportunity@Work COO Shad Ahmed and Harvard Professor Peter Blair wrote in the Wall Street Journal, “Nonessential degree requirements aren’t race-neutral” — in fact, they screen out over 6 million Black STARs despite their skills. And last year, new corporate coalitions emerged promising to tackle such disparities, such as OneTen and the Business Roundtable’s Multiple Pathways Initiative.

By April 2020, Opportunity@Work — partnering with IDEO, Cognizant, Mastercard, and Walmart — rallied 14 mission-aligned companies and leading workforce organizations to continue the momentum for STARs’ upward mobility. Since then, we’ve partnered through our STARs Collective and STARs Innovation Studio, which employs a learn-by-doing, cross-sector approach to remove barriers and create pathways.

We finished 2020 releasing Navigating with the STARs, which analyzed 130 million job transitions to discover the pathways by which STARs rise, the barriers they faced, and how these realities differed for STARs of different races and genders. In parallel, we launched a STARs Research Community to use these new datasets to deepen awareness, analysis, and effective action.

Despite initial fears that the pandemic job market could set back inclusive hiring and re-privilege pedigree, the shift to skills-based hiring and recognizing STARs talents among leading businesses and policymakers is building momentum, as captured in a New York Times article citing Opportunity@Work.

Opportunity@Work’s impact is made possible through partnership with many organizations. Our philanthropic partners have expanded their support, including new grants by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Cognizant U.S. Foundation, Comcast NBCUniversal, Google.org, the Irvine Foundation, Walmart, the Workday Foundation, and WorkRise.

What’s next? We’re accelerating our pace by:

Enabling STARs Hiring at Scale: This month, we brought LaborX into the Opportunity@Work family. We’ll combine its best features with those of Stellarworx to help companies hire STARs, and further integrate with commercial talent platforms.

Establishing STARs as a talent category: Employers investing dollars and technology to “screen out” STARs are committing self-harm, but many don’t know it, or haven’t found the right ways to “screen in” STARs. But, smart companies are realizing that STARs are an essential talent pool. Opportunity@Work and our partners will deepen understanding through our STARs Insights Initiative and the STARs Research Community. Together we will co-create better tools for companies and rally an ecosystem around STARs. And we will unlock new opportunities for STARs by understanding and leveraging the small- and medium-sized business (SMB) ecosystem for STARs.

Equitable recovery in regional ecosystems: Many cities, states, and regions aim to rebuild their post-Covid job market more equitably. Opportunity@Work and our partners enable a demand-driven approach for employers and regional ecosystems to tap into STARs talent. We’ll deploy our combined assets to support partners in Greater Washington D.C. and Los Angeles, with new regions to be announced in 2021 and beyond.

Walking our own talk: Opportunity@Work has never “screened out” for degrees. In 2021, we are placing STARs even more at the center of our work, particularly to help drive our design priorities:

• I’m pleased to share that LaShana Lewis — who has served as an advisor to me and Opportunity@Work over the years — is chairing our new STARs Advisory Council, a board of STARs that will serve as partners to guide our work.
• STARs Innovation Studio projects, co-led with IDEO, will be designed and prototyped with (compensated) members of our STARs Fellows program. For example, a current “Alumni Services” design project is working with a cohort of STARs from Per Scholas.
• Currently, 20% of our Opportunity@Work team are STARs, including our Head of People. We’ll continue to innovate in STARs sourcing and hiring, and strengthen our own skills-based management practices to be a prized destination for talent of all backgrounds.

As we’ve all seen so vividly in these extremely challenging last 12 months, STARs show up for our economy every day to work, learn, earn, and contribute in essential ways. I’m proud to say Opportunity@Work and our partners did show up for STARs last year, and will in 2021.

We’ve seen hopeful changes in direction. Not too soon. We need all talents to rebuild better.

Ad Astra,

Byron Auguste

CEO & Co-Founder of Opportunity@Work