“As an impact fund deeply committed to quality jobs with our Gainful Jobs Approach™, HCAP leveraged Ellen’s expertise to further strengthen our impact diligence. I was impressed with Ellen and the WORC team’s analysis which tied actionable goals for improving job quality to evidence-based KPIs. WORC’s Worthwhile Jobs Framework™ provides an approachable methodology and meaningful set of tools for other impact investing funds and organizations that believe investing in human capital is critical to business success.”

Bhairvee Shavdia, Principal, HCAP

“WORC helps their partners understand that workplace equity and quality jobs are intersectional. Quality jobs cannot exist without using an equity lens, and equity cannot be achieved where bad jobs persist—and WORC’s expertise is key to rectifying that situation.”

Arlene Koth, OPC Consulting, Workplace Equity Expert

“We have always looked to engage our workforce and what that engagement looks like is changing. As the next generations move into positions of execution and responsibility, we can’t just ask for what the company needs and what we think associates want. We need to focus on what value they are seeking to derive from the work/life experience. Ellen Frank-Miller and her team at WORC and CCAT first evaluated our systems and business imperative – employee engagement to enable success of strategy. They then applied their decades of broad evidence base (that defines what people are looking for and how to create systems to provide it) to design a phased plan to identify our specific needs (by asking associates what they want), create processes in support of that context, and the ability to systematically measure our success as we move through this journey. I will continue to seek support from WORC, and advocate for the concept that engaged people should be able to determine how they work and how they are made whole for what they do.”

Milton Ives, Operations Leader

"WORC's unique combination of rigorous research expertise and understanding of businesses and people operations was exactly what we needed for our highly-complex project. Getting five large employers to collaborate effectively and engage in research to figure out how to develop career pathways for lower-level workers in healthcare is no small feat - I don't think typical academics or typical consultants could do what WORC is doing for us."

April Harrington, Project Manager, Chicagoland Healthcare Workforce Collaborative

"The expertise Ellen and the team at WORC brought to our evaluation efforts have been invaluable. Not only are they helping us build qualitative data analysis capacity inside our organization, but this is giving our support staff a much clearer sense of the direct engagement work we do and its impact. We're learning so much from this process, allowing us to iterate and improve our coaching services to small business owners and their teams."

Jen Gresham, Executive Director, Work for Humanity

“Ellen and her team have been instrumental in supporting our partners' efforts to build capacity to evaluate complex job quality initiatives. Ellen's disciplined and rigorous approach to applied research is accessible to players with varying levels of understanding of evaluation.”

Michelle Wilson, EdD, Program Evaluation Expert

“WORC has been incredibly effective at collaborating with us and our employer partners. Ellen has an amazing way of making evaluation easy to understand and implement – and has helped our organizations demonstrate the impact improving their lower-wage jobs had on key indicators such as employee satisfaction and retention, costs of turnover, and quality of care. Having WORC's expertise and their ability to make meaningful evaluation accessible has helped us build our capacity as an organization.”

Hope Arthur, Workforce Innovation Leader