WORC’s CEO, Dr. Ellen G. Frank-Miller, speaks at Aspen Institute’s Economic Opportunities Program Webinar
WORC’s Founder and CEO, Dr. Ellen G. Frank-Miller, spoke on a panel of experts about challenges and strategies for engaging and supporting positive economic outcomes for employees at large companies.
The webinar, titled “Big Impact, Big Challenges: Lessons from Collaborating with Large Businesses to Improve Job Quality,” was hosted by the Aspen Institute, whose Economic Opportunity Program advances “strategies, policies, and ideas that catalyze the change needed to build an inclusive economy.”
“Big Impact, Big Changes” dives into one of the pillars of American society: how work is designed, and how that can function for rather than against employees within large corporations. Alongside the other panelists and Moderator and Director of Job Quality and Worker Well-Being, Matt Helmer, Dr. Frank-Miller explored how to shift corporate culture from treating workers and labor as “a cost to be minimized” to “an asset to be maximized.”
In working with large corporations to adopt job-quality innovations, Dr. Frank-Miller highlights three key factors that are often not immediately obvious, but can make all the difference:
Big companies are complex operations with many stakeholders involved in decision-making processes. While one division, or even one individual, may be excited about the job quality initiative being proposed, job quality advocates must build consensus across many operational areas to get to yes.
Partnerships between large corporations and job quality service providers flourish not only with shared goals, but crucially with incentive alignment. A strong business case alone isn’t enough to move large corporations to shift operations. Job quality initiatives must be aligned with strategic business priorities to move forward successfully.
Timing matters. Sometimes, a proposal can be the right thing at the wrong time depending on what else the company is dealing with. The sales cycle is long and persistence is the only pathway to change adoption.
To hear Dr. Frank-Miller’s take on working with large corporations to adopt job quality initiatives, watch this snippet from the webinar here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQg-hNL2PcY
For more from Dr. Frank-Miller and the expert panel, watch the full webinar here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7d8Tcd5gfc
