WASHINGTON, April 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/
-- Opportunity@Work today announced plans to establish a Tech
for Good partnership with Workday, Inc. (NASDAQ: WDAY), a leader in
enterprise cloud applications for finance and human resources.
The first-of-its-kind partnership looks to leverage Workday's
skills cloud to support Opportunity@Work's marketplace, which will
help match STARs – workers in the U.S. who don't have four-year
degrees but are Skilled Through Alternative Routes – with employers
in need of their skills, allowing them to work, learn, and earn to
their full potential.
There are currently 71 million STARs in the U.S.
today.1 Based on their work experience, roughly 30
million STARs already have skills that qualify them for
better-paying roles within their geography2, but lack a
way to 'signal' those skills to employers. By looking to leverage
Workday's skills cloud – a machine learning-powered universal
skills ontology that helps refine, understand, and relate job
skills data – Opportunity@Work will be able to explore how its
marketplace can best support job-seeking STARs and employers
through skills matching.
"We are delighted to partner with a market-leading innovator
like Workday as we prepare to launch this brand-new hiring platform
focused on STARs," said Byron
Auguste, CEO of Opportunity@Work. "As the U.S. labor market
is disrupted by the unprecedented shocks due to COVID-19, employers
face a fork in the road. Do they react to a surge of job
applications by retreating to the old 'pedigree'-based screening,
or will they be inspired by what we're seeing in this crisis: the
adaptability, resourcefulness, and evident talent of so many
'essential' workers who are STARs? Exploring applications of
Workday's skills cloud will help Opportunity@Work enable the latter
path so we can accelerate the day when businesses can easily find
and hire STARs; support more effective training programs to scale
up successfully; and get millions of STARs into higher-wage
work."
"The world of work is changing, and the recent uncertainties
we've seen surface in the wake of COVID-19 have underscored the
importance of enabling agility across the entire U.S. workforce,"
said Jim Shaughnessy, executive vice
president of Corporate Affairs, Workday. "As a company with deep
roots in talent management, we know one of the most effective ways
to do this is through skills-based hiring, which puts more workers
on the path to higher earnings so they can realize their full
potential. At Workday – where innovation is a core value, and we
share a common goal of creating meaningful employment opportunities
for all – we're honored to further these commitments, this
in-partnership opportunity with Opportunity@Work."
By streamlining and improving the matching process to more
accurately reflect skills and readiness, Opportunity@Work's
marketplace for STARs will enable businesses to meet their talent
needs by hiring STARs, while also opening up a wide variety
of career pathways to higher earning for STARs across the country.
Opportunity@Work's marketplace for STARs will be made available in
the greater Washington, D.C. area
this spring, and Opportunity@Work will extend access to its
marketplace for STARs to San Diego,
Calif. this summer, with plans to expand to several markets
across the U.S. over the next few years.
"STARs represent a massive pool of talent – all too often
overlooked by employers," said Auguste. "Our rigorous research
demonstrates that low-wage work is wrongly equated with low skills
of a worker, and the lack of a degree is wrongly presumed
synonymous with a lack of skills. By teaming up with world-class
partners like Workday, we can rewire this dysfunctional feature of
our labor market to ensure that STARs' lifelong learning can lead
to higher earnings, as they are rewarded for the skills they have
and the performance they deliver – rather than excluded for the
degree they lack."
Opportunity@Work is a 501(c)3 nonprofit
organization uniting companies, workforce development partners, and
philanthropists in a movement to increase career opportunities for
the more than 71 million adults in the U.S. who do not have a
four-year college degree but are Skilled Through Alternative Routes
- or, as we call them, "STARs."
For the latest Opportunity@Work news and
information, visit the Opportunity@Work Media
Center.
1, 2Reach for the STARs: Realizing the Potential
of America's Hidden Talent Pool," Opportunity@Work,
March 2020
View original content to download
multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/opportunitywork-announces-tech-for-good-partnership-with-workday-to-help-improve-economic-mobility-for-workers-301040649.html
SOURCE Opportunity@Work