Relationship to KConnect
Cross-Cutting Workgroup: Business Ownership
Success Measure: Thriving Family Income
Approach: Curious. Creative. Courageous.
Elevate: Increasing Upward Mobility
Traditional career planning methods don’t always work, and it can be difficult to access career services. Elevate offers a new approach, collaborating with healthcare and manufacturing employers and community partners to provide data-driven insights and supportive coaching to help you make informed career choices.
Coaches help you understand your interests, explore related careers, and the skills, education, and training required to pursue those careers. Once you successfully complete Elevate, you will be referred to our network of employers who are ready to provide interviews and positions to qualified candidates.
Elevating Careers
- Uncover your unique strengths to guide your career exploration.
- Make informed career decisions using evidence-based coaching and assessments.
- Connect with training providers and funding resources.
- Access resources to remove barriers and stay on track.
- Leverage our network of employers to find employment.
Get Started Today
Contact Marlene Brostrom at MBrostrom@westmiworks.org.
Higher Reach: Skills-Based Hiring
In 2010, Mercy Health (now Trinity Health) in Grand Rapids, Michigan, developed and launched a skills-based hiring process in West Michigan. After hiring 10,000 candidates using the new process, Trinity saw 23% reduction in turnover, 16% reduction in time to fill, and a 100% increase in workforce diversity.
Inspired by the Trinity results, community partners and funders — including the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and Doug & Maria DeVos Foundation — launched HireReach in 2019 to scale the approach to other employers across West Michigan.
Through 2023, HireReach has worked with more than 50 employers of every size and sector, from small nonprofits to global corporations, from higher education to government. It is proven as an off-the-shelf set of tools, expertise and strategies for any organization ready to lead advances in skills-based hiring.
ROI for multiple missions — at scale.
By solving the biggest challenges of skills-based hiring, HireReach provides outstanding ROI for philanthropy, communities, employers and individuals alike:
- Reducing bias and increasing diversity in hiring
- Increasing economic mobility and opportunities for underrepresented populations
- Expanding access to pools of underutilized talent
- Adding efficiency and legal defensibility to hiring practices
- Reducing turnover and cultivating a more engaged workforce
- Creating sustainable, systemic change in hiring practices
A Partnership that Works
Skills-based hiring is increasingly recognized as an effective approach not just to relieve talent shortages, but also to build stronger workforces and more vibrant communities, offer opportunity — and do the right thing. This shift in thinking requires a transformative solution to make it happen. HireReach has found the answer.
Adaptable Everywhere
HireReach has refined a 1:1 consulting approach that can be adopted to any setting. The virtual five-month HireReach Academy provides everything employers need — knowledge, tools, technology, customized support and follow-through — to implement a fair, data-driven process to make better hiring decisions.
Discover the advantages of HireReach. Independent evaluations and participant feedback confirm HireReach has the capability to support any organization ready to advance the implementation of skills-based hiring. Our evidence-based selection model is proven. We have the tools and technology in place. We have a track record of successful implementation and scaling.
Our approach is customizable and responsive. Discover how to leverage our experience and expertise to make skills-based hiring happen.