Joe Watson: Is it cynical to say that it’s not enough for businesses to adopt fair chance hiring for the social benefits? Does there have to be an impact on the bottom line?

Jeffrey Korzenik: I don’t consider it cynical at all. I consider it practical that businesses adopt practices that make them more profitable. If businesses want to support an act of charity, they typically write a check or maybe do some volunteering, but they can only afford to hire people who can contribute to the value of their enterprise. So, the pragmatic aspect of this is that, with 19 million Americans having felony convictions and tens of millions more with misdemeanors, there’s no way we could possibly scale this hiring unless it’s profitable, right?

A large business with a hundred thousand employees might hire one or two people with a conviction history as an act of charity, but we need a lot more than that if we’re going to resolve this issue. So, we have to make the case that this is better for business. And that fundamental benefit is that you can find good employees among this population, with the caveat that you have to do it the right way.

JW: So, what is the right way?

JK: You have to apply a traditional talent model–find good people who’d be a good fit–and then you need a process for making sure you are giving those employees the opportunity to thrive. And the challenge is that the model you need, the process you need for this population, tends to be different than your traditional talent models. It’s completely doable, but different.

There’s a learning process, one that organizations across the country like Arouet can teach. There’s a lot that has to go on to do this the right way. And the trade-off for this investment of time and effort is that, provided you do it the right way, you bring on people who are of good character and want to prove that they are more than their worst mistake. So, you tend to get employees who are very engaged and very loyal, which is absolutely a recipe for profitability.

JW: What Arouet does really speaks to this. They work with so many people coming out of prison who know what a struggle re-entry is, and Arouet prepares them to handle that struggle, to be resilient. And when they are finally provided that opportunity to start over or to build a career, their commitment and dedication are simply unquestionable.

JK: That’s right. There is a message of despair that circulates throughout prisons, and it perpetuates a certain hopelessness. I have met so many people who told me that they went away at age 18 or 19, I’m sure like so many of the people Arouet helps, who thought their life was over. No 18-year-old in our country should think their life is over.

So, it has been important to me to at least get Untapped Talent behind bars for symbolic reasons, at least to send that message. And, you may have noticed that the very first part of the book—I’m sure this makes it unique among business books—is a note to the currently incarcerated. Nothing Pollyannish. It’s just like, “Hey, you should know, people are out there who consider you a person of value and contribution. Do your best to take advantage of that.”

JW: What do you hear from corporations or small businesses who have read your book and adopted fair chance practices?

JK: You know, l’ll never know just how many companies have adopted fair chance practices as a result of the book, but I get the occasional email from a small business owner telling me they read Untapped Talent, and they have comments or questions. I got a lovely one from a woman in Milwaukee who was starting a business. She heard about my work and she said, “Will you talk to me?” And I said, “I’m happy to talk to you, but I ask that you read the book first.” Because I’m just running out of time. I’ve got a pretty full day job, plus this. And she wrote back later and said, “I read the book, I got it. Don’t need to talk. I’m about to make my first hire.” (Laughs)

I saw her later on LinkedIn. There was a TV news show that highlighted this employee she’d hired, and what a great employee! So, you know, mission accomplished! But I speak in front of thousands of business owners every day. I like to think I change a lot of minds, but even when you change a mind, you don’t know where it leads. So, I will never know all the stories, all the companies that have changed their hiring practices for the better. And I’m okay with that. I think I have enough anecdotal evidence that I’m making a difference, so I’ll keep going.

JW: So many of the folks I know who have gotten out of prison or had a conviction in the past few years tell me that they aren’t necessarily having a hard time finding a company that will hire them. What they’re having a hard time finding is a job that pays a living wage and that’s impactful. Why?

JK: So, the term that we economists use is economic mobility. From a macroeconomic standpoint, we want that because we want people to contribute as much as they can to the economy. When people have the ability to move to jobs that are higher paying and higher calling, we tend to see productivity growth, which is a key component of economic growth. The challenge for people who have a conviction, particularly a felony conviction, is that the employers of higher-skilled jobs and higher-wage jobs are very often the ones who do not have good pathways for people with records. Because, in the past, they haven’t had to, right? When we had a surplus labor market, they had their pick of the talent. That was an easy fit, at least in their minds. Well, now we don’t have that surplus. They have to find talent elsewhere, but it involves changing their process. And change is hard.

JW: There’s this institutionalized thinking for both job seekers who have a conviction history and employers that background checks just have to be done, that barriers should exist for people with a conviction history.

JK: Yeah, I mean, you really have to get employers in particular to just pause and think. I had dinner the other night with a wonderful friend, Ken Oliver, the head of the Checkr Foundation. And as we were talking, Ken asked me if CEOs aren’t going do it, what’s their plan? How do you make the world safe and cities safe if you’re not integrating more inclusive hiring practices? And, my answer is that CEOs are immunized from this, right? You can live in a gated community and if you’re a CEO, you’re probably well compensated, and you don’t have to be touched by any of these problems. So, it is incumbent, I think, on the reform community to help CEOs understand that this is a business issue and one that will help their individual businesses and help the broader economy, because they are not going to feel some of the issues in other ways.

And that’s not anything negative against CEOs. That’s just the reality. A lot of people in the justice reform community have not led sheltered lives. They have been exposed to crime, to violence, abuse, addiction issues. But a lot of business decision makers, particularly business leaders, have been sheltered from that. And often, when you dig down and you talk to CEOs who have not had sheltered lives, those are the ones who tend to get it a lot more easily. Which is great, but we have to recognize that a lot haven’t had that exposure. And, I’ll credit my dad a little bit with this, because he deliberately chose to live within the city limits, not in the suburbs. That was a choice he made. We were exposed to this stuff in ways that people who lived even a few blocks away were not.

Because I cross both lines, because my work has brought me a lot more into contact with people who are formerly incarcerated, who’ve had upbringings filled with abuse and violence and addiction issues, I haven’t been sheltered. But also, you know, I belong to two yacht clubs. (Laughs) I went to a prep school. I went to an Ivy League school. So, my life is enriched by having all this diversity of experience and exposure. But I also can see how these two sides, without malice, can come to just not understand each other.

JW: Well, congratulations on the yacht clubs!

JK: Yeah, thanks! (Laughs) It’s basically just paying an initiation fee and keeping that up. Not much to it, thankfully.