by Katie Powers
Bakers On A Mission
On Monday, December 4th, students had the privilege of hearing from Greyston Bakery’s VP of Human Capital, Alan Gaynor, as part of the SEI Speaker Series. Alan is classically trained in human resources and has worked for major corporations like American Express and Viacom. Alan is a key player at Greyston, one of the top ten B-Corps in the world, helping to grow its thriving brownie business while inspiring more corporations to adopt its model of inclusivity.
Greyston Bakery is a hybrid social enterprise based in Yonkers, NY with a mission to empower individuals that face barriers to employment. Greyston is in the business of baking and manufacturing about 7 million pounds of brownies to major partners like Ben & Jerry’s, which generates about $18-20 million annually. Greyston ships domestically and internationally, and has grown 100 percent in sales in the last five years. It was named as a key global supplier in Unilever’s Sustainable Living Plan.
Open Hiring – Impact & Challenges
Even though the brownie business is quite lucrative, the sweetest part about Greyston is the Center for Open Hiring, a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit that promotes learning and best practices about Open Hiring, and supports the delivery of community programs for employees and neighbors.
Quite literally, Open Hiring is hiring the next person to walk through the door without judging or asking any questions. It is a more equitable way to employ people from all backgrounds, whether they dropped out of high school, were previously incarcerated, or are homeless — because everyone, regardless of past mistakes or current circumstances, deserves to enjoy the dignity of work.
While Open Hiring may seem to present business challenges, Greyston has yet to have a problem in its 35 years of practice, which is due in part to the variety of community programs in place that help support Greyston employees through training and daily life. Such programs include a child care center for employees, community gardens, workforce development programs, and housing with services tailored towards individuals living with HIV and AIDS.
Open Hiring is not only less expensive than traditional hiring, but also is incredibly impactful. In the United States, 2.3 million people are incarcerated. While about 700,000 are released each year, a shocking two thirds will end up back in prison. The problem is ex-prisoners have limited opportunities to rebuild their lives once they are released. Open Hiring is a way to increase opportunities for employment, which helps to provide a purpose, sense of identity, and a greater level of dignity back into their lives — all while reducing high rates of recidivism.
While Greyston’s Open Hiring model attracts many members of the community, only 20 percent of candidates make it through training. This begs the question as to why so many candidates are slipping through the cracks, and where do they end up? Also, with the brownie business continuing to expand, how can Greyston expand job opportunities to employ a greater number of people from the southwest Yonkers community?
Benchmarking Success
At the talk, several students alluded to an organization called Homeboy Industries — also a hybrid social enterprise — that works exclusively with former gang members and ex-prisoners to provide job skills training and support, with the goal of reducing recidivism. Homeboy Industries has six different businesses where trainees can be employed, including a bakery, grocery, recycling center, cafe, and silkscreen and embroidery shop. Like Greyston, Homeboy Industries also offers several community programs to compliment job training, including tattoo removal, workforce development, education, legal services, and mental health services.
Homeboy Industries serves over 10,000 former gang members and ex-prisoners across Los Angeles, a city known for its gang activity, about half of whom access its social services, while others are enrolled in the 18 month program or take advantage of the Employment Services Department to get jobs elsewhere in the community.
The biggest difference between Homeboy Industries and Greyston (besides the difference in scale), is that unlike Open Hiring, Homeboy Industries looks to hire those with the MOST barriers to employment. This can include youth recently released from juvenile camps and halls, adults recently released from prison, and those with visible tattoos who are trying to leave their gang. Homeboy Industries’ model does not aim to befully inclusive, rather, it aims to meet the needs of this specific population, therefore making it a well-known beacon of hope for the disaffiliated gang member community.
Strengthening its Impact
The new year brings excitement for Greyston, as they are building a new Center for Open Hiring that will be a synergy of corporate engagement, thought leadership, and public policy advocacy. The Center aims to get fifty organizations to adopt Open Hiring by 2020, thereby increasing the scale and depth of Greyston’s impact. However, in order to ensure that they are maximizing their impact, Greyston ought to ensure the robustness of its services and reduce the number of people who are falling through the cracks before promoting its Open Hiring model to others.
Greyston Bakery and Homeboy Industries should share best practices about strengthening their workforce development curriculums or support services in order to best account for trainees who face the most barriers to employment. While Greyston does not necessarily need to limit its services to a specific population, it ought to develop more targeted outreach to ensure that the most at-risk members of the community are next to walk through the door to get hired.
Also, by tailoring its community programs and services to meet the needs of those most in need (like Homeboy Industries does with tattoo removal since its clients are mostly former gang members), Greyston can reduce the number of people that are not able to complete training and thus, have a larger impact in the community. And now with the help of the new Center for Open Hiring, Greyston can make sure that companies adopting its model can have a larger impact too.
