Justice Champion Spotlight: Ken Oliver and Checkr.org

What is Checkr.org? 

Checkr.org is Checkr’s Corporate Foundation and philanthropic arm.  Checkr’s corporate mission is a “fairer future of work for all” and recently took the 1% pledge to deploy resources and maximize its impact in Fair Chance hiring.

What led you to become an advocate for second chances? 

As a proximate leader who has been directly impacted by the criminal justice system, I know how important it is for those impacted by mass incarceration to be provided the chance to rebuild their lives, their families, and ultimately their communities.  As a result, I've dedicated my life to building bridges from marginalisation and second class citizenship to second chances, inclusion, and economic opportunity .

Why is it more important than ever that we help justice-impacted individuals enter the workforce? 

There are several reasons.  First, we must understand that poverty and its deleterious effects are the number one driver of incarceration.  So from that standpoint its very simple.  Providing meaningful opportunities to access livable wage work and economic mobility are critical to solving the mass incarceration crisis in this country.  Second, if we don’t provide the 70 million people with records who are willing and well intentioned people the opportunity to access livable wage work and economic mobility, how do we as a society expect folks to support themselves or their families and lift themselves out of poverty?  Having the opportunity to work and have dignity in work is a cornerstone of any advanced and modern society.

What advice would you give to employers looking to start Second Chance hiring? 

The best advice for employers is to partner with Community based organizations or other businesses who have started Fair Chance hiring programs.  Checkr has a playbook that provides a roadmap, Dave’s Killer Bread has a cohort based workshop, SHRM has an online learning course. Once we truly educate ourselves about the issue it's about creating implementation plans and taking those first steps to making a social impact in people's lives. 

What benefits can employers expect from tapping into the justice-impacted workforce

Besides creating a company that is on the forefront of contributing to the social good, employers can expect significant gains in their bottom line.  For example, recent studies have shown that Fair Chance talent often have higher productivity, retention and promotion rates than their colleagues without records.  In addition, they tend to overwhelmingly have great relationships with staff and managers, which promotes a stronger company culture.

What are some of the challenges? 

Like any hiring strategy, there are challenges recruiting and vetting talent in general, and that’s not any different when choosing talent from candidates that have a record.  Understanding the things you should be looking for and not looking for during the recruitment process.  Making sure you are respecting privacy issues and creating an inclusive company culture.  There may need to be special accommodations that a company has to consider, like PTO time for folks to have a probation visit.  Also, finding talent with records that have the requisite skill level for a particular job.  Most of the challenges lie in ourselves and demystifying our implicit and explicit biases towards people we've been taught to stigmatise or “other”.

What are the reservations you have encountered from employers when it comes to hiring workers with criminals or arrest records? How do you respond to them?

Most of the reservations we hear from employers center on uncertainty.  Lack of awareness around perception.  We also hear a lot of questions around legal, and in an overwhelming majority of cases C Suite folks realize that there are in actuality very few legal concerns.   In fact, there are more legal concerns for businesses who have discriminatory hiring practices that have blanket screening out policies for people with records.  When we hear some of these concerns we respond by educating the employers.  We provide them with materials and case study examples in an attempt to reconcile some of their initial fears.