Hiring, supporting justice-impacted individuals in the workplace

Hiring those who have criminal records or histories of incarceration serves a significant role in the integration of those individuals back into society while helping hospitality businesses withstand labor shortages, according to researchers in the Penn State School of Hospitality Management. The researchers developed a framework to guide hospitality businesses in the efforts to break down barriers of bias and destigmatize the hiring of these individuals.

The team identified three major stakeholder groups—the hired employees, those in the correctional system responsible for administering and overseeing the corrections process, and community partners that provide necessary workforce re-entry resources—that hospitality businesses should consider during the hiring and employment process.

The research team, led by doctoral student Sydney Pons with Donna Quadri-Felitti, the Marvin Ashner Endowed Director of the Penn State School of Hospitality Management, Phil Jolly, associate professor at Penn State, and Michael Tews, associate professor at Penn State, published its work in International Hospitality Review.

“It’s all about supporting justice-impacted employees,” Tews said, referring to those who have criminal records or histories of incarceration. “What is going on in their life that supervisors can manage for workforce re-entry? How can managers help employees who may need financial assistance? These are items important for businesses to consider.”

The researchers said community-based partners are a critical part of the framework, as they provide resources and basic needs to justice-impacted individuals that can help diminish barriers to employment, like transportation services and housing.

Community partners can also connect justice-impacted individuals with health care and social services, such as resources for those who may be recovering from substance-use disorders. Other partners could provide job assistance, skill-building or career training services to justice-impacted individuals, according to the researchers.

The researchers said inclusive leadership at companies is a key factor to welcoming justice-impacted individuals back into the workplace, from offering employee resource groups to personal coaching, to help ease this transition.

“Businesses can struggle if they have a set way,” Pons said. “Inclusive leadership means understanding your perspective and that you’re going to be managing individuals with varying perspectives. Managers need self-awareness and an understanding of how their biases may operate while also knowing that other individuals are not necessarily like them or may share the same values.”

Businesses, for example, can organize a justice-impacted employee’s work schedule around bus schedules they may rely on for transportation to and from work or coordinate with correctional system officials, so justice-impacted employees’ schedules fit around designated curfews, according to the researchers.

“We may be seeing a societal shift with more organizations wanting to give justice-impacted individuals a second chance,” Tews said about recent workplace hiring trends. “This is partially driven by labor market conditions—particularly in the hospitality industry with hard-to-fill positions.”

The researchers said the hospitality industry has a dual-labor market consisting of people in it for a short period of time, such as early-career professionals who may enter it before they move on to other jobs, and people who remain in the industry, such as those at the managerial level.

This industry also has a wealth of available entry-level jobs with lower pay, so it may be more prone to employees job hopping from company to company in pursuit of higher salaries. This creates a greater number of open positions and a demand for companies to hire justice-impacted individuals, according to the researchers.

“When management, investors and owners of a company are saying, ‘come in, you’re welcome here,’ that means so much to people who are in vulnerable situations,” Pons said. “This gives people a new start at life and can reduce recidivism, which is when justice-impacted individuals struggle to find work or acclimate to life outside of prison, so they may reoffend and return to prison.”