New Lives. New Jobs

To expand, many businesses in Central Minnesota will need to attract people from the region’s fastest-growing demographic: immigrants.

“If you want to replace the Baby Boomers and continue to grow, you are going to have to diversify your workforce,” said Tammy Biery, executive director of Career Solutions, formerly the Stearns-Benton Employment & Training Council, which works with the Minnesota WorkForce Center office in St. Cloud to provide services to job seekers and employers. “It’s an opportunity for growth, culturally as well as organizationally.”

According to a January 2017 report from the University of Minnesota’s Office of Economic Development, the state’s native-born workforce has been shrinking. The report notes that historically, Minnesota also has attracted many workers from other states. But in the past 15 years, those numbers have declined. Meanwhile, Minnesota’s foreign-born population has been booming. Indeed, the report noted that “Minnesota’s success at attracting immigrants to the state and more effectively incorporating these immigrants into its workforce will play an important role in determining the strength of its economy in the future.”

Central Minnesota is experiencing these demographics changes. That means businesses will need to hire immigrant newcomers, particularly—but by no means solely—for entry-level jobs. “The state demographer has been telling us for nearly two decades that this day was coming,” said Don Hickman, vice president for community and workforce development at the Initiative Foundation. “We are now seeing far more native Minnesotans leaving the workforce—due to retirement or relocation to other states—than those who are entering it. Between now and 2040 it is anticipated that there will remain a shortfall of nearly 100,000 workers statewide unless we are able to encourage in-migration from other states and immigration from other countries. Whether you are seeking employees for jobs that native Minnesotans are less prone to seek or need workers with specific technical or academic skill sets, it is in the self interest of every business to support a diverse workforce.”

The long-range benefits can be tremendous. A 2016 report from the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce showed that 38.9 percent of Fortune 500 companies in Minnesota were started by immigrants or their children, creating more than 264,000 jobs. What’s more, the report says that having a diverse workforce signals an openness to opportunities available in a world economy.

There are businesses in the region that are already pursuing this strategy, including CentraCare Health and poultry products company Pilgrim’s Pride/GNP. Their experiences can serve as road maps for other companies.

Breaking Down Barriers

When it comes to hiring immigrants, it’s crucial for businesses to be aware of the hurdles new Americans face when they try to enter the workforce. “The barriers start before people even get the job,” Biery said, who notes that job applications aren’t always available in languages other than English. “Are there things in the application process that screen out people?”

Another potential barrier: does the application require computer skills to fill out—when the job itself doesn’t require them? Elizabeth Valencia-Borgert, community outreach director at St. Cloud State University’s Center for Continuing Studies, whose job includes working with immigrant communities, notes that an increasing number of job applications are online. “The potential worker may or may not have the understanding or the skills to submit an application” via computer, she noted. A lack of access can hinder a business’s ability to attract employees from immigrant communities.

Several organizations in the region are working to help employers and potential employees to bridge cultural gaps. One example is the Immigrant Employment Connection Group (IECG), which was established in early 2015 to focus on Central Minnesota’s Somali-American population. Its leadership committee membership includes Biery as well as representatives of area employers and nonprofits (including the Initiative Foundation).

One of the lessons Biery has learned from working with employers through IECG is that “many times when there’s an issue or a question, employers think they need to have the answer,” she said. “But there are so many different examples I can give where the employer sat down with the employee and they searched for a solution together and they really came out with a win-win.”

Case in point: St. Cloud’s Metro Bus system’s dress code requires its drivers to wear trousers. One applicant, an immigrant, was a strong candidate. Then she revealed that her religious traditions preclude trousers. Metro Bus and the applicant “worked together and found pants that were very ‘flowy’ so that they looked almost like a dress,” Biery said. It was a satisfactory solution for both employer and employee.

Common Grounding

While many employers are eager to understand the needs of immigrant workers, potential employees also must learn more about employer expectations. Part of Valencia-Borgert’s work involves collaborating with entities such as Career Solutions to help Latino newcomers understand those expectations. For instance, many need to be taught to show up to work at the appointed starting time. This might seem obvious to most employers, but as Valencia-Borgert noted, a sense of time “is so relative in every culture.”

And “diversity” also extends into the immigrant communities themselves. It’s easy for employers to see the Latino community as a homogeneous group, regardless of country of origin and education level. But, Valencia-Borgert noted, Latino immigrants come from a variety of different countries, each with distinct cultural attributes. What’s more, immigrants to Central Minnesota have a range of educational backgrounds and capabilities.

“We can’t treat everyone the same,” Valencia-Borgert said. Intercultural communication “sounds very simple,” she added. “But it’s so complicated when you apply it, because we’re dealing with human beings.”

Ultimately, the kind of cross-cultural communication that both employers and immigrant workers need to engage in to succeed includes listening, not just talking. That’s one of the approaches that Debra Leigh takes in the seminars and workshops she leads. A St. Cloud State University professor who is the lead organizer of the university’s Community Anti-Racism Education Initiative (CARE), Leigh also works with High Impact Training, a consultancy that offers seminars for organizations seeking to understand and overcome racism.

Leigh’s work addresses cross-cultural issues. For businesses, these often challenging conversations can help attract workers and new customers. Leigh suggests that businesses wishing to attract a diverse workforce ask themselves: “How would we be different than we are now? How would that position us in the marketplace?”

By positioning themselves for a more diverse Minnesota, companies are setting themselves up for their future success.

To Increase Your Diversity Hiring, Take the Following 6 Steps:

Diversity hiring is hiring based on merit with special care taken to ensure procedures are free from biases related to a candidate’s age, race, gender, religion, sexual orientation and other personal characteristics that are unrelated to their job performance.

STEP 1: Conduct a diversity hiring audit on your current hiring process
STEP 2: Pick one metric to improve for your diversity hiring
STEP 3: Increase your diversity hiring in your candidate sourcing
STEP 4: Increase your diversity hiring in your candidate screening
STEP 5: Increase your diversity hiring in your candidate shortlisting
STEP 6: Evaluate your diversity hiring metrics

Source: https://ideal.com/diversity-hiring/