The Challege
Many community development organizations work to make neighborhoods more livable. They clean up trash and graffiti. They host events and support placemaking. The Memphis Medical District Collaborative (MMDC) wanted to do more. With health providers in the District facing workforce shortages and 43% of District residents facing poverty, MMDC wanted to connect residents with quality jobs.
But how would MMDC get started? Healthcare providers already advertised their job openings. District residents were already offered services through job centers. And the District had faced historic disinvestment, so this disconnect was hardly new. MMDC had identified a problem and had funding and resources available, but needed a sustainable long-term solution centered around talent.
- 200+Individuals Served
The Solution
After initially experimenting with a 1-on-1 job matching service that was tedious and struggled to achieve desired results, MMDC developed “Hire Local.” Using a cohort model, it identifies, trains, and fast-tracks talented residents into entry-level medical jobs. Hire Local works with existing wraparound service providers to address barriers faced by participants and with employers to reduce barriers to application, employment, and retention.
Along the way, Hire Local learned from other successful programs. Using lessons learned from Pennsylvania, Vermont, Missouri, and others, it began building a program that “met the community where they’re at.” It learned about the barriers to employment and actively worked with employers to reduce them. As an example, Hire Local reduced the hiring process from up to eight weeks down to almost two weeks. As Program Director Latasha Harris said, “People cannot go eight weeks unemployed while they wait for a job to start. They will go find something else.”
Building on early success, Hire Local has begun to increase the number of occupations in the program and expand its target communities, including connecting high school students with jobs while they’re completing school. It started training for security guards, addressing a critical need for healthcare providers while supporting residents less interested in careers like nursing. Hire Local eventually wants to scale its programming beyond entry-level jobs, working with Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs) to help them become Licensed Professional Nurses (LPNs), Surgical Technologists, and Registered Nurses (RNs), which have better wages, benefits, and other perks.
- 65%Graduation Rate
- 61%Employed After Graduation
- 75%Retention Rate in Employment After Six Months
Commitment to Supporting a Culturally Rich Neighborhood
The Memphis Medical District is a 2.6 square mile area that has faced substantial disinvestment. It is located at the core of one of the United States’ poorest metropolitan statistical areas. Median household income is under $20,000. The population has declined from around 30,000 in the 1970s to around 11,000 currently.
At the same time, the Memphis Medical District is home to major hospitals and health service providers, including 8 institutions that employ over 25,000 people, educate over 8,000 students, and deploy a collective procurement spend over $2.7B. It has a rich history, with historic architecture and landmarks such as Sun Studios, “The Birthplace of Rock’n’roll” where Elvis Presley, B.B. King, and Johnny Cash recorded.
Founded in 2016, the MMDC’s mission was to realize the economic and cultural potential of the District. To do this, it has launched three major initiatives, and operates like a Business Improvement District.
- Buy Local is a program dedicated to increasing the amount of local goods and services that District Institutions purchase from businesses located in Memphis. The program has increased local spend by 26% to $94.1M and increased spend in minority- and women-owned businesses by 119% to $23.2M.
- Live Local is a program that provides rental assistance for employees of participating institutions to live in the District.
- Hire Local compliments these other activities as part of MMDC’s goal of making the District a vibrant, prosperous, and equitable place to live.
Turning Difficult Conversations into Real Change and Progress
Once MMDC was able to get employers at the table, Program Director Latasha Harris faced the daunting challenge of having difficult conversations with employers about what was not working. She credits the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s Talent Pipeline Management® (TPM) initiative for providing a framework for those conversations. “It helped us understand how to engage the employers. Here’s the questions to ask. Here’s what has worked in other places. Here’s how to map out institutional demand and employment barriers. By doing this, hospital systems bought in to changing their processes.”
Those conversations helped create a problem-solving partnership between Hire Local, employers, and the community. Hire Local has improved outcomes for employees, employers, and the talent supply chain partners by:
- Conducting a needs assessments before training begins to understand whether a person might need help with housing, transportation, childcare, or other critical issues that cause people to drop out
- Supporting “Dual Capacity Building”, helping residents learn how to interact with employers and helping employers learn how to interact with residents
- Creating an accelerated onboarding process for Hire Local participants (shown below)
Accelerated Onboarding Process for Hire Local (conducted on the final week of required training)
- Thursday: Participants interview with participating employers
- Friday: Participants complete program
- Monday: Participants notified of hiring decision
- Friday: Hire Local and institutions conduct 75% of required onboarding
- Within two weeks, participants begin working
Harris also notes that this is an ongoing, iterative process. “We continue talking with the community and employers about what they need, what is working, and what is not.” In addition to the examples mentioned earlier, she is learning from the Kentucky Chamber Foundation, which formally built an employee collaborative. Rather than relying on surveys and conversations, this activity complements and gives structured feedback to the employers partnering with MMDC.
Ongoing Commitment to Prosperity
Harris, Hire Local, and MMDC have plans for continued growth and impact. While they see value in having started small – focusing on programs such as CNAs and Environmental Services – they are thinking big. Harris says, “You have to meet people where they’re at. We started with CNA. We expanded into security guards, data entry, and IT. As we get people into these programs, we want to continue supporting them.” Their goal is for the CNA to become an RN or to use the stability created by the CNA job to pursue career advancement opportunities.
Along the way, Hire Local will need to continuously interact with employers and employees, learn and iterate on their programs, and bring in best practices from other programs. According to Harris, “TPM will continue to be a valuable tool in this process. It creates structure and community as Hire Local works hard to solve hard problems.”
For the Memphis Medical District, these efforts provide much-needed impact. Making the District a great place to live and work helps both employers and the community.
To learn more about MMDC's Hire Local program, visit hirelocal901.com.
