On opportunity: a new collar economy
It’s been a big couple of months in Charlotte, North Carolina.
In March, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Opportunity Task Force released 100 recommendations for how to increase socioeconomic mobility in greater Charlotte. The study produced and work done by the task force over the last two years hits on all five key factors that reduce such mobility: segregation, income inequality, school quality, social capital and family structure. On paper, Charlotte ranks poorly on all five.
For nearly two years (alongside the Opportunity Task Force’s research for almost the same season of time), I’ve been a part of broad parallel dialogs focused on increasing innovation and entrepreneurship in the Char-Meck region. I’ve been in round-table discussions, committee meetings and design sprints focused on building multi-pronged solutions for innovation-driven, high-growth ventures. The long and short in this arena, according to numerous reports: Charlotte also lags behind its peer cities in attraction, retention and support for innovators and innovative companies.
As both conversations have unfolded, I’ve been thinking hard about how to articulate the correlation between Charlotte’s lack of entrepreneurial growth and socioeconomic immobility. I’m not necessarily looking for a line here about trickle-down economics. I’m earnestly curious about how companies and communities are communicating in both directions about their wants and needs. The “we-can’t-find-enough-tech-talent” line lingers long — from Fort Mill to Charlotte, all the way up past Davidson to Mooresville (headquarters of Lowe’s and “Race City USA”). But if businesses know their current and future needs well AND city leaders have mapped the need landscape of those seeking access to education, higher income and increased social capital — can businesses solve this problem while also reaping deep benefits — by and for themselves?
In other words, if companies grow more quickly and sustainably by creating programs and trainings that broaden access to living-wage jobs (see rapidly growing local tech firm Red Ventures as a primary example), all the while building a successful pipeline to hire, increased interest in joining the team, loyalty and local-regional appeal for the company and its culture — why not take up this approach to talent development across the board? We’re seeing examples of this support for “new collar jobs” in multiple industries, and more and more models are emerging of private bootcamp and job retraining programs that defer payment until participants are placed in the field. For corporations who’ve done the work, payoffs seem to broadly outweigh the initial costs of investment.
So for Charlotte, if increased access to training for high-demand fields breaks down the deep sociological problem of economic immobility while also cultivating customer and employee loyalty, ensures that ongoing and growing talent needs are met, isn’t it the surest two-birds-one-stone solution to these stickiest of problems highlighted by both area business leaders and economic justice advocates? Big companies benefit by strengthening their brand locally all the way up to national and even international spotlights; startups benefit by eventually getting to hire away locally-grown tech talent that prefers a different company culture or is interested in the idea of an equity package and being part of a different movement. It’s a win-win-win — for our city, its companies, and communities writ large whose jobs are changing, and for whom the K-12 system has yet to catch up to reflect the shifting needs of changing professional environments (this last note isn’t a critique — there’s generally just a glacial rate of change in institutional ed).
I’d love it if others would share their thoughts here.
