Hosting an Employer Engagement Event

People returning to their communities after incarceration may struggle to find and keep a job for a variety of reasons, including having limited education, work experience, or job skills. Further, there are more than 20,000 job-related statutes and regulations that create barriers to work for people with criminal records, even when they are qualified for the job or have been crime free for an extended period of time. Additionally, employers often restrict access to jobs based on criminal records, citing liability and safety concerns.

In many parts of the country, there are more open jobs than there are people to fill those jobs. As a result, a growing number of employers—both large and small—are identifying people with criminal records as an untapped part of the labor market. This toolkit is designed to help businesses, public agencies, and community organizations plan and execute local dialogues about hiring people with criminal records.

Planning an Employer Engagement Event

Planning an employer engagement event requires incorporating the perspectives of various stakeholders. These events can be initiated by members of the public, private, or nonprofit sectors, but the target audience should be employers and business organizations.

Creating an Invitation

Invitations should be sent three to four weeks in advance of an event and include an RSVP process (email, phone, or website link). The invitation should make clear that the event is aimed at employers and public officials, so it is helpful if the invitation is from or endorsed by employers and public officials as well.

Additional outreach strategies, such as phone calls, personalized emails, and targeted newsletter postings can increase attendance. Including logos or a list of co-sponsors on your invitation can show that the event has broad support.

Developing an Agenda

To encourage employers to attend the event, develop an agenda that focuses on topics related to their needs, such as strategies to identify qualified candidates. Additionally, the timing of the event should be conducive to employers’ schedules; most business leaders prefer shorter meetings early in the morning or after work hours. Successful employer engagement events begin by 8 a.m., with up to an hour for breakfast while participants register and network.

Beginning the program with a welcome by a public official in your community shows participants that the employment of people with criminal records is a public priority. Successful events also often include a panel of employers who have hired people with criminal records and can share their successes and challenges. Some events also include a panel of people who were formerly incarcerated and can share their employment successes.

Employer Panel Questions

Employers will likely have questions about how hiring people with criminal records could impact their bottom line, how to consider a criminal record in hiring decisions, and negligent hiring or liability concerns. Including employer panels will enable employers to hear from their peers about the benefits and challenges of hiring people with criminal records.

The following is a list of questions from successful employer panels:

What positive experiences have you had hiring people with criminal records?
Have you faced any challenges hiring or employing people with criminal records?
When is it appropriate to ask about an applicant’s criminal record?
Does your company obtain criminal background reports on potential employees?
- If so, how is this information used?
Are there particular kinds of criminal records that employers are concerned about?
How do you partner with training programs to recruit qualified applicants with criminal records?
What would encourage more employers to hire people with criminal records?
How do you think business leaders should be involved in policy reforms—such as Ban the Box or removing unnecessary barriers to licensing—to promote broader support?

Talking Points

An overview of the current state of reentry and employment and its importance to employers should be presented early in the event to prepare the audience for the rest of the speakers. The planning team can use the following talking points to prepare a public official, issue expert, business leader, or other speaker to deliver the overview.

More than 630,000 people are released from prisons each year and more than 11 million people cycle through local jails each year. In addition to all of those people being released from incarceration each year, there are many more people living in our communities with a past criminal record. In fact, research estimates 70 million adults (or one in three) in the U.S. have a criminal record. For all practical purposes, this means that companies that do not consider people with criminal records for employment are missing out on a huge amount of talent that could contribute to productivity and their bottom line. It means that a huge amount of talent in our country struggles to find employment for reasons not even related to their skills or to the job at hand.

When people can't work, unemployment goes up, tax revenue goes down, families and communities suffer, and it leaves society with all sorts of social costs to absorb. The estimated reduction to the nation’s gross domestic product for not employing people with criminal records is $78 to $87 billion. Research shows that a criminal record doesn’t predict future reoffending after a certain time period passes (typically about seven years). Many of the adults with criminal records have very old or minor offenses. Many employers, such as Butterball, report hiring people with criminal records and have found them to be loyal, committed workers.

It is also important to include local or state facts on incarceration, recidivism, and employment, which can be found on state corrections websites and through local reentry agencies. Key facts and resources, such as contact information for local reentry agencies, can be compiled in a handout for distribution at the employer engagement event.

Additional Resources

The following is a list of resources on reentry and employment to help frame the issues for the planning team and the audience:

Back to Business: How Hiring Formerly Incarcerated Job Seekers Benefits your Company
Ban the Box: U.S. Cities, Counties, and States Adopt Fair Hiring Policies
Best Practices Standards: The Proper Use of Criminal Records in Hiring
California Employers’ Fair Chance Hiring Toolkit
Enforcement Guidance on the Consideration of Arrest and Conviction Records in Employment Decisions Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
Federal Interagency Reentry Council Reentry MythBuster on Criminal Histories and Employment Background Checks (PDF)
Federal Interagency Reentry Council Reentry MythBuster on Employer Tax Credits (PDF)
Federal Interagency Reentry Council Reentry MythBuster on Federal Bonding Program (PDF)
Federal Interagency Reentry Council Reentry MythBuster on Hiring/Criminal Records Guidance (PDF)
The Mark of a Criminal Record (PDF)
The Price We Pay: The Economic Costs of Barriers to Employment for Former Prisoners and People Convicted of Felonies (PDF)

Employer Surveys

Using surveys to learn more about the employers attending your event can help you decide what topics to discuss during the event and can also help inform post-event follow-up activities. Surveys can be completed in advance of the event by employers who RSVP, or the planning team can conduct surveys at the close of the event.

It is important to ask about attendees current hiring policies, their experiences hiring people with criminal records, and specific hiring needs within their industry or sector. Often, businesses will want to remain anonymous when completing this survey.

Media Outreach and Coverage

A pre-event press release providing background information about why hiring people with criminal records is timely and important—and which includes quotes from public officials and business leaders—can help attract press coverage for your event. Journalists appreciate facts about the issue, such as incarceration or recidivism rates (see the Resources section).

You can send press releases to local, regional, and national newspapers, as well as radio and television stations. You can also create post-event write-ups summarizing key points discussed during the event to share with speakers and attendees. Videotaping and photographing the event can provide material for social media posts, reports, and learning tools.

Some businesses may prefer to keep discussions about their hiring processes confidential. If employers express concern with having media at the event, other options include scheduling interviews between journalists and specific stakeholders—including policymakers and business leaders—immediately following the event.

Next Steps

After your employer engagement event, reconvene the planning committee to evaluate the event and plan follow-up activities, which may include:

Encouraging employers to eliminate unnecessary barriers to employment
Providing information to employers about revising human resource policies to reduce barriers for jobseekers with criminal records
Developing projects that bring together employers, corrections, and workforce staff to identify career paths for people with criminal records in specific industries
Considering local policy changes that would increase opportunities for people with criminal records to find and retain employment
Encouraging local workforce boards to form advisory committees on the employment of people with criminal records.

Since 2014, the National Reentry Resource Center has provided technical assistance in more than 50 jurisdictions across more than 30 states to help businesses, public agencies, and community organizations facilitate discussions about the hiring of people with criminal records.