5 ms·

It's a bakery, requiring little to no skills, and nothing more than being able to repeat physical activity, and only 35% make it through the program (a 10 month

It's a bakery, requiring little to no skills, and nothing more than being able to repeat physical activity, and only 35% make it through the program (a 10 month on-the-job job). I don't think this is the "success" story it's being made to be.

cubano 12y ago
Sure it is. The most obvious metric of its "success" is the simple conditional 35% > 0%. And while I agree, the motivation behind the CEO's thinking is based on bottom-line thinking, and not do-gooder motivation, its still nice to see SOME outside-the-box thinking on this issue.
- carapace 12y ago
  "Brady also said that it was immaterial whether or not open hiring was a better way to do business. His goal is to make sure his business also helps the community and helps people out of poverty. With that goal, there’s an imperative to try new things. “There’s a lot of recognition that the things people have been doing aren’t working,” he said."
  - powertower 12y ago
    When you pay a low wage for a job that literally anyone of the street can do after about 10-30 minutes of training, you can hire and fire all day long, it will not affect your bottom line. So it is true that it's immaterial to his business - whether it's open hire, or day laborer, or something else. But I'm not sure how exactly this method helps anyone? Because most of the employees are gone after 10 months. Does this mean they've made enough money to move into a better job? Or does this just reinforce the stereotypes about convicts, drug addicts, and the mentally ill?
jimkri 12y ago
>only 35% make it through the program. That is better than not having the program at all and having the addicts stay where they are. I think it is a success, because helping one addict is successful and now that person is a beacon of light. Other addicts will see that they are doing something productive, they got clean, and that maybe, they can get clean and get a job too. I think there's more to it than just who made it through the program.
- Kalium 12y ago
  Programs aren't measured solely by absolute success rate. They are also measured by success rate relative to alternative approaches to the same problem that could be enabled by the same resources. Which is to say "35% > 0%" sounds good, but would wilt in the presence of "35% < 45%". Might I suggest a different set of evaluation criteria?
21echoes 12y ago
that's like saying that a company that only hires 10% of those it interviews is a failure. they have a waiting list of applicants, which allows them to set their quality bar high enough to reject the bottom 65% of applicants. the only difference is here the "interview" is a 10-month paid apprenticeship, while at most companies it's a 2 or 3-day unpaid blitz of tests.
- powertower 12y ago
  > that's like saying that a company that only hires 10% of those it interviews is a failure > the only difference is here the "interview" is a 10-month paid apprenticeship That's a major difference, which makes the analogy fail - since the two thing being compared are nothing like each other.
  - 21echoes 12y ago
    Plenty of companies have quarter to year-long contract-to-hire paths for all new hires. Are all of these companies also failures? This is how all skilled work was for centuries, if not millennia. Were all businesses and guilds back then failures as well? Either way you seem to be missing the point-- being able to choose who you retain vs. who you fire is a factor of applicant volume, not some objective measure of the quality of a company/hiring practices. Being able to reject more candidates if anything means you are better, as you have enough applicants who want to work there that you can be selective.
    - powertower 12y ago
      So basically what you are saying is with the way this bakery hires/fires and the way Microsoft and Google hires/fires - while there might be some slight differences between the two - at the end, the overall effect is the same. And that what's really happening here with this no-interview no-skills-asked-for open-hire policy (and its high turnover rate), is that they are keeping the cream of the crop and shedding the wheat from the chaff. It could be.
      - 12y ago
karmacondon 12y ago
It's certainly not all bad. Giving people who would otherwise have no job prospects the experience of coming to work every day, getting used to the routine and socialization of a work environment and evaluating their ability to be a part of that system is valuable. Even if it only lasts a few months, it's much better than nothing. Especially given that the only alternative for most of them is a blanket rejection based on something they did years ago, often without an interview. It would be better for all of society if programs like this were more common.

cubano 12y ago

Sure it is. The most obvious metric of its "success" is the simple conditional 35% > 0%. And while I agree, the motivation behind the CEO's thinking is based on bottom-line thinking, and not do-gooder motivation, its still nice to see SOME outside-the-box thinking on this issue.

carapace 12y ago
"Brady also said that it was immaterial whether or not open hiring was a better way to do business. His goal is to make sure his business also helps the community and helps people out of poverty. With that goal, there’s an imperative to try new things. “There’s a lot of recognition that the things people have been doing aren’t working,” he said."
- powertower 12y ago
  When you pay a low wage for a job that literally anyone of the street can do after about 10-30 minutes of training, you can hire and fire all day long, it will not affect your bottom line. So it is true that it's immaterial to his business - whether it's open hire, or day laborer, or something else. But I'm not sure how exactly this method helps anyone? Because most of the employees are gone after 10 months. Does this mean they've made enough money to move into a better job? Or does this just reinforce the stereotypes about convicts, drug addicts, and the mentally ill?

jimkri 12y ago

>only 35% make it through the program. That is better than not having the program at all and having the addicts stay where they are. I think it is a success, because helping one addict is successful and now that person is a beacon of light. Other addicts will see that they are doing something productive, they got clean, and that maybe, they can get clean and get a job too. I think there's more to it than just who made it through the program.

Kalium 12y ago
Programs aren't measured solely by absolute success rate. They are also measured by success rate relative to alternative approaches to the same problem that could be enabled by the same resources. Which is to say "35% > 0%" sounds good, but would wilt in the presence of "35% < 45%". Might I suggest a different set of evaluation criteria?

21echoes 12y ago

that's like saying that a company that only hires 10% of those it interviews is a failure. they have a waiting list of applicants, which allows them to set their quality bar high enough to reject the bottom 65% of applicants. the only difference is here the "interview" is a 10-month paid apprenticeship, while at most companies it's a 2 or 3-day unpaid blitz of tests.

powertower 12y ago
> that's like saying that a company that only hires 10% of those it interviews is a failure > the only difference is here the "interview" is a 10-month paid apprenticeship That's a major difference, which makes the analogy fail - since the two thing being compared are nothing like each other.
- 21echoes 12y ago
  Plenty of companies have quarter to year-long contract-to-hire paths for all new hires. Are all of these companies also failures? This is how all skilled work was for centuries, if not millennia. Were all businesses and guilds back then failures as well? Either way you seem to be missing the point-- being able to choose who you retain vs. who you fire is a factor of applicant volume, not some objective measure of the quality of a company/hiring practices. Being able to reject more candidates if anything means you are better, as you have enough applicants who want to work there that you can be selective.
  - powertower 12y ago
    So basically what you are saying is with the way this bakery hires/fires and the way Microsoft and Google hires/fires - while there might be some slight differences between the two - at the end, the overall effect is the same. And that what's really happening here with this no-interview no-skills-asked-for open-hire policy (and its high turnover rate), is that they are keeping the cream of the crop and shedding the wheat from the chaff. It could be.
    - 12y ago

karmacondon 12y ago

It's certainly not all bad. Giving people who would otherwise have no job prospects the experience of coming to work every day, getting used to the routine and socialization of a work environment and evaluating their ability to be a part of that system is valuable. Even if it only lasts a few months, it's much better than nothing. Especially given that the only alternative for most of them is a blanket rejection based on something they did years ago, often without an interview. It would be better for all of society if programs like this were more common.