Empower Work

Challenging experiences exist in every workplace, but resources to navigate them do not. This exacerbates inequality and has damaging implications for the wellbeing and rights of Americans, their workplaces, and our communities.

Research shows that when people, particularly those with less social capital, face adverse work situations, they are more likely to leave a job with no next job lined up, take a pay cut, or leave an industry altogether. 

Empower Work shifts that. Any U.S. worker can connect with a trained peer counselor via SMS or web chat in under 2 minutes.

Our approach fuels change in three ways: 

1) Our text line provides immediate, confidential support at critical work moments,

2) Our trained peer counselors utilize their training on the text-line, and in their workplaces, and 

3) Aggregate, anonymous data from the conversations can inform new approaches, tools, trainings, and policies for systemic workplace change.

Jobs are core to opportunity. Yet research shows that workplaces are not working for most Americans.

To advance equitable, inclusive economic growth, we need to ensure that people don’t just make it into a good job, but are also supported to success with equal opportunity.

In 2017, Empower Work's founder conducted deep research to explore the question, "how can we better support and empower people at critical, potentially pathway altering moments?" 

Through quantitative surveys with 180+ responses; market research; and 200+ qualitative interviews with career coaches, workforce trainers, HR professionals, DE&I specialists, employment attorneys, labor organizers and, most importantly, people who have faced tough work situations, she saw huge gaps. 40M Americans work in workplaces with fewer than 100 employees. When faced with work challenges, 80% of Americans don't have a trusted resource for navigating it, negatively impacting economic and emotional well-being.

We designed Empower Work to radically reshape support. To create healthy work spaces where people are supported, valued and empowered. We believe that when people thrive at work, communities, companies, the economy, and our democracy, thrive.

We primarily serve individuals with less social capital, often working in smaller work settings, and nearly universally with their financial security on the line. Approximately 73% of our texters identify as women; 55% identify as a person of color; 17% identify as LGBTQ; and 54% are in their first 10 years of the workforce. We hear "the only" regularly.

We reach people across a variety of channels, including partnering with national and local community, industry, and affinity groups. We also meet people where they are--on buses, in break rooms, in elevators, through wider awareness campaigns. 

In our first year, Empower Work served people across every industry in 45+ states and activated volunteers in every time zone. Over 90% of those who connect with us say that after engaging with Empower Work they both feel better and, within a few weeks, take an action that results in an outcome they want. 

“I felt like I’d backed off a ledge,” shared a texter after a highly emotional conversation because they were terrified of losing their job - and if they did, their visa, housing, and ability to support their family. 

Empower Work addresses immediate needs through an approach that blends counseling, coaching, and rights information. And most importantly, discretely without being overheard.

Our approach is uniquely situated to spur increases in access to workplace resources, an increase in self-reported financial and overall wellbeing of marginalized groups, and we believe contribute to more equitable, supportive workplaces (e.g., decrease in EEOC complaints). We also aim for learned insights from our service to shift how employers recruit, retain, and support employees; how organizations and entities that touch the workforce provide training and resources to newly skilled, re-skilled, or recent graduates; and potentially how local, state, or federal government enacts guidelines, policies, or training.

We are at a critical inflection point, poised to take advantage of a number of exciting opportunities to invest in this growth.

At a high level, this includes:

• Continuing to improve our product and technology

• Scaling our outreach for texters and volunteers

• Expanding our data work to publicly surface workplace trends

On the back-end, we are in very early stages of building new technology to scale the human connection with machine learning that will:

• Develop real-time “mirroring” suggestions for volunteers to support texters (e.g., nudges about tone, or timing);

• Surface relevant resources more effectively and efficiently (e.g., healthcare information following a job loss or local career search resources); and 

• Aggregate and classify workplace issues and their impact on communities.

We designed Empower Work to address gaps not met by current approaches. Our founder spent months researching what people needed at critical work moments, including how solutions might fit into other organizations or offerings. 

Not only did workers express an overwhelming lack of a trusted resource, they also experienced uncertainty about where their issue fell—perhaps not serious enough for reporting or legal action, not mental health, and deeply personal. There is a vast gray area filled with significant issues—from bullying to gender bias to fear of job loss—that hasn’t had timely, trusted support.

Existing third-party approaches generally fall into five categories: coaching, organizing, reporting, legal counsel, and workplace wellness. Mental health resources exist as well, though research shows they don’t have the insights or support people want for most work situations.

We also see a gap in accessibility and modes of support. Workers expressed needing something that meets them where they are, with immediacy, discretion, and vetted resources paramount. Repeatedly workers have shared the importance of having an accessible resource that is external to both their personal network and their place of work.

Empower Work fills these gaps - addressing immediate needs blending counseling, coaching, and rights information - and better meeting the needs of workers by being separate from their employer. 

And a complement to existing resources. Someone may want to discuss their sense of feeling undervalued and connect with Coworker.org to mobilize with other employees. Someone may regularly touch base with their workforce trainer and want a back up resource.

Empower Work leverages SMS and web chat to meet workers where they are. And a back-end interface that easily connects volunteers confidentially with people who reach out.  

Counselors provide a discrete space to process. They supportively guide the texter in exploring the larger context (e.g., is this normal and within my rights?), evaluating options (e.g., stay in the job or look for another one), and identifying a next step that works for them (e.g., if texter decides to set a meeting with a manager, they may practice that conversation together).

We are building ways to scale the power of human connection. We're in the early stages of building machine learning, with human discretion, that will help improve the experience of volunteers and texters including: 

1) Develop real-time suggestions for volunteers to support texters if say a conversation pace changes or key words arise for certain issues; 

2) Surface relevant resources more effectively and efficiently (e.g., healthcare resources if terminated, local EEOC office for reporting); and 

3) Aggregate and classify workplace issues and their impact on communities.

We're also launching our learning management system to scale our volunteer training.

To make significant progress towards equitable opportunities and economies, we need to dramatically shift cultural norms and expectations within workplaces. And we need to radically transform how we support people at critical, opportunity-altering moments. 

Empower Work launched with a theory of change that if we could shift outcomes following adverse work experiences, we'd see powerful economic and emotional ripple effects. 

To date we've seen strong positive indicators that our intervention can have an outsized impact on individuals’ economic opportunity, career trajectory, and well-being, as well as on workplace characteristics such as inclusion, diversity, and ethics. 

We have an 85% completion rate of conversations with over 90% of texters saying they feel better and take an action as a result of a conversation. Texters have shared: 

- "I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't connected with you." 

- "This is an excellent resource. Also important for people who don't really have people in their lives to go to for work advice (I'm the second person in my family to go to college)."

- "Writing back to tell you: I got the raise!"

Over 96% of volunteers learn new skills and approaches they use in their workplaces. And we're in early stages of research partnerships to explore ways to learn from our data.

We see huge possibility ahead to transform emotional and economic outcomes for individuals and shift policies and expectations in workplaces that could change the future of work.

Since January 2018, Empower Work has moved thoughtfully from concept to national reach, supporting 1,300+ workers across 45 states. We’ve trained 120+ volunteers, who used their skills on the line and in their workplaces, impacting an additional 5,000+ people. We’ve partnered with 20 national groups from Year Up to Tech Ladies to Gladeo.org to support their communities to success. And we’re just getting started.  

Empower Work has built a model to serve 10,000 texters in 2019 and ambitiously plans to be at 500,000 within the next 3-5 years—testing, measuring, and adjusting as we grow. 

Now that we know what makes for strong outcomes, we are entering the third of our initially-scoped phases:

• 2017: Formation research on user needs, pilot test of product prototype that validated approach, began build out of full-service (no staff, no budget); 

• 2018: Validation deep understanding of the best outcomes for texters and volunteers (growing in relation to need); 

• 2019-2021: Growth testing, measuring, and adjusting to scale what we know works. 

To achieve our goals in 2019, we are tactically focused on three priorities:

1. Volunteers

• Expand recruitment pathways. 

• Streamline and automate aspects of training via learning management system to increase flexibility, while ensuring high quality.

Texters

• Expand and deepen partnerships with community, industry, and affinity groups so we can reach more people in need of our service.

• Increase wider visibility. For instance, we just tested donated elevator ads in 900 office buildings around the country. We saw a 60% increase in 13 targeted markets compared with 20% overall.

• Create a wide range of content that provides resources, improves SEO, increases visibility, validates trust, and sets expectations for texters and volunteers.

Technology

• Build out improved efficiency in our backend to optimize volunteer and texter pairing (e.g., based on timezone and/or level of need), use natural language processing and AI to serve applicable resources and information during a conversation (e.g., workers rights information in a particular state)

• Build out a publicly-accessible database of real-time workforce trends to inform policies, approaches, and tools

Our work is fundamentally about equity and justice; we envision every American having an accessible resource so that no matter where they work, they can have information, tools, and support to succeed. Our vision is to see increased opportunity and wellbeing for individuals and ripple effects across industries, workforce development, workplace rights, organizing, policy, and more.

We have ambitious goals to create measurably healthier work—with national outcomes that include reduced stress levels and rates of harassment and discrimination, and increased rates of equitable compensation, diversity, empathy and respect, and understanding of and, if needed, exercising of legal rights. Ultimately, we may see shifts away from society tying key aspects of our social safety net to employment.

To grow our impact thoughtfully and to those who need it most, we need to answer key questions such as:

• What signals the greatest trust? (e.g., knowing the volunteer you’re connecting to or keeping both sides confidential?)

• What percentage of potential texters would use multilingual support?

• What would we need to change in our training, legal resources, and support to expand to undocumented and informal workers? 

• How can we best share our data to inform organizing approaches, workforce training, workforce research, and local, state, and federal policies?

We have 3 staff and 6 contractors. We've trained 110+ volunteers.

We've built a nimble, creative, diverse team that includes board members, advisors, volunteers, contractors, and paid staff with issue area expertise  that touch every aspect of the workplace space including workforce trainers, organizers, organizational psychologists, employment attorneys, UX researchers, DEI specialists, HR professionals, coaches, training designers, and more, combined with leading technical experts in SMS, ML/AI, and engineering, and community outreach specialists. Nearly everyone has lived experience with work challenges. 

A full list of our Board and Advisors is available on our website. 

Our work is not possible without our impactful volunteer base of peer counselors, over 70% of whom identify as a woman, 2% as gender fluid, and 40% as a person of color. Many are first generation to go to college or join an industry. All are motivated to support others because of a personal an understanding of the need for workplace advocacy.

Jaime-Alexis Fowler, the founder, has a track-record as a results-driven leader within social change organizations. She’s been a long advocate for human-centered social change approaches that leverage technology. In her career, she’s led marketing at Pathfinder International, a $100M international NGO; run operations for a national post-abortion counseling nonprofit; built and led marketing at Code for America; and most recently before Empower Work, launched a nonprofit investigative newsroom. Through her 15+ year career, she’s developed deep and broad networks that have helped make Empower Work a reality. 

Empower Work partners with affinity, professional, community, and workforce development groups across the United States. Partners share and promote Empower Work's text line as a resource for workplace challenges—expanding the support they provide already.

Current partners include AbleThrive, AllVoices, BetterBrave, Code Fellows, Eye to Eye, Gladeo, HexagonUX, MotherCoders, NTEN, Tech Ladies, Women Who Code, Women Who Tech, Bayview YMCA, Year Up, and YNPN.

Feedback:

• “We share Empower Work as a resource for Tech Ladies community members. Our members have shared a lot of positive feedback about the support they've received through Empower Work, and how much of an impact it’s had on their professional development.” 

• “HR has lost the trust of employees. Here is who has it now” - TechCrunch

• "I keep thinking about all of the times I could have used a service like this... How many times at work have you felt just totally stuck and you didn’t have anybody to talk to?" - StrongFeelings Podcast

• “I truly believe work environments are in need of disruption - as people are seeking and striving for development. The beauty of Empower Work is the "solution" is a simple text away.” 

We're planning a mix of earned revenue and philanthropic support, with our first few years to be primarily philanthropic while we build our earned revenue. Our philanthropic contributors include 140+ individuals, foundations, and corporations. 

We've identified six potential revenue streams and are testing three this year: 

1) Pay-it-forward. About 7% of our texters have contributed financially to keep it free for others. We anticipate that could cover 12-15% of operating costs if at a scale of 500K+ texters/year, 5% contributed ~$15 afterwards. Currently 78% of texters indicate the service is valuable enough to pay for yet express concern about their financial security. We aim to optimize the opportunity to contribute without payment being a barrier. 

2) Employee engagement and training. Offering a unique volunteer opportunity that also provides benefit back to the peer counselor and their employer, we have corporate partners already sharing Empower Work as a volunteer opportunity. Many match hours of volunteers with a financial contribution. We are also testing opportunities for companies to pay for aspects of our training. This generates revenue plus a pipeline of volunteers.

3) Affinity, professional, or programmatic fee-for-service. Groups from workforce development organizations to career counselors see significant value in our offering for their communities. It supports their community to success, reduces demand on overburdened teams, and alleviates needs that are outside their expertise. 

We're excited to apply to Solve because to tackle the scope of the challenge--80% of working Americans lack support--we know it'll be a communal effort. We've approached our work so far inclusively and collectively, and are eager to reach and connect with more technologists, potential partners, researchers, and workforce leaders.

To support millions of American workers, Empower Work seeks partnerships to:

• Support those newly entering the workforce
• Bring our volunteering opportunity to companies that care about inclusive equitable workplaces
• Research trends in our data; measure long term impact of both training and conversations
• Pro-bono marketing and OOH advertising opportunities
• Connect to donors interested in scaling our support

Women, and particularly women of color, across all industries are more likely to experience harassment and discrimination, and are also disproportionately more likely to experience what social psychologists call negative “pathway behaviors.” New York University Professor Dolly Chugh describes these as, “non-formalized, seemingly minor ways in which an individual’s chances for success are improved or worsened.” They include microaggressions, double standards, and unconscious bias.

To advance the needs of women, and promote a world where woman at every point in their working lives - from their first jobs onward - are set up for success, we know it's critical to have a space to explore what's normal, what's not and how to connect in to resources. We're using technology in an innovative way to create that space for validation, acknowledgement, and if needed, connection to resources. 

The Innovation for Women prize would have tremendous impact on our ability to test, measure, and grow our technology to more effectively reach tens of thousands more early career women across the U.S.

We have ambitious plans to transform how we think about building supportive, inclusive workplaces so that everyone thrives. Support from the Morgridge Family Foundation Community-Driven Innovation Prize would help us test, measure, and grow our technology to more effectively reach tens of thousands more newly entering the workforce.