Community Essay : ‘Business Must Play the Key Role’ : Jobs: Corporations need to hire and train young workers in inner cities now, instead of waiting for others to produce ‘skilled’ applicants.

Sometime in the 1960s, companies lost respect for anyone without a college degree. Today, in the 1990s, that prejudice is destroying our inner-city communities. According to the Department of Labor, the national unemployment rate for 16-to-19 year-olds is 24%--up from 15% just a few years ago. In the inner city--particularly in Los Angeles--the numbers run 50% and higher.

The impact of this job-market prejudice on the young people of our inner-city neighborhoods can be seen on any street corner. Most agree that if these young people had more skills they would have more jobs. But there the agreement ends. Who will provide the jobs or the skills? That’s where the finger pointing begins. Some of my counterparts in the business world say that the federal government should create training programs that will teach our inner-city youth the job skills that our educational system couldn’t. Others believe the educational system has to be revised to produce more capable workers. The inference in both cases is that the business world is waiting for someone else to solve the problem of training inexperienced workers who lack basic skills.

It is business--not government or the educational system--that must play the key role in bringing jobs back to the inner city. All the special commissions, programs and donations to schools will fail to produce results unless businesses begin to hire and train the young workers we have instead of waiting for someone else to produce the kind of better-skilled job recruit we’d like to have.

To be effective in the 1990s, companies must not close their eyes to the abundance of human resources available to them in non-traditional places and who may have non-traditional qualifications. We should ask only one question: Are you willing to work hard at your job? Of my company’s 4,250 employees, 3,000 work as phone operators, and the majority come from the inner city, where they’ve typically found it difficult to enter the job market.

Such job applicants are often uncertain and untrained. We’ve found, however, that taking a chance on these people has paid off in a steady stream of productive and intensely loyal employees. Many have been promoted into supervisory and management roles, belying the notion that their basic abilities are somehow flawed. Even those who have left the company have gone on to jobs in other industries where their computer and marketing skills are major assets.

To produce this magic, companies must make the effort to not only train but also understand their employees. It is not a question of vision statements and employee relations manuals. It is a question of top management’s attitude and communication of that attitude on a regular basis to all employees. That’s where you start. Often, the demands are basic. Some of the applicants have never held a job and do not even understand the most fundamental responsibilities in working for a company, like showing up on time and completing their work.

Our guidelines for successful hiring of inexperienced job candidates include:

* Regular affirmation by the chief executive officer to managers of the company’s commitment to training new job applicants who may not have demonstrated work-related skills.

* Detailed initial training programs geared to providing inexperienced employees with the basic skills to do their job.

* Use of the “buddy system” in which every new employee works in tandem with a more experienced worker.

* Frequent evaluation of new employee progress and setting of goals for improvement.

* Regular communication to non-management employees that job performance is the only criterion for deciding advancement in the company.

We realize it takes work, work that neither the government nor educators can do for us.

If businesses will invest in the time to train inexperienced workers, they will reap the reward of a dedicated work force that will make their companies successful. There is nothing more enjoyable than creating opportunities for those who would otherwise not be able to achieve their dreams. The result is productive members of society who--in their turn--will reach out and help others.