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Introduction: Creating Second Chances and Stronger Communities
Consolidated Services Group (CSG), based in Denver, CO, is redefining what it means to rebuild communities — both physically and socially. Through commercial custodial and maintenance services, CSG revitalizes spaces and lives, focusing heavily on fair chance hiring practices.
Nelda, CSG’s HR & Personnel Director, leads these efforts with a passion for giving individuals opportunity and an understanding of the systemic barriers many job seekers face. By partnering with RiseKit, her team has created a more efficient, connected hiring process that supports employee success from day one.
Tell me about your role at CSG -- what critical tasks are you responsible for?
As HR & Personnel Director, I oversee our hiring, onboarding, and general HR activities. This means sourcing and coordinating solutions for our employees, recruiting new talent, and managing our insurance program. But given that we are such a small team: I’m always sharing responsibilities with other departments like our finance team on payroll tasks, as well.
How do you define “fair chance hiring” in the context of your business? How does it fit into your company’s story?
“Fair chance hiring” has been in our DNA before it was fashionable. Half of our management team has a background, which at one point prevented them from pursuing opportunities — they know the struggles that come along with facing barriers to meaningful employment.
Therefore we, as a company, know that when you invest in your employees and cultivate their ability to contribute to their community, new value is returned to our team, customers, and overall business. This means offering services to new employees like technology training when we hand them a smart phone. If you are just coming out of the justice system, it’s important to know how to operate these devices to accomplish critical tasks at your job. We also offer navigation services (something nonprofits would normally do) to find community resources for essentials like bus passes, finding a place to live while they get on their feet, or setting up a bank account, if need be. Our mission with all this is to make sure our employees feel supported and get them to a place where they feel better about themselves and attain the confidence they need to thrive here.
What is your process when bringing on new candidates experiencing barriers like these?
When they are hired, I spend about 30 minutes with each individual to discuss basic expectations that come with operating in a work environment. It’s critical to understand workplace norms in order to escape the justice system, so we help in structuring plans for their commute, scheduling their time, building soft skills with teammates and customers, compensation, and fundamental accountability. Especially if the employee is in an interim halfway house, it’s important for them to understand these elements so they can discuss them effectively with their care manager.
Beyond immediate needs, we also invest early in the long-term wellbeing of our team members through diverse skill building. We’ll bring in outside partners or create internal programming to teach classes on simple finances and budgeting, knowing your rights as an immigrant, basic English, problem solving and basic professionalism — even classes on how to start your own business. We also pay for classroom time if they attend on their days off and overtime if they stay late to learn.
Wow — CSG sounds like an incredible opportunity and great place to work. Where does your partnership with RiseKit fall into place? How does it help you accomplish your goals?
We are fortunate to have no shortage of candidates knocking on our doors — about 50 candidates/week. Our employees are like walking billboards for us. They promote us within circles and the community programs they may belong to and people are excited to be involved in our business.
However, given the amount of services we offer to those without connections to nonprofit organizations, RiseKit helps bring talent to our doors that offer existing affiliations with community partners, providing installed support systems in new people we bring on. This helps us immensely in coordinating support services and keeping team members accountable to their commitments, which we would normally have to navigate on our own. While candidates on RiseKit are certainly facing their own set of challenges, the connection it offers to a network of community resources and professionals allows us to broaden our focus to other aspects of what makes a new hire successful at CSG.
What’s one piece of advice you would pass along to other employers?
Everyone wants to contribute and succeed and I find that the little things are most important to helping them get there. Sometimes a person just needs someone to ask how they are doing that day or if they have a dirty uniform, offering a new one. It’s an important reminder that they have someone in their corner cheering them on.
Be sure to explore CSG and the roles they have available on RiseKit:
Want to build a fair chance hiring strategy that actually works? Let’s talk.
