Fortune 500 Companies Issue New Playbook for a People-Centric Economic Recovery

BOSTON, MA (JUNE 16, 2021) — JFF, a national nonprofit that drives transformation in the American workforce and education systems, today announced the release of its new Recovery Playbook for Impact Employers, which is designed to help employers set a new standard for inclusive economic opportunity and mobility for their employees. Drawing on insights from a year of work with senior executives from JFF Recover Stronger Coalition members, including Walmart, JPMorgan Chase & Co., and Autodesk, the playbook provides recommendations for how large employers can work across the talent life cycle to support employee-centric approaches to post-pandemic recovery.

The new interactive tool highlights a series of worker-centric practices, including inclusive hiring programs and upskilling and reskilling initiatives that help employees advance in their careers or successfully transition to entirely new fields as the labor market evolves. Additionally, it identifies the challenges that employers are likely to encounter during the recovery and shares specific examples of strategies used by Recover Stronger Coalition company partners to boost the employee experience and foster upward mobility.

The playbook identifies six key areas of focus for how companies can balance the long-term career advancement of employees with critical business decisions. For instance, it includes examples of how major corporations created a more ethical and socially responsible approach to employee offboarding by helping employees facing career transitions access reskilling and upskilling services, career navigation support, and connections to other businesses and industries.

Originally launched during the height of the pandemic at JFF’s Horizons summit in June 2020, the Recover Stronger Coalition is made up of leading employers from a range of industries, including Autodesk, JPMorgan Chase & Co., JetBlue, Mastercard, Microsoft, Postmates, Prudential Financial, Salesforce, Walmart, and Workday. Over the past 14 months, the coalition—whose members collectively employ more than 2 million U.S. workers—has focused on designing, testing, and refining emerging practices to support employee well-being and advancement during the recovery from unprecedented labor market volatility and mounting job losses.

Each of the participating companies has publicly pledged to fulfill JFF’s Recovery Commitment for Impact Employers, a statement of values declaring that people will remain at the center of each member’s operations, values, mission, and purpose.