We’re going to start this one with a question: How was success defined for you when you were 18?
For many, the definition of success was likely narrowly defined as “study hard and make it into a great university”.
Many of us today can agree that this definition is limiting. Thankfully, in recent years more and more job descriptions are shifting their degree requirements and instead honing in on “years of related experience” or technical expertise.
In our latest episode of the Outside Insights podcast, I talk Brian Matthew Rhodes, Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary at Opportunity@Work.
Opportunity@Work’s is a really neat organization that’s on a mission to rewire the labor market so that everyone Skilled Through Alternative Routes, or STARs, can work, learn, and earn to their full potential.
In other words, a four-year degree isn’t the only path to success. At Placers, we’re proud to help job seekers with diverse backgrounds and experience levels find work, so of course we’ve been big fans of Opportunity@Work for a while.
During our talk, Brian provided eye-opening perspectives on how degree requirements can disadvantage certain groups and why skills-based hiring makes sense, especially given the current labor shortages. Opportunity@Work has conducted research that highlights the on-the-job potential of STARs and points to them as a solution for broadening talent pools with great candidates that would otherwise be overlooked.
Here are a the key takeaways from this episode:
At Outside Insights, we’re all about changing the status quo and coloring outside the lines. By embracing STAR’s in the workplace, we can create a more skills-focused and inclusive workforce that empowers all talents to thrive - and I think that’s something we should all embrace.
If you were 18 today, would you consider alternative routes to a four-year university? Reply and let me know. Let’s discuss.
Until next time,
Chris
We’re going to start this one with a question: How was success defined for you when you were 18?
For many, the definition of success was likely narrowly defined as “study hard and make it into a great university”.
Many of us today can agree that this definition is limiting. Thankfully, in recent years more and more job descriptions are shifting their degree requirements and instead honing in on “years of related experience” or technical expertise.
In our latest episode of the Outside Insights podcast, I talk Brian Matthew Rhodes, Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary at Opportunity@Work.
Opportunity@Work’s is a really neat organization that’s on a mission to rewire the labor market so that everyone Skilled Through Alternative Routes, or STARs, can work, learn, and earn to their full potential.
In other words, a four-year degree isn’t the only path to success. At Placers, we’re proud to help job seekers with diverse backgrounds and experience levels find work, so of course we’ve been big fans of Opportunity@Work for a while.
During our talk, Brian provided eye-opening perspectives on how degree requirements can disadvantage certain groups and why skills-based hiring makes sense, especially given the current labor shortages. Opportunity@Work has conducted research that highlights the on-the-job potential of STARs and points to them as a solution for broadening talent pools with great candidates that would otherwise be overlooked.
Here are a the key takeaways from this episode:
At Outside Insights, we’re all about changing the status quo and coloring outside the lines. By embracing STAR’s in the workplace, we can create a more skills-focused and inclusive workforce that empowers all talents to thrive - and I think that’s something we should all embrace.
If you were 18 today, would you consider alternative routes to a four-year university? Reply and let me know. Let’s discuss.
Until next time,
Chris
That music was brought to you and played by Steve Miller, my brother in law and produced by Laney Miller, my niece. So in today's episode of Outside insights, I'm hosting Brian Matthew Rhodes Esquire. Brian is a civil rights attorney and the chief legal officer and corporate secretary with Opportunity@Work. Opportunity@Work is a leading not for profit, social enterprise, with a primary mission to rewire the labor market so that workers who are skilled through alternative routes or stars can learn, earn and prosper in the same way that folks that go to college. I've known Brian a long time. Prior to joining Opportunity@Work, he's had several positions in his legal career. Senior attorney in the Labor and Employment Division with the City of Philadelphia Solicitor's Office, he's been chief legal officer and corporate secretary for several nationwide behavioral health businesses. And where Brian and I met, he was in house counsel for Sunoco, and head of HR for, I think, five refineries if I recall. And then my favorite part, if I recall about you that you'd like to give back and you teach and you guest lecturer and you've guest lectured around the country at places like Cornell, Villanova and I think at Temple. Well, welcome to Outside Insights and thanks for joining Brian.
Brian Matthew Rhodes:Chris, thank you so much for the opportunity to be here. This is outstanding, thank you so much.
Chris Burkhard:I appreciate it. So, we have got sixty thousand people that don't hang up on me. What I think I've found that Outside Insights stands for is really helping people close their personal and professional gaps. So we just try and talk about things and I can't think of anything more appropriate than that than Opportunity@Work. Would you just talk about the organization a bit? How it got started, what its mission is and your role in the business?
Brian Matthew Rhodes:Perfect, perfect. Sure thing and you really already touched on it Chris. You gave a great synopsis of what we do and I'll just piggyback on that a little bit more. We definitely push the mission of stars, people who are skilled through alternative routes, people who lack a college degree but have through their own enterprise, either by virtue of getting a certificate, going to community college, military, oftentimes, just by on the job work experience, have gained skills have gained the knowledge that they need in order to complete the task of the job that they're working at. We push that agenda for these individuals because all times they've been either not hired or not promoted, not moved along, not given opportunities within their jobs or within their workplaces to move ahead and accomplish. So we try to educate employers by pushing all types of insights, all types of data by my job, which is general counsel by letting them know the legal risk and not having a stars based talent strategy by having a blanket college degree requirement, what kind of risks that that imposes, or could impose on a company. So that's our agenda. We were started in 2015 by our founder, Byron Auguste. Byron is a former McKinsey employee. He's first director I believe, but don't hold me to that. Please don't hold me to that.
Chris Burkhard:It's all good,don't worry. I'll tell you what, we'll put that in show notes. We'll confirm that for you. So regardless of what it is, we'll get it right there if that's cool?
Brian Matthew Rhodes:Perfect. Yes and he was an Obama appointed White House appointee. Worked in the Obama White House for two years. And it was actually through his affiliation with the White House with Obama that he started this because they should call it tech higher. Tech higher then, after a couple of years in 2017 to be exact turned into Opportunity@Work. Opportunity@Work is again, a social enterprise nonprofit, whereby we hope to rewire the labor market. I mean, that's a grand scheme. That's a moonshot but we'll see. You'll notice we've gained a little bit of momentum.
Chris Burkhard:I absolutely think you have, I'd be curious, has the pandemic made it easier, an easier message for businesses to consume? Because it does seem as if maybe this is the tipping point. We're shooting this in July of 2023 but the last three years Brian, organizations tell my company Placers and yours that they just don't have enough people. Isn't it common sense to look at skills versus a degree? Or is it not that simple?
Brian Matthew Rhodes:Well, it is that simple. But you know, employers are creatures of habit and they like to follow along with the pack.
Chris Burkhard:Everybody else, right?
Brian Matthew Rhodes:So now going back few years, skills based hiring was not the thing to do and can't really say it's the thing to do just yet, because we're still finding some opposition. But we have noticed, especially with our tear to paper sealing campaign, that organizations are listening to us and they're understanding that it just makes sense. I mean, if you're saying you don't have enough candidates for a particular job, but there are seventy million people out there that you haven't even looked at, then you're probably not really searching. You might not be telling yourself the truth. And I'm not putting any employers down. I mean, again like I said, gained quite a bit of momentum and employers are definitely listening to us and listening to others out there in the world who are talking about skills based hiring. But it requires some pushing too, because we've seen as some employers do want to stick with the habits and routines of the past.
Chris Burkhard:Any case studies that you've seen where organizations having adopted this have had pretty quick success? I think I saw something with the State Of Pennsylvania in particular, I see that we're interacting with a lot of government agencies, it could be state troopers, correctional officers, clinical workers, clerical offices in government. Everybody's struggling but I still see the degree requirements.
Brian Matthew Rhodes:We still see it up. So we work with several states. We first worked with the State of Maryland, Governor Hogan. And he was the first to really promote Opportunity@Work, did a press conference with our CEO, Byron and pushed for the term stars, which was the first time we actually had used publicly by a public figure that I'm aware of. And that also talked about some of our products and services, which is Stellar Works and Stellar sites. So we've noticed, I mean, after that, we had a number of hits on our site, and a number of stars actually reached out to our organization, as well as employers. And that just has been a springboard. And we've noticed a lot of other states. We're actually working with the National Governors Association, we've noticed a lot of other states taking that leap. And when we see the state's doing it, I mean, also, we've also been talking to the Feds as well. But when we see these states doing it, more cities are talking about it. And then more cities and states are forcing their employers within these cities and states to say, hey, wait a minute. We should be at the forefront of this as well. So we're seeing this piggyback effect, which is
Chris Burkhard:So, I reconnected with you by great. accident. Someone forwarded me the Tear The Paper Ceiling. And I saw it and then realized that you were connected to Opportunity@Work. And obviously, I don't know if our audience needs to know this but I was going to ask you how many years ago that we met at Sunoco, do you care to take a shot at that? We don't have to incriminate ourselves, but it'll make us look experienced.
Brian Matthew Rhodes:Well, next Tuesday I'll be turning 56, so I'm not afraid to call it. I'll call it out there. I know you're much younger than me, but I'll call it out there. But I believe I took over as head of HR for Sunoco Refineries in 2004. And I'm not really sure about this, Chris, but I think somebody from your company, cold called me.
Chris Burkhard:It was probably me. How about that?
Brian Matthew Rhodes:And at the time, I was looking for help with creating a HR dashboard. And, you know, I was just promoted to that position and I wasn't fully versed in HR. I was a civil rights attorney labor and employment attorney with Sunoco for a couple of years before that. But to take this role, I didn't know quite a lot about HR but I knew I was working with a bunch of engineers and I knew that they liked charts and graphs and dashboards. And so your cold call was like perfect, like is he in my head? So that's what I recall about 2004.
Chris Burkhard:And I knew you were smart. And I know that I mean, there's a connection to a lot of things. The idea of putting someone who's smart into a role like human resources, who needs to learn the blocking and tackling of Human Resources is I think, good business. Bring a business mind to the table, learn some things. So I remember that conversation. I remember talking about the ideas and fast forward, we did a lot of neat stuff together. But I have a not for profit, Placers Cares and I was on a podcast, we were talking about that one of my beliefs is that the degree is overused. And then somebody sent me this link, and I found you. And I know it's a relatively new campaign but I think it's great. And I know it's collecting signatures now and it's being spread quite a bit. That's not a product, right? That's just a way of creating awareness so that more people can understand the cause and the mission.
Brian Matthew Rhodes:That's absolutely correct. We do offer certain services, we do have a platform that we call Stellar Works, another platform called Stellar Suite, both of which can assist employers as they move forward in the stars talent based work workplace. We also provide advisory services. But our initial push is to inform employers, inform the workforce about stars, about people who are skilled through alternative routes, who can do the jobs who have been doing the jobs. There's ample insight, information data out here that shows that there have been tons throughout the years of individuals who lacked a degree but have been able to do justice, much of just at the same level, as an individual who has a college degree. And what's interesting and great about Opportunity@Work too is that we don't just talk the talk, we walk the walk, we have a lot of stars working at our company working two jobs and are involved in every decision we make.
Chris Burkhard:Has to be it right? You have much more credibility to be at versus say it. You know, I'm a student of history and I give talks all the time about workforce and workplace realities and kind of like how we got here. So I'd just be curious, how did the degree and what are your thoughts on where the degree became so dominant? I think I have my ideas, but I'd be curious to maybe bat that around with you a little bit. You feel comfortable with that?
Brian Matthew Rhodes:Well yes, so we've done a great deal of research. We know that the degree requirements, and I don't want to be controversial, or kind of not confrontational, but there's ample information out there that employers around the certain era decided to screen out as opposed to screening it now, we do know that prior to the industrial era, during the industrial era,you did not have that many employers requiring college degrees. At that time, I think less than half the workforce even had a high school diploma or college degree. So it's just, you know, as more employees of different sorts of different hues started to enter the workplace, more screening out of workers started to take hold. And so when I look at it from the legal side as a civil rights attorney, it became pretty evident that for people of color, this was another, especially after the Brown versus Board of Education, a case that in desegregation and education and desegregation are actually in the public as well. You know, there were more employers as well as a society as a whole started finding other ways to try to keep things status quo. So this was one of the things and the courts looked at several different cases to try to stem that tide, one being the Griggs versus Duke Power Company case that came out in 1971. And I know I'm probably about to lose sixty thousand of your listeners. But that's kind of my historical take what I mean. You're screening out of all these additional individuals entering the workplace, especially these soft core jobs.
Chris Burkhard:I flat out think that organizations have used all kinds of tools and techniques to screen out whatever they felt was desirable or not desirable. And obviously I understand the law. On a broader perspective, what I feel is that that was a very large post World War Two was a huge bump in population. At a time where all of a sudden, every household was thinking about that a college degree mattered. And I know some people did not have access more than others, but all of a sudden, this degree became success. And I actually think some businesses started to believe that it was a sign of success or accomplishment. And in my book, I think we talked about that I'm not sure a college degree is any more today than a high school degree was fifty years ago, it's sort of along the same kind of thing. So I think you're right. The reason I feel this is because now population numbers are changing so organizations have to adapt. They should have done it anyway and of course, I agree with you. But now they're doing it out of necessity with supply and demand. There aren't enough people so it doesn't make the cause any less important.
Brian Matthew Rhodes:One thousand percent Chris. When I was first brought on to Opportunity@Work, so I like to call it the carrot and stick approach. When I was first brought on, the push was for me as an attorney, as a litigator as well ,advocate, was to try to help companies to understand what types of risk they were taking by having a blanket college degree required. How you're putting yourself in jeopardy of a disparate impact claim under Title Seven of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. How you are potentially violating Title Seven by not promoting based upon the person lacking a college degree.
Chris Burkhard:How did that go?
Brian Matthew Rhodes:It's interesting enough. So Chris, when I came in and started doing these memos at Opportunity@Work, I started talking with the CEO quite often about this. And we were looking at the potential of trying to inform employers if you don't want to remove a college degree requirement, at least use the and or equivalent language when you are posting for a position. Our insights group are magnificent employees, the carrot approach was working. They were going to them and telling them about the importance of stars and how stars have these skills and stars can do this job if you've just looked at these skills. And employers said, Hey, you're right. And it might be as you said earlier, might be as a result of the belief and workers out there. But no, the stick approach wasn't absolutely necessary. I wasn't quite needed
Chris Burkhard:Still, I think there's power and knowledge and that aspect of the role. education, but it's great that positive was working versus universes, the stick approach. So you use the stars acronym a lot. Skilled Through Alternative Routes and kind of just prepping and talking with you, I know there's a lot of different kinds of stars. Is that part of what you'd like to share in the message? I think talking about the stars is probably key here, right? You know a little bit bringing them to life.
Brian Matthew Rhodes:Agreed. Yes our numbers indicate that there, as you mentioned earlier, seventy plus billion stars out there. They take the form of rising stars, forming stars, shining stars. But even before you get to looking at that as we talked about earlier, as being skilled through alternative routes, you've got to look at what are those alternative routes and when you look at the fact that people have military service, that they have on the job experience, that they obtain certificates and done other forms of knowledge building, they come from all facets of society, all segments of society. We have discovered that about half of the seventy million stars are forming stars. There are stars who have these skills ,have these abilities but just might still be a little young and might be working on getting additional certifications and still working at the job. And they're not quite making the type of salaries that they should be making because they're not considered and probably still, employers are thinking, okay they lack college experience then you go on to rising stars, and that's about thirty two minutes, just a little bit less than half. And those individuals are in positions, what we call gateway jobs that might allow them to or should allow them to move up. They've acquired enough sets of skills through their working through their years of experience to be considered for that additional role or that promotion of things like that. And then there's the small number, about three to four million of shining stars who employers have actually said, a lot of these actually have their own companies, but employers have actually said, you know, this individual truly does have the skill sets and the abilities to be in top level positions within the company. And we're just hoping to get more employers to see that the forming and the rising should still be considered in the shine.
Chris Burkhard:So I think the fundamental part of this is that learning comes in a lot of ways. Obviously you know, prepping and thinking, there's boot camps for programmers all over this country today. There's certificate programs and they have highly paid jobs. They don't have college degrees, but they've got this eight, twelve week, sixteen week program and they're stars. I have a family member who can rebuild engines, and he's done it all by YouTube. Now, does he need a four year degree to go be an automotive or truck mechanic? Probably not, but I find it very interesting. The institutions of education, there are a lot of ways to get education. There's free educations out there from Universities and free certificates and I don't think it needs to be the four year degree classic way in order for people to learn. Now, that's very much my own bias and as a founder of a business, I can get away with that. But I think that's a real issue that I mean, learning comes in lots of ways and it does not have to be from a University.
Brian Matthew Rhodes:I agree. My oldest son, who's now given me two grandsons, he had to pull out of school at Temple.
Chris Burkhard:He's your favorite.
Brian Matthew Rhodes:He decided to go a different route as far as having children right away. But he's worked for this one employer for almost ten years and this is a great story too. He was working security. And I did a presentation a couple of weeks ago, where the EEOC where we talked about skills base hire, and that was on June 8th. And during that presentation, I talked about my oldest son and how he was a star and how he had been in this role for such a long time. And he had his quarter certificate, he had all this other experience in IT. He even formed his own or created his own board game, Chris. An amazing board game.
Chris Burkhard:He's got mad skills.
Brian Matthew Rhodes:He's got these skills, he's got these amazing skills. And so you know, he wanted to advance in the company but they didn't allow him they said he didn't have a college degree. And so during that presentation to the EEOC, which again was on June 8th, I said I might have to take the stick approach, because I talked about the carrot and stick. I said, I might have to take the stick approach for my son for this at this point. June 9th he gets promoted to another job working in IT making a little bit more money. And it was amazing. I mean, the timing was ridiculous. I'm like, was this company sitting in the audience, and looked me up and looked up my son, but I'm not sure I won't say the name of the company.
Chris Burkhard:I'm trying to just take longer to do the right things.
Brian Matthew Rhodes:Sometimes it does.
Chris Burkhard:Sometimes it does.
Brian Matthew Rhodes:But the timing was amazing. And yes, we all half stars now in our orbit, and our family and our friends. And you know, we love them, we we cherish them and we hope that they can do the best. But if you're being left behind or not considered solely because of this, or a lack of this piece of paper, this paper sealing that we talked about the tear to paper sealing, that's a problem. That's a real problem, especially if this individual has the skills to do the job.
Chris Burkhard:I imagine there's some stars listening. I just imagined you know, the questions and thoughts and things about you know that they want to hear about our failures to Brian, they want to hear about the things we're learning the lessons we're learning and stuff too. What should a star do if they like what we're talking about? Maybe how could the organization help or what could they do to help themselves?
Brian Matthew Rhodes:Well, we would love the opportunity to meet with them and talk to them. They can always come to our website, Opportunity@Work.org. They can go to the tear the paper ceiling website, tearthepaperceiling.org. So tearthepaperceiling.org. All right, great. We're based in DC, so you can always contact us at our office. But you know, the most important thing, in my opinion is that if you are a star, don't feel stigmatized by it. Don't feel like it's a bad thing. When I first approached my son, I took took this job at Opportunity@Work to tell him we have this great concept and you fit the definition of a star, you're skilled through alternative routes. He's like, I don't really like to talk about that, that I don't have my college degree. His name is Matteo. I said "Matteo you're fine." Think about you've done this, this this and you've been able to create your own game board, your about to convert it to an app. I mean, you have the skills, you're doing it yourself. You went out and acquired these skills on your own. You've got your certificate, everything. Be proud of it. That's not something to sit back and say, Oh, I don't want people to know.
Chris Burkhard:That's hard to overcome, isn't it?
Brian Matthew Rhodes:It's hard to overcome. Part of our innovations team, part of our whole makeup, the one hundred plus employees at Ppportunit@Work is to try to let stars know that you are a star that you deserve to be considered for the position and for the promotion if it's necessary. If that's what you're looking for.
Chris Burkhard:Of course I've run an HR company for going on thirty years. I have a lot of organizations that I feel maybe on their own might like to explore this topic. How do organizations engage so that they can get educated? Because I think a lot of them want to poke around and learn about it on their own right? You know, they're not going to welcome you and I in for a keynote in front of ten thousand employees tomorrow, right? But I see it everywhere, where especially skilled labor jobs, technology jobs. As you said, I don't know how you use the term with office jobs, but there is a host of jobs that there are not enough candidates for even in today's market. And were asked all the time, what could we do? And many times this is suggested, but this isn't allowed to be on the table. Perhaps the people we're talking with don't have the authority to change job descriptions and things. So do they sign the tear the paper ceiling.org, or do they contact
Brian Matthew Rhodes:We would love for people to sign a tear you? to paper ceiling.org. banner on that website. That would be outstanding to do. We also as part of the tear the paper ceiling campaign, we have partners. We partnered with over fifty different companies and workforce organizations to join the campaign. In fact, by all means, Placers should consider joining the campaign. Basically joining a campaign, you get insights into all this great data that support the hiring of stars that supports the skills. I mean, we can take a particular position, take a particular individual and look at all the skills that that individual has acquired through all the different positions that they've worked and displayed for them, as well as an employer, all the different jobs if they possibly would have the best ability to work in.
Chris Burkhard:It makes so much sense because I can picture us as a partner. The number of times Brian, that we're an agent on somebody's behalf. And we're saying you know, I understand that you wanted a two year associate's degree for this, but Mateo has a certificate and he has two years of experience and we just think you should meet him. You know, sometimes we win and sometimes we get the no, but I have a couple of people that have passion for DEI. I'd love to get them connected. And frankly, I'd like to be connected because this is my particular interest, frankly.
Brian Matthew Rhodes:You raise a great point, Chris. So we haven't really talked in great detail about DEI and the belonging part as well.
Chris Burkhard:That was a soft setup for you there.
Brian Matthew Rhodes:Great set up. Opportunity@Work, our friend Byron is such a brilliant individual and all the individuals working there. Our setup is extremely inclusive. We say, a star can be a person who is a person of color, could be a woman, could be a former military person. It could be people who live in rural communities. That's the makeup of a lot of our stars. But when you break that down even further, you'll see that percentage wise, a large number are people of color. All the people who fit the protected characteristics, all the people who have been considered most vulnerable, the ones that have been left out in a lot of different arenas. And so our focus is not solely on any one particular category. It's focused on all of the different individuals that can make up a star. All the different people who, by whatever circumstances that created the situation where they could not complete the degree or even started degree. You are still a star, you're not just a black star, you're not just a Latino star, you're not just a female star, you are a star. We don't just forget, but we do know the importance of how if you are an employer and you decide to take this route of looking at individuals who fit the star category, you will see an increase in your diversity numbers in both your candidate pool and if you take, not a gamble because it's definitely not a gamble if you decide to hire stars, you'll see an increase in your workforce diversity as well.
Chris Burkhard:We all know that that broader team makeup, creates innovation, it creates perspective, it creates compassion and understanding. And it makes for a better game,makes for a better outcome.
Brian Matthew Rhodes:Always.
Chris Burkhard:Always. So I think what's really important is that you have data where I think it's okay to put a fine point to it. You know, if a Latino or a black person is someone who's impacted by this, I think it's important to be able to understand what the opportunity is that you're working on and what you're trying to impact. You know, to understand those numbers. I think that matters. If someone needs them, that would be helpful.
Brian Matthew Rhodes:Agred. We have you know, and I'm not the best at the discussion on all our data points, we have some amazing individuals who can talk quite eloquently and notice stuff pretty well. But I will tell you that we do know that within our stars community, sixty two percent of them are black, fifty four percent are Hispanic and sixty five percent are rural workers, sixty two percent are veterans. And so we know that if you choose to as an employer to look at this group, the census, you will see an increase in your diversity numbers.
Chris Burkhard:Is there a link to a paper or summary of some of that, that someone might be able to consume?
Brian Matthew Rhodes:I can send you several links, Chris. We have done several studies that are on our website as well on Opportunity@Work.org. The rise of stars we actually looked at African American stars, we looked at data on Latino stars as well as veterans and people in rural communities. And through our Stellar Sites website an employer can go on there and you know, drill down like for instance, and Delaware where you are we can look at the Camden, Wilmington, Philadelphia area and you can see that, I'll actually pull up your numbers. There are about one point three million stars, people that we would categorize as stars, who live in the Camden, Wilmington and Philadelphia area.
Chris Burkhard:It would be really interesting to understand. I guess you can't just look at unemployment and it's hard to measure underemployment, although I'm sure you're doing it to get a handle on that. I mean, I'm always an entrepreneur Brian, and there is such a business opportunity to represent stars, not to borrow the acronym, but when you do the right thing, there's such an opportunity there and I like it.
Brian Matthew Rhodes:Use stars anytime you want Chris, because that's an open source term. You can use it anytime you want.
Chris Burkhard:So just to check in, we're thirty five minutes in. Are we talking about the right things and I'll let you as the guest kind of direct us to other parts of the business story, other parts of the information and even anything you'd like to share about you that you feel is relevant.
Brian Matthew Rhodes:Chris, no. I think when we talked prior, I was excited to get an opportunity to speak on your platform just to talk about what we do at Opportunity@Work and how we're hoping to move the dial, I mean not only move the dial, we want to rewire the labor market, we want people to understand that this is in fact, if you're an employer, if your star, this is in fact something that you should really employ in your future workplace. Making certain that people who lack college degrees are given just as much consideration if not the same consideration for certain jobs and certain roles within the workplace. But on top of that, in my room, what I do, I've always done civil rights. I've been a civil rights attorney for thirty years and I've worked mostly in the area of litigation. And so joining Opportunity@Work and not having to necessarily do a lot of advocacy, but just assist those who are going into the workplace and talking to these different employers and just providing them data. Data is so strong, data is so compelling that it's unnecessary for me to be that person that I'm used to being, but we're still getting the same results. In other words, I don't have to be what I referred to earlier as a stick.
Chris Burkhard:You don't have to be the heavy.
Brian Matthew Rhodes:I don't have to be the heavy like I was when I was at the EEOC. I didn't talk about my background. But when I was a trial attorney with EEOC, so yeah, it's just amazing. And I can't say that our society is getting it as a whole but when you look at everything, especially with companies, it's about the bottom line. I mean, look at the bottom line, it makes fundamental sense to include.
Chris Burkhard:If it were easy, it would already be done.
Brian Matthew Rhodes:That's so true.
Chris Burkhard:So you know, it's funny, I sort of wrote down, what's your purpose? It's such a silly question because you're quite evidently very driven by the purpose of the organization. Not that your purpose couldn't be a little different but it does fit in with what you've wanted to do
Brian Matthew Rhodes:It does. I was not looking for work when I all along. found this job. So that's always a great thing, but I just happened to be on their site. And interestingly enough, I was on LinkedIn and they had posted position and one of our board members is the founder of LinkedIn, Reid Hoffman. And so I was just looking at this position, I was like, wow, the work that they're doing is amazing. Because I was thinking of my son, again, I was thinking of Mateo, my oldest son. I was like wow, that is absolutely amazing. While I was looking at the site, and looking at the position, I get a call from a recruiter saying, Hey, would you be interested in this particular role and I was like, You've got to be kidding me. Are you looking? I'm thinking about LinkedIn at the point.
Chris Burkhard:Are you watching me?
Brian Matthew Rhodes:So have I really been LinkedIn? But I mean, it was amazing. It was destiny and again, the approach that Opportunity@Work takes that's so broad, that we're talking about seventy million Americans. I've been a civil rights attorney mostly working individual cases, every now and then I'll get a class action case. But now I have a seventy million plus sphere of impact, potential.
Chris Burkhard:I think that's very subtle, but what you said, I heard you say about you is that you were always the standalone one. The one voice, the the one expert and you had to step in and educate a lot of people. This happens to be where you're around a lot of educated people where you're just raising the bar a little bit on a hundred people, right? They're coming to you to learn more. I don't know if I'm saying that right, versus being the one that constantly has to walk around and say, let me tell you what's really going on.
Brian Matthew Rhodes:Well, you're saying it right. I can tell you that I've learned more than I've taught at this job. Oh wow! By the way Brian, I'm on LinkedIn. I'm expecting a call. You might get one, trust me. Byron is brilliant but he's just one of many there. And it's has nothing to do with pedigree, which is where they got their degrees or if they even got a degree. Everybody is just not only passionate about what they do, they're brilliant and how they're doing it. I love learning. I love everyday coming to this job and learning more. But you're right, from my vantage point of being a litigator and an advocate in the civil rights world, I have been able to give them insight into approaching cases, approaching other ways of convincing employers to makes changes.
Chris Burkhard:Yes and I think you have to understand the whole lifecycle or timeline to be able to understand the steps. To know what your options are. To know how to escalate and to know how to influence. I'm gonna throw you a fun question. I know you didn't want to talk much about yourself, but I think you'll get a kick out of this. What advice would you give your twenty one year old self? Obviously, you've got this pretty cool career, you've done a lot of things. I've enjoyed watching you over the years. And you know, professor, lawyer, you've got it down. But what would you say to your twenty one year old self? It's sort of my way of getting successful people to talk about the lessons they've learned.
Brian Matthew Rhodes:Yes, that is an outstanding question. Because even though I have a son who's twenty, and a son who's twenty eight and a daughter whose eighteen and a daughter who is twenty nine, I wouldn't say to them what I would say to
Chris Burkhard:I didn't ask that question. myself.
Brian Matthew Rhodes:Knowing what I know now, I would probably tell my twenty one year old self to not be in such a hurry and to actually think it through. When I first joined EEOC in 1993, straight out of law schools, freshman passing the bar, I wrote on a chart, they had the full US government scale on pay and promotions and the rank. You can go from a GS2 and GS15 and then SES. I circled and then wrote a line to SES three in five years and I was racing to see if I could get anywhere near that. I probably skipped some steps and it would have helped me better off in life. And so I came up with these five fingers. I think I might have told you about these five fingers. I came up with them when I was at Sunoco. And they're my five fingers of success that I've held on to and I teach it to when I was teaching at Temple for twelve years. And with that for all my employees, people who work for me didn't know about them too. So it's knowledgeable, resourceful, legally sound, thorough, and punctual. And if I would have thought about that the way I think about it almost every day now when I'm doing my job at twenty one when I was just out of college and waiting to go to law school working for the feds in DC, I would probably be a little bit further along in my career. Now, I'm happy where I am. I enjoy the job I do, I enjoy the people I work with and I enjoy where I live and all things else. But I probably would have been a little bit more impactful had I followed up my five fingers at an early stage of life.
Chris Burkhard:Brian, one of my all time favorite learned sayings is "When I go slow, I go fast."
Brian Matthew Rhodes:I need to adopt it and I'm still I'm still learning.
Chris Burkhard:And I need to learn the five fingers and I'm sure there's one in there that I violate every day. And I try not to be the punctual one but that's the one that struck a chord for me that, you know, that's the one that drives me nuts in the world.
Brian Matthew Rhodes:Yes well, it's the one that I had to adopt. Because Chris, I mean, I've learned this too. You can be the most knowledgeable person, you know how to use your resources and be a resource. You are legally sound. I mean nobody breaking laws but you can be the most legally sound individuals out there and you can be thorough. Thorough is what leaves an impression. But if you're late in the legal world, if you could have written the Magna Carta, the greatest piece of document but if it was a day passed the due date by the judge, they're not going to read it. They're not going to even pay attention to it. And so punctual has been like, I try to show up to meetings five minutes early just so I can make sure I've got everything. My notes ready and all kinds of things ready. And you know, it's worked out for me since I've adopted these five fingers especially that punctual, even though I as a few minutes late for this.
Chris Burkhard:Well, you know, you had to figure out the technology and us old dog sometimes, I mean, you know, I hope you don't mind the reference. How do you keep learning?
Brian Matthew Rhodes:So, I read a lot. I like hardcopy books but I haven't read a hardcopy book in a while. I've been listening to books and online, but I try to read quite often. And I read, I read a lot of go on a lot of news channels, but also like, so I've learned to generational wives. You know, if you only focus on the avenues that you always learn from, you're never going to expand, you're just never going to one, stay abreast of things, but then also just to get the different viewpoints.
Chris Burkhard:Are you talking about contrarian points of view from your own even?
Brian Matthew Rhodes:Absolutely. And insteresting, my eighteen year old daughter, who's a huge feminist, animal rights person. And I I can just grunt and she'll think, you know, daddy you're being insensitive, daddy you're being this. And she'll just break it down for me like, oh, goodness, you know, whatever she's feeling that she thought that my grunt meant based on whatever it comes from, and she'll tell me, she's, you know, she'll point me to all different types of sources that she's gotten her data from even Tik Tok. And I'm like, Okay, I don't know, if I'm going to necessarily take Tik Tok but I am open to learning from all different sources if I think the source is legit and valid.
Chris Burkhard:We're realizing that people are getting more information about jobs, job prep information like this from Tik Tok because of the short video content .You know, I write an eight hunderd word essay and it's not quite the same as a three minute Tik Tok that has a little movement and a quick teaching moment. And you know what it is, it's just an just another platform to share. And that's why I'm open to it. But I like that story. Because my daughter is twenty eight. She's a speech therapist. She is quite frankly for the underdog. So it must be a dad thing, because every time I grunt or snort, there's a lecture. And of course, we're going to listen to it from our daughters, right? You know what, sometimes she's right and I'm sure sometimes your daughters right. Not always but it just means we're all learning and openness is great. You know, we're asking people to change, it starts with us.
Brian Matthew Rhodes:Exactly. You know, we did a study on generationalism and the multiple generations that can be in the workplace in today's workplace. Generationalism is another form of credentialism, could be another form of racism, sexism, all kinds of isms. Isms just stink.
Chris Burkhard:By the way, that's the title of this talk isms just stink.
Brian Matthew Rhodes:I like that. But yes, if you're, if you're a workforce that is into the B in the DEIB, the belonging, then you also have to take into consideration the different generations that make up your workplace. And if you're not taking the approach that each different generation can learn from each other generation and that's just not the employer that's also each employee, then you're probably going to have way more disputes than you should have in your workplace. And you're going to end up I'm having to deal with lawyers like me, or external agencies who are going to get frustrated because this case has nothing to do with sex, not even age, even though it's a generation issue, race or anything like that. It just has to do with people aren't talking. They're not tolerating each other and not listening to each other all because they're from different generations and we're taught differently, gather their information differently. That's why I said earlier, I like to learn from all different sources because it helps me to, and I'm not trying to stay young, like I said, I'll be fifty six next week. I'm just trying to stay relevant and that's me helping myself by learning from different things.
Chris Burkhard:Brian, I'll let you bring it home with anything else you'd like to share. I think this has been awesome. The last ten minutes I think is sort of interesting and raw and really you brought a touch of yourself to it, which I think people really enjoy. And you know, in the isms just stink is right. And I do think by you being a little vulnerable and me being a little vulnerable about whether we need to learn, I think it makes the message of the organization stronger. It tells me that the work we have to do, you know, if we need help from our daughters then it makes sense that the world's got to figure out how to talk. And that's what you're saying.
Brian Matthew Rhodes:That's exactly what I'm saying and at Opportunity@Work we call ourselves a learning organization. And that's both in that we strive to learn but we also strive to educate and there's nothing wrong with building your knowledge. Besides my five fingers I'd like to live by and I might even learn this from you, Chris. Back when I was at Sunoco but I can't recall who told me but as a person who is a people leader, you have to be fair, firm and consistent. And if you're fair, firm and consistent, that's encased in integrity. You know, people who follow you, people who you lead, your family, anybody who's surrounded around you, they'll know that you're transparent. And transparency is why people
Chris Burkhard:Brian Matthew Rhodes, what I do remember is us strive. No, the pleasure is all mine, Chris. talking about that leaders stand alone if they don't have followers and you better be fair, firm and consistent if you expect to have followers that they expect from leaders. So it's quite an honor that, I think, well obviously audience, what we're talking about is in our formative years of leadership and growing and changing, we would have dialogues and I would encourage everybody to have a work mentor like that. Whether it's a client or someone that you talk to about issues, it's how you grow and it's how you learn and who knows you might connect nineteen years later and have a guest on your podcast, right? Brian, I think it's terrific. We'll make sure in our show notes that we get some of the data and some of the links that makes sense. But thanks for being a guest.