Episode 44
Fair Chance Hiring: Lower The Barriers
For many companies, employing formerly incarcerated individuals may seem like a high-risk proposition. However, there are more people with charges and convictions than you realize. And there are plenty of moving, life-changing success stories that show that fair chance hiring can be good for your business. Ken Oliver, Vice President of Checkr.org, shares his own success story and tells us that “fair chance hiring doesn’t mean hire every single person with a record. Every company has a right to hire the best person for the job. We don’t want them to lower the bar, we just want them to lower the barrier to access.”
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Guest Spotlight
Ken Oliver
Vice President, Checkr.org
Ken Oliver is Vice President of Checkr.org, the social impact division of background screening company Checkr Inc. He also serves as the executive director of the Checkr Foundation. Checkr.org is dedicated to the mission of building a fairer future of work, one job at a time, by reshaping the narrative and providing pathways to sustainable employment for nearly 80 million Americans with an arrest and conviction record.
Ken’s professional expertise spans the landscape of diversity, equity and inclusion and justice, record clearance, talent development, talent sourcing, strategy, change management and public policy. His insights and contributions to the field have been recognized and featured in publications such as Newsweek, Forbes, Fast Company, The New York Times and others.
He also played a role in shaping California Governor Gavin Newsom’s 2021 Future of Work Report.
“I just think it’s so ironic that in businesses, in sports, in tech, we teach ‘fail, fail, fail to get to success,’ but when it comes to human beings, we don’t extend that same grace. And so I encourage every human being to embrace failure because that’s how we get to the winning recipe – by failing and learning. It’s the human condition.”
Ken Oliver, Vice President, Checkr.org
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