Innovation:
Provide Transitional Jobs
One way to help these individuals gain work experience in a non-threatening environment, while putting newly trained soft skills to work, is to provide them with a transitional job. Transitional jobs provide paid work for the hard-to-employ. These jobs provide a realistic experience of work for the individual, but it is a temporary arrangement. The purpose is for the individual to work long enough to gain the experience and skills needed to find permanent employment (Kirby et al, 2002). Often, the transitional job also provides the individual with additional training to address barriers to employment such as limited English, substance abuse problems or “difficulty with workplace norms” (Strawn and Martinson, 2000, as cited in Kirby et al, 2002).
Transitional jobs can also provide work experience to other disadvantaged populations such as those with criminal records, people with disabilities, people with low educational attainment, and those with other barriers.
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