USA 
United KingdomJanet Critzer,
CHRO, Unanet
Unanet’s Returnship program ‘Encore’ offers experienced professionals a route back into the workforce as part of a paid, 12-week tenure at the company...
Janet Critzer,
CHRO, Unanet
Unanet’s Returnship program ‘Encore’ offers experienced professionals a route back into the workforce as part of a paid, 12-week tenure at the company...
Whether they took time off to welcome a child, care for family, or return to school, Unanet’s Returnship program ‘Encore’ offers experienced professionals a route back into the workforce as part of a paid, 12-week tenure at the company. Now in its fourth year of operation, CHRO Janet Critzer joins HR Grapevine to discuss the program and how it has become a game-changing program for participants and Unanet alike.
Encore is our returnship program. The intent of encore is like many encores in life - you have an opportunity to come back and do it again. We wanted to give people an opportunity when they had stepped away from work for a period of time. Perhaps they were taking care of young children, had a major life event, or were looking after elderly parents.
Through iterations of the program, we've looked at women, BIPOC, and military veterans who are coming back into the workforce. We want to give them an easy way to come back into the workforce because things are shifting and changing so much over time. Change happens rapidly and your skills get stale. So, this program is intended to help people get back into the workforce and get the skills they need to land their next full-time gig.
We looked at the roles within the organization that would be best suited for a returnship. Some roles, like technical positions, are more complicated because technical skills get outdated so fast, so we started by looking at more of the administrative or operational roles within the company like marketing, Finance, HR, and business development. These are roles in which people can more easily acclimatize to coming back into the world of work.
We've had two individuals who came in through Encore and ended up getting full-time work with us who are very successful in their roles right now, and others have gone on to find and secure full-time employment elsewhere
When we thought about designing the program itself, we reached out to our leaders across those different functions. We introduced the program and the intent of it and asked if they would be interested in opening a 12-week returnship for someone coming back into the workforce and helping them get them their feet back into it again.
Can they utilize someone who is returning to the workforce? Do they have the bandwidth to support their development and their return to the workforce? If yes to both, then they work with the HR team to design the job. They help put all the criteria in there like skills that we're looking for and the skills that we will help them develop by coming into these roles.
We’ve iterated the program to not only allow people to come back into, for example, a marketing role and get their skills redeveloped, but we’re also designing a success path for them from a learning perspective to get the other skills they may need.
I just had someone on my team who was a veteran. She had only worked in the military setting and was trying to get back into a civilian type of role. She didn’t know the terminology. She didn’t know the skills that were needed. So, we gave her a slightly different set of skill-based learnings because we knew what she needed was different, in terms of moving from military to civilian work.
It included things like, how do you use Outlook? How do you schedule a meeting? How do you look for availability on someone's calendar? How do you use Zoom in a remote workforce? How do you work remotely when you're in these positions?
Then, part of the program is helping with resumes, helping them get skilled at interviewing, and helping them to network with folks and get the connections they need to find their next gig. Not all returners at Unanet can find a full-time job with us, so we want to make sure that they're not only getting the skills they need internally in the program but also using those skills and what they've learned to secure their next full-time opportunity.
We give them a write-up and referral at the end of the program to say what the person accomplished during their time, here are the skills they learned, and they can translate that to their resume.
Absolutely. We had an individual within our marketing team. She's a web designer and came onto the team as a returner.
Her returnship coincided with a big customer conference. She designed the entire branding for that conference while she was in her returnship, and that was a huge lift for our marketing team because we were able to utilize her skills and get all our branding done. The conference was in the Colorado Rockies and all the branding was done with mountain scenery and colors that worked with our brand. It was fabulous. Having her own that and get it done for us was hugely helpful to the organization. We ultimately hired her full-time.
We see it in a lot of ways and yes, sometimes it takes longer for returners to get up to speed, depending on how long they've been away from the workforce, and some of them make more of an immediate impact than others. But at the end of the day, having additional resources is benefiting us in our day-to-day and what we're doing as well as benefiting them. It's just a win-win across the board.
We've had overwhelming support for the program, even from those who did not get selected. We have five returners coming in June – two into HR and three into our marketing team. We have so much interest that even the people we had to decline an offer to wrote us notes to say it was a shame they didn’t get the opportunity, but what a relief to see companies like Unanet are doing this, to keep it up, and that they’ll watch our website to see when the next opportunity opens up.
Through iterations of the program, we've looked at women, BIPOC, and military veterans who are coming back into the workforce. We want to give them an easy way to come back into the workforce because things are shifting and changing so much over time
We've had two individuals who came in through Encore and ended up getting full-time work with us who are very successful in their roles right now, and others have gone on to find and secure full-time employment elsewhere.
It’s truly been a game-changer for us at Unanet. There are not a lot of companies doing this, though each day I see more. But the opportunity to give these folks roles, see them be successful personally, and also see their contribution to our organization has been very rewarding.
We’ll continue to listen and look for the skills that folks need. Each returner is a little bit different. So, there are some basic skills that they need to get back into the workforce, but depending on how long they've been gone - we usually look for people who've been out of the workforce for a year - what they need might be different.
We're looking at designing those skill-based learning paths for them as individuals so that they are getting what they need personally to get their feet under them. Continuing to refine that skill-based learning that they're getting on the job, and then translating that to what it looks like in their next gig is really important for us.
