WorkLife Partnership

WorkLife Partnership (501c3) helps address the social-determinants of health at work- helping struggling workers get access to essential resources like safe housing, government work supports, childcare, transportation, financial coaching and much more. Our team of Navigators across the country are 'people helping people' (i.e. workers) overcome issues that prevent them from job-retention. Navigators also facilitate access to opportunities that lead to better wages and improved job quality. We then leverage the data gathered from working 1:1 with workers to provide job-quality consulting to their employers- illuminating the social-factors affecting their talent-pool and offering solutions that can benefit a greater number of their workforce; this providing human resources support.

WorkLife will partner with Empleo Benefits Marketplace to reach small businesses with 2-20 workers.  Empleo provides the online platform needed to deliver efficient Navigator and HR services to smallest businesses and drives down overhead costs associated with customer acquisition. WorkLife will offer its services ala-carte on Empleo. Empleo (S-corp, PBC) is a broker and curator of worker-support services. Small businesses would budget credits to each worker ($1= 1 credit) that allow workers to access WorkLife's Navigator, health benefits navigator and financial coaching by the hour.

For 13 years, WorkLife has incorporated worker voice in its programming and service delivery design. Today, we have a constituent voice committee that helps advise our Board as well as is a paid permanent focus-group for which we filter our marketing, stories, data presentations, and communications through. 

Today, small businesses make up 99.9% of our economy. Their workers make up 47% of our country's workforce. These businesses need solid, stable, ready-to-grow employees to keep their communities thriving, and to compete in the market. 

The problem is tremendous inequities exist in who has access to employer-provided supports- like mental health, childcare, and education, financial wellness, and training. Large employers leverage their vast resources to provide equally vast incentives, benefits, support, and perks while small businesses struggle to pay for basic health insurance. Historically, WorkLife has provided its Navigator services on a fee-for-service to mid-size and enterprise employers. While small businesses have been interested in WLP's services, there is a heavy administrative burden with serving 100s of small businesses that outweigh our capacity and financial-sense. While we understand we are contributing to the divide between big and small, it hasn't made sense to serve until Empleo presented its platform.  

Working directly with 40 employers across the country with access to 400,000+ workers, we know there is a fight for labor and talent everywhere --- and small businesses are losing. When small business owners have to deal with continuous turn-over, they can't work on their business. When this happens, they can't grow, are less likely to pay back that loan, and less likely to be able to find additional talented labor. Turn-over, lack of worker support, and the large inequities between big and small worker experience is a problem for small businesses and the communities that support them.

Our designed solution: WLP will provide our Navigator services to small business employees and will use Empleo Benefits Marketplace to market, reach, and finally serve small businesses and their workers. Empleo and WLP will attract businesses to the marketplace in partnership.  Funding through this award will go to fully subsidize the cost of  WorkLife's menu of services (Resource Navigation, Health benefits navigation, financial wellness coaching) to small businesses and their employees as well as marketing costs.  Aligned with Aspen's Benefits 21 research, WLP and Empleo understand that our system of benefits and support at work has historically been inaccessible to workers of color.  WLP will intentionally focus on BIPOC-led small business initiatives and the Small Business Majority to obtain small businesses as customers and engage them to enroll their workers onto the platform in order to use WorkLife's services.  

Once this is completed, WorkLife/Empleo will ensure workers know of their 'benefit' and how to utilize it (like when they can't get to work, need childcare, or help navigating a medical bill). Repetitive use of a Navigator will support the businesses' human resources function- most notably decreasing worker turn-over, attracting workers, and cross-training workers. 

By supporting workers lives', WorkLife's services are alleviating the time it takes for owners to problem-solve issues that don't relate to the business directly. WorkLife's services are curated for the resource-constricted issues that frontline workers face, especially in marginalized communities. BIPOC-owned businesses tend to hire BIPOC employees and we will provide HR support to these leaders. 

WorkLife's demographics across our mid-enterprise markets include majority of full time workers with an average wage of $21.55/hr. 76% report that they would be unable to pay a sudden $300 expense. We serve 44% white workers, 14% Black, 19% Latinx, and a significant 11% who choose not to answer. We serve 40% identified female and 23% identified male. For 13 years, we have served frontline workers working a full time job with access to basic benefits, and who are under-resourced and overlooked. We work 1:1 with them to understand their needs. Our services engage with them an average of 3 hours per person to develop a solution which results in their ability to retain their job and continue pursuing their opportunity. Frontline workers' needs center around housing, financial wellbeing, transportation, and mental health (per our data). The partnership solution with Empleo will providing access to the 47% workforce employed under small businesses. These employee issues aren't unique from mid-size employer to small business. What has been a challenge is reaching small businesses in a way that prevents high overhead costs. Empleo will make it easier for small business employees to 'buy' what they need from the WLP menu of services as needed and paid for by their employer; thus, WLP can extend their services to small businesses and their employees. 

Our Solution - namely Empleo + WLP has not yet been implemented yet in any states. We are seeking funding to fully support the costs of the Navigator in the marketplace so that small businesses/their workers can utilize at no cost.  We are planning to expand our solution to many states. Currently, WLP serves employees in 30 states (overlapping are Maryland, Virginia, Ohio, Texas, D.C) through our mid-enterprise markets. Our market opportunity is vast given the 5.4 million small businesses in the U.S.; and, we will leverage our network of small business initiatives/programs, connections to CDFIs, Federal Reserve, and SBDC programs to begin to enroll employers and their workers on the Empleo platform and provide WLP's menu of services.  

Our mission statement: To build prosperity for individuals, business, families, and communities by unleashing the potential of frontline workers through collaboration with their employers and other resources.

WLP functions to help sustain businesses. Our smallest business is a 100 person manufacturing firm. The partnership with Empleo will allow us to reach into micro-businesses 2-20 people. Small businesses are the drivers for main-street America and for marginalized communities. This solution will support their people, which in turn will support their families, and communities as tax-payers and contributors to their local economy. 

BIPOC-owned small businesses tend to hire BIPOC workers and they face inequitable access to resources that would otherwise cultivate opportunity. One lack of resources includes human resources (HR) support.  By providing WLP's services to small businesses and their employees, through Empleo's platform and by the hour, workers will be retained in their job and feel supported by their employer. When they feel supported, they will improve their job satisfaction. When employers can provide a third-party to offer support to their workers, business owners will focus on other aspects of the business to drive revenue, decrease debt, and grow. 

WLP currently has a retention rate of 92% 12 months after working 1:1 with an employee. WLP has spends 3 hours-average per employee; thus saving managers and business owners at least 3 hours of non-business related work. Our outcomes for this business through this partnership will be measured in time saved per business (because WLP is now helping solve their employees' personal-lives issues), and retention after 6 months of serving the individual. 

Currently serving 4 small businesses per national definition of less than 500 employees; but current not serving any smallest-of-businesses  (2-20 people)

In one year, the submitted solution will serve 50 small businesses with an an average of 3 people each  for a total of 150 worker who we will serve.

In 5 years, we will serve at least 450 business businesses with 5 workers each on average for a total of 2,250 workers. 

Examples of communities include Denver, Colorado and through the African American Trade Association and the Community-Wealth Building Organization (creating Co-ops across Colorado). Through these organizations, we will obtain access to micro-businesses and their workers toward job retention efforts. Stakeholders in these two examples are the community/nonprofit leaders as well as the businesses involved in these efforts. 

Another example is through the Colorado Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Business groups representing BIPOC communities with a majority of small businesses as members will be another channel for implementation. 

Liddy Romero is Founder of WorkLife Partnership and Founder of Empleo Benefits Marketplace. She is Latina and was raised in a small family-owned business in the Rio Grande Valley (Texas). Her father and mother operated their small Mexican-American bakery and she understands the daily issues small businesses face.  She has lived experience in micro-business, is an entrepreneur herself having founded WorkLife and scaled it across the country, and is now running the start-up, Empleo. 

WLP has operated in Colorado HQ for 13 years and will first work with CO-based businesses and organizations toward this solution.  Then we will use WLP's more extensive network throughout the U.S. to reach BIPOC-owned businesses and BIPOC-led business initiatives. 

WLP continually looks to its data and stories to ensure its services are meeting the needs of frontline workers. 

Liddy Romero, Founder and CEO has been a leader in workforce retention and job quality efforts for 13 years. Her prominence is in her ability to weather 2 recessions and still scale WLP's model and impact from Colorado to across the U.S. Liddy builds relationships with stakeholders and speaks genuinely about her inclination to help small businesses for which many resources remain scare and inaccessible, if not unaffordable. Liddy currently does biz dev with mid-enterprise markets and continues to drive revenue for WLP; and, she is in beta-testing mode with Empleo, taking to small businesses weekly on their feedback.  

Liddy will leverage her connections to The Aspen Institute's Benefits21, Federal Reserve of Kansas City's Small Business research efforts, community CDFIs and her 13 years of building  a network to do outreach. Behind her efforts, WLP has a marketing, evaluation, impact and communications team to ensure continuous, organized, and synchronized outreach. 

WLP's efforts will scale our services to small businesses, specifically BIPOC- owned businesses. We are not doing significant work with small businesses (2-20 people) right now, thus potential for exponential growth is real. There are close to 5 million businesses in the US in this very small business category who represent 47% of the workforce who go under-served.  Our impact will be led by WLP/Empleo however we will use other approaches to scale to reach significant numbers (450 businesses and 2250 workers). Included are CDFI's , Buy local organizations, accelerator programs for BIPOC-communities, and investees in job quality initiatives and small business.

Leading our impact goals is to reach 90% retention of an employee at least 6 months after providing them any of WLP's services. Through this retention, we will measure business outcomes such as: 

- Return on Investment per cost savings on turn-over

- and qualitative impact on the business owner's ability to grow as a result of employee retention efforts

Liddy Romero, Founder and CEO will lead these efforts, supported by her Senior leadership team at WLP. Liddy will use her lived experience growing up in a small family-owned business as well as her experience starting and growing WLP- a small business of its own. Liddy has weathered highs and lows of starting a business and makes important decisions that affect the livelihood of her 30+ WLP team members. Liddy and her Senior staff continually 'put themselves in the shoes' of business leaders, because they are business leaders themselves. 

Chris Young, our CFO, had gone business-to-business in our predominately Black neighborhoods in Denver to advocate for small business owners. 

Jim Huh, our Business Development person was formally incarcerated and now speaks to businesses about how to support the re-entry population at work. 

Kristen Culliney, our Chief of Programs, worked for food banks across New Mexico before coming to WLP and understands the indigenous communities as well as working with monolingual Latino workers and constituents. 

WLP is most interested in 

• Learning and development modules aimed at refining business model, theory of change, and plans for scaling. 

Reaching small businesses remains a full-time job. Plans for scaling requires more than the prize money - we would welcome the full experience of the team to help plan out the most efficient yet inclusive way to reach small businesses. 

This might be done through the following: 

- direct connections to additional initiatives with BIPOC businesses

- strategy planning on sustainability and pricing depending on award monies

- Continual evaluation on measurements that affect BIPOC business growth so that we can replicate our efforts in other communities 

n/a

Monitoring/eval: We need help training our internal (new) eval person on crosswalk of metrics- compare what we already measure with what's important to the small business stakeholder community. We don't want to measure things that aren't important therefore, a deeper dive into how we measure, what we measure per small businesses, as well as how our service intervention affects the small business' P/L would be most helpful. 

Product/service distribution: While Empleo is collecting small business workers on one platform, we need assistance getting their employers signed on. This can be a costly endeavor, but with the right connections, network, and introductions to collections of BIPOC-led initiatives, it will reduce our customer acquisition costs even more. 

Job quality investment initiatives- access to businesses who are setting up for growth with job quality in-mind (HCAP and Lafayette Square are our current connections and would appreciate more). 

BIPOC-entrepreneurial initiatives - offer services to their businesses

Chambers that are focused on BIPOC-efforts like the Denver Chamber's Engage programming - we'd like to offer in order to gain traction on services