Port Jobs is always looking for ways to work with community partners and employers to remove the structural inequities which stand in the way of the career access and success of community members. When Businesses Ending Slavery and Trafficking (BEST) approached us, we were honored to support their employer outreach and engagement work by leveraging our employer relationships at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA), and our Airport Jobs/Airport University career coaching and advancement services.
BEST is a recipient of the Port of Seattle Economic Recovery Grant; their goal is to deliver employment readiness training and support to employees in Port-related industries and create employment opportunities for human trafficking survivors. To accelerate this effort, our Airport Jobs Manager drew upon Port Jobs’ deep relationships with employers to promote the BEST Stress, Trauma and Resiliency (STR) training to over 60 employers. “At the beginning of this project, Port Jobs opened their rolodex to us and made warm introductions on our behalf to their contacts. This made creating a network of employers in Port-related industries a much smoother process than if we had to try and build these relationships from scratch,” said Mar Brettmann, the CEO and Executive Director of BEST.
This effort resulted in five SEA employers attending the STR training which BEST offers monthly to South King County managers and team leaders who are interested in preventing human trafficking and creating pathways for employment for survivors. Attendees learn how to foster a supportive work environment and successfully navigate difficult conversations with employees to promote their ability to bounce back. A handful of employers who attended the training are now engaged in a partnership with BEST that will ensure that human trafficking survivors referred by BEST community-based partners will be promised an interview. Those who get hired will have access to the support of managers who have received BEST training.
SEA employers who are signing on to be BEST employer partners include HMSHost, the 2020 Inclusion Champion Award recipient, and VIP Hospitality, which is well-known for its customer-centric and personal fulfillment training, and for implementing strategies that value individual people. In fact, VIP Hospitality has included BEST as a trusted partner on their web site.
Port Jobs staff who took the BEST training were grateful for the opportunity. Heather Worthley, Executive Director of Port Jobs said, “BEST exemplifies the best of non-profit work; their training brings essential understanding to hundreds of companies and workers, and their paid internships benefit employers and workers while providing much-needed opportunities to survivors.” Port Jobs will be a resource to the BEST network of community-based organizations, providing career guidance and employer advocacy. Port Jobs will also work with human trafficking survivors to create career plans which embed the resources of BEST partner organizations and continue to promote BEST to SEA managers and companies. BEST and Port Jobs look forward to a lasting partnership.
BEST strategies including partnering with employers throughout South King County. For more information about BEST, visit www.bestalliance.org. If you have any further questions about BEST, please email nicole@bestalliance.org.