Great Minds Come Together to Improve Work-Life Balance for Those on the Frontline
Culver City, California, May 30, 2024 – Servicon, a leading healthcare environmental services (EVS) provider and commercial cleaning services company, hosted its first Building a Better Working Future for Essential Workers symposium.
Servicon spearheaded the Better Working Future initiative, which brought together business, civic, healthcare, and nonprofit leaders to explore tangible solutions and begin a coordinated effort to implement ways to elevate the work-life experience of essential workers, including nurses, environmental services (EVS) technicians, custodians, and other on-site workers.
“The past few years have underscored the invaluable role of the essential workers who keep our society running,” says Sewell. “However, so many of these workers lack access to the flexibility, benefits, and overall experience that allow ‘knowledge workers’ to thrive. For example, we hear countless stories about the shift to hybrid work, yet ignore the roughly 60% of the American workforce that cannot take advantage of working remotely and many other benefits of the ‘new’ economy. The symposium was designed as a first step to help us discover ways to better balance these inequities, to drive change, and, as the title states, create a Better Working Future for these workers upon whom all of society depends.”
The idea for the symposium was inspired by articles written for Forbes by Servicon president and CEO Laurie Sewell: “A Better Working Future Requires Balance For Essential Workers” and “A Better Future: Addressing Inequities Faced By Essential Workers.”
Stakeholders, Topics, and Outcomes
The symposium and catered reception was held on May 16th at Servicon’s corporate headquarters. In addition to Sewell, who represented the business community that employs essential workers, the diverse panel featured highly respected experts representing their various sectors, including:
- Stephen Cheung, president and CEO of Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC) and the World Trade Center Los Angeles (WTCLA), serving as moderator to see the big picture and understand the needs of each stakeholder
- Kelly LoBianco, director of the LA County Department of Economic Opportunity, for the civic leaders who represent and shape laws that impact all members of the greater community
- Chris Cagle, Regional Affairs Manager of the South Bay Workforce Investment Board, for the nonprofit sector that represents essential workers and their career development
- Dr. Gail Washington DNS, RN, FAAN, dean of Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science School of Nursing, for essential workers in the healthcare field.
The symposium covered a broad range of topics, such as:
- Elevating the employee experience with ideas such as flex-pay, schedule swapping, and the use of new technologies
- Developing career pathways through learning and development opportunities
- Enhancing benefits by uncovering what people need in the post-COVID-19 full-employment economy
- Driving policy changes that promote equity in living costs, housing, transportation, and health
- Expanding the workforce: employing the unhoused, those with disabilities, and lived experience
- Finding ways for stakeholders to collaborate and create new programs together to achieve shared goals
The outcome of the curated symposium included panelists agreeing on key concepts and initiatives to prioritize and committing to creating and implementing a pilot program based on solutions that align with the capabilities of each stakeholder. They ended the discussion by committing to work together in the coming months and to reconvene later in the year to track their progress and hold themselves accountable.
