This is the first of three conversations we hosted LIVE from the National Fund's premier, biennial convening, SHIFT Toward an Equitable Future.

A large part of our work at the National Fund is identifying ways in which we use our national platform to drive regional change on issues such as occupational segregation.

As part of that work, we identified career navigation as one such lever. We believe that it must be addressed at a systems level because the impact of occupational segregation goes beyond the worker. It impacts every facet of the workforce ecosystem from companies, education, human welfare, generational wealth opportunities, cities, towns and states because we know that inequities in our systems costs us in a myriad ways. So, we decided to take a deep dive into career navigation to identify opportunities to better support equitable opportunities for all. Today we'll be talking with some of our amazing collaborators who participated in this work.

This conversation focuses on young people who are just starting out in their careers. We met these folks last summer during our Career Navigation interviews. We were excited to be joined by: Juvilee Hernandez from Chicago where she is a youth organizer at Northwest Center; Reginald Bridges is also from Chicago, and he's an assistant kindergarten teacher with It Takes a Village early learning center; and Kayla White, an IT worker in Birmingham, who is also currently working as an intern with AlabamaWorks!.

Join us for the next episode of State of Our Workforce where we will continue our series on the Anthropology of Work. The National Fund will host its premier, biennial convening SHIFT Toward an Equitable Future in Memphis, TN, September 24-26. We are so excited to dig deeper on workforce equity, systems change, job quality, and more.

We are excited to be joined by Hollie Marston, Network Director at the National Fund, to talk about what you can expect at SHIFT this year. Hollie and the National Fund team have been hard at work putting together a learning agenda that will help us amplify voices that need to be heard, activate new solutions to persistent problems, and accelerate change needed to achieve an equitable workforce. Plus, we'll have a very special announcement about September's State of Our Workforce.

Tune in to learn about SHIFT and more!

On this episode of State of Our Workforce, we continue our series on the Anthropology of Work and celebrate Pride Month. We dig into how employers can create safe, equitable environments for LGBTQ+ employees and allow people to thrive authentically.

We are excited to be joined by Janell Thomas, founder of My CoLab Partners, who shared her insights on building and sustaining inclusive workplaces. Take advantage of this opportunity to learn how to support LGBTQ+ workers and ensure your workplace is a space where everyone can thrive.

Learn more about My CoLab Partners here: https://www.mycolabpartners.com/