{"id":5588,"date":"2019-11-08T11:26:03","date_gmt":"2019-11-08T19:26:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.law.berkeley.edu\/thenetwork\/?p=5588"},"modified":"2019-11-08T11:26:03","modified_gmt":"2019-11-08T19:26:03","slug":"expanding-corporate-responsibility-jpmorgans-new-hiring-initiative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.law.berkeley.edu\/thenetwork\/2019\/11\/08\/expanding-corporate-responsibility-jpmorgans-new-hiring-initiative\/","title":{"rendered":"Expanding Corporate Responsibility: JPMorgan\u2019s New Hiring Initiative"},"content":{"rendered":"

JPMorgan Chase (\u201cJPMorgan\u201d) recently began tackling a systemic problem long faced by the formally incarcerated and convicted felons by removing the standard criminal background inquiry from its application process. This policy, also known as the \u201csecond chance program,\u201d stems from a new effort to increase corporate social responsibility. 10% of JPMorgan\u2019s new hires last year were people with criminal backgrounds. This amounted to roughly 2,000<\/a> new hires. The company hopes that the second chance program will help eliminate biases that prevent otherwise qualified applicants from being prematurely overlooked.<\/p>\n

The second chance program is the first of many initiatives undertaken by JPMorgan\u2019s new policy center<\/a>. Former Deputy Secretary of State, Heather Higginbottom, is leading the center, which will focus on \u201cissues such as job skills and education, small business growth, economic development and affordable housing.\u201d Higginbottom states that the goal of the policy center is to accomplish \u201creal policy change,\u201d and the first steps involve reinstating Pell Grants for ex-convicts and removing prior criminal convictions as barriers to employment.<\/p>\n

Higginbottom hopes to address the significant obstacles former convicts experience in the job market. For example, formerly incarcerated people have an unemployment rate of over 27%<\/a>, which is higher than the total unemployment rate during the Great Depression and more than five times the current rate<\/a>. JPMorgan hires employees with criminal backgrounds for a variety of jobs and found that it has in no way affected the effectiveness of their employees.<\/p>\n

The center is adamant that change allows it to select from a broader pool of applicants and affect its community in a positive way. Higginbottom says that \u201cthe economy works well for some people and it\u2019s not working well for others . . . [and] business has a role to play in advancing some of the solutions to those problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

The creation of the policy center and JPMorgan\u2019s emphasis on corporate social responsibility follows a recent shift in leadership\u2019s definition of corporate purpose. In August<\/a>, 181 CEOs of major U.S. corporations issued a Business Roundtable letter that expanded the definition of \u201cpurpose of a corporation\u201d to include a \u201cmodern standard for corporate responsibility.\u201d Thus, in addition to maximizing shareholder value, the letter emphasized the importance of corporate social responsibility. With this is mind, hopefully more companies will follow JPMorgan\u2019s lead and address the entrenched social problems that our increasingly polarized U.S. Congress cannot efficiently confront.<\/p>\n

Expanding Corporate Responsibility- JPMorgan\u2019s New Hiring Initiative<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JPMorgan Chase (\u201cJPMorgan\u201d) recently began tackling a systemic problem long faced by the formally incarcerated and convicted felons by removing the standard criminal background inquiry from its application process. This policy, also known as the \u201csecond chance program,\u201d stems from a new effort to increase corporate social responsibility. 10% of JPMorgan\u2019s new hires last year […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-27 08:18:44","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category"},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.law.berkeley.edu\/thenetwork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.law.berkeley.edu\/thenetwork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.law.berkeley.edu\/thenetwork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.law.berkeley.edu\/thenetwork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.law.berkeley.edu\/thenetwork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.law.berkeley.edu\/thenetwork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5588\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.law.berkeley.edu\/thenetwork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.law.berkeley.edu\/thenetwork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.law.berkeley.edu\/thenetwork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}