The Equitable Workforce Initiative (EWI) is designed to bring greater diversity into the ranks of rental companies and to encourage employees to imagine their future selves in leadership positions.
I’ll be blunt about this; you really should do this! PERG EWI pays rental companies to hire a new full-time worker who they want to hire anyway. Up to eight PERG-member rental companies could have the first six months of employee expenses—salary, benefits, taxes—paid for by the EWI program, which is sponsored by Netflix. I feel the need to highlight that message because, at this time, seven EWI grants remain to be awarded. We strongly urge all members, whether your company is large or small, to seriously consider this extraordinary opportunity, available exclusively to PERG members, and help PERG make the EWI a success that will continue, grow, and blossom in the years to come.
The purpose of this article is to clarify some of the common questions being asked about this new and unique program. You can find a complete description of the program in EWI Guidelines for Rental Companies, available on the EWI website.
EWI is NOT an internship. The EWI program is for companies hiring new full-time employees with the expectation of developing the employee into a valuable member of their team for many years to come. The six-month grant period is not the expected employment period.
Salary and reimbursement.
The employee’s salary is determined by the rental company, using their normal criteria. The EWI program reimburses all salary expenses for the first 26 weeks of employment and is capped at $25,000. Expenses exceeding the cap must be covered by the rental company.
During the 26-week grant period, the rental company provides an invoice and payroll report to ESTA every two weeks using ESTA’s secure portal. We will go over all the details during an orientation session. Your payroll service can easily generate the needed documentation.
Candidate search process.
When a rental company applies to take part in EWI, their job listing is posted for job seekers to view on the EWI website, and the rental company receives a link to a list of job seekers and resumes.
EWI performs outreach to job seekers in the rental company’s city by establishing relationships with educational institutions, tech schools, and community organizations. PERG intends to establish pipelines for a continual flow of suitable, energized, job seekers for the rental community in the major markets. Establishing that pipeline will take some time, however.
In the meantime, if a rental company finds an eligible candidate that they would like to hire, they are welcome to hire them under EWI by following these steps.
1) Inform the candidate that your company is taking part in the EWI program and point them to the website. The program is attractive to job seekers because the training provides the trainee with a broad perspective on the business, beyond the normal job training for their specific job assignment. The goal of EWI is to seed the next generation of leadership in the camera and lighting rental industry with people from groups that are currently underrepresented.
2) The candidate applies to EWI by completing an on-line form. The rental company should also inform PERG right away that you intend to hire them.
Do we have the bandwidth to provide EWI training?
In my interview with Peter and Evan Scudner (see Triode is First to Implement EWI Program, in this newsletter), the father and son team explain exactly what it took to make EWI happen at their company. It was not a big burden. Triode is not a huge company, and as Peter and Evan explain, they have found the process not only straight forward, but beneficial to their company in unexpected ways.
The EWI Task Group that developed the program is made up of rental company principals and senior management. One important goal for the task group was to make the process streamlined and simple for rental companies. Documenting the training is accomplished with a simple on-line form that takes no more than a few minutes out of the supervisor’s time on a weekly basis.
The rental company assigns a supervisor to be the trainee’s Mentor. The Mentor is ESTA’s main contact at your company. The Mentor is responsible for making sure that each week, in addition to their normal work tasks, the trainee takes part in some activities that help them understand the business of rental and the technology we supply to the industry. The idea is to pull back the curtain and invite them to understand the needs of clients, the processes of other departments, and the role of professional rental companies in the industry.
Each PERG member who takes part in EWI will come up with its own unique way to accomplish these goals. We look forward to seeing what people come up with. But it is important to understand, you are not being asked to develop a comprehensive course of study for the trainee. The EWI training can arise organically from the opportunities and work that is already going on. And PERG will also provide content targeted to EWI trainees (but available to any PERG member employees who are interested).
How to Apply.
Applying to EWI is easy. All you need to do is fill in this form and supply a job listing and a copy of your company’s non-discrimination policy.
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