Working Solutions: Recruiting Veterans to Healthcare

Raton, a town once surrounded by eight coal mines, now has a main street of boarded-up buildings. There is reason for optimism as the town diversifies its local economy, betting on "a mix of small manufacturing businesses, health care and specialty services, and hospitality for travelers" to endure the sudden decline in mining revenue. Its calculated revitalization may hold lessons for other towns.

In order to encourage people to properly dispose of their waste, New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) has installed smart vending machines for recyclable waste at Connaught Place and India Gate. In return for making the sustainable waste choice, users receive monetary rewards via e-wallet.

Pomegranate Kitchen in Wellington, New Zealand employees refugee women from around the world. The kitchen, which operates collaboratively rather than in a hierarchy, encourages these chefs to grow their cooking and managerial strengths as well as overcome cultural boundaries in order to become financially independent.

The Firstbuild "microfactory" in Louisville, Kentucky is one of many businesses across the country that, rather than focusing on giant consumer bases, aims to close the mind-to-market gap by investing in small, niche markets. This business model helps products get on shelves faster, reduces large capital investments, and reduces competition by honing in on specific, moderately sized markets.

The United Kingdom's health-care system – which has been lauded as one of the most equitable models for care – is built around a government agency that decides "which treatments are worth covering, and for whom." Although the measures used to determine these recommendations are controversial and the agency doesn't always sustain public trust in their decisions, the overall outcome has increased both social solidarity and life expectancy.

Frustrated by a tight labor market, two locally owned Grand Rapids employers discovered the virtues – economic, not just moral – of hiring formerly incarcerated people, whose gratitude for an opportunity translated into excellent performance and less risk of adding to rapid turnover. The employers helped guarantee success by paying for support services that made post-prison transitions easier. The employers then talked hundreds of other local employers into doing the same. Besides providing a business advantage, the program changes lives and is evidently contributing to much lower rates of recidivism.

The Ajo Center for Sustainable Agriculture has helped the town of Ajo in Arizona distribute affordable and nutrient-dense food to the community after the coronavirus pandemic created a significant financial strain on many families. Additional support has come from the town's participation in the Environmental Protection Agency's program Local Food, Local Places which "provides technical support and expertise to help towns leverage food systems to boost economic development."

Employers like the St. Partick Clinic in South Sudan are hiring based on attitude and trainability instead of technical skills and knowledge to find employees that are trustworthy and reliable.

With an influx of COVID relief money, the Russellville school district began hiring and certifying more local, Spanish-speaking staff to help teach English language learners. Districtwide, the percentage of students who met their language proficiency goals increased from 46% in 2019 to 61% in 2022.

A pair of doctors are working to make healthcare more accessible and affordable by training area hospitals to use new technology, like ultrasound devices, to detect non-communicable diseases. Through their newly established non-communicable disease clinic staffed with personnel trained to provide more precise medical care, about 1,100 patients have been cared for.