In 2018, after working 25 years in poverty reduction and international development, I became a restaurant owner. Although not a common career trajectory in our field, I wanted to try something entrepreneurial, in the private sector, but with substantial support and guidance along the way. Starting a business as a middle-aged person didn’t allow for as much time for trial and error as for a younger person. It required different strategies to get up to speed.
I therefore decided to go the route of franchising. As I wrote in a previous article, I felt very comfortable exploring commercial franchising based on my experience helping to build a social franchise implementation approach at Room to Read.
I explored a variety of franchise opportunities and chose a healthy fast-casual company called CoreLife Eatery. I was very happy to serve healthy and tasty food to the two communities in which worked. As part of outreach efforts, I also gave talks about healthy eating and brought regular activities into the restaurant as diverse as yoga, boxing, and cooking demonstrations.
It was wonderful to see the effects of our work on regular customers, many of whom reported astonishing health improvements over time. It was also humbling to get immediate, in-person feedback from customers about what they liked and didn’t like. This was very different from my experiences in international development, where reports of project participants’ satisfaction would often take months to reach our home offices.
Perhaps most inspiring was working with incredible staff in both restaurants. These were largely high school students, college students, and young adults who would prepare the restaurants, make food, serve busy lunch and dinner rushes, and clean until late at night. I can honestly say that these people worked harder than any other professionals whom I have worked with to date. They learned complicated ingredient lists for our many bowls, became experts in their service, worked intensively for multiple hours at a time, and were conscientious and customer-oriented. Of course, not all staff were great. But people who were unmotivated or could not keep up usually stopped showing up or resigned early in their tenure.
I couldn’t have been more grateful for the staff who did continue to show up each day and give their best effort, even during the early days of Covid, when they were putting their lives at risk to work. In addition, our locations in south central Pennsylvania were also ground zero for the cultural wars, with customers frequently upset with my staff for enforcing state rules and restrictions that continued to evolve each day.
My main recollection from daily interactions with staff is how successful many of them could otherwise be in so many other job positions. They were smart, quick, thoughtful, sensitive, and diligent problem solvers who, with the right training, could thrive in any work environment. Why were they working in restaurants? The seemingly obvious answer is that they did not have the prerequisite education or training for longer-term careers.
While this was true, it was more a symptom than the cause. The bigger question is why they were not seeking that education or training to set themselves up for longer career opportunities. In some cases, it was because they didn’t have the time. They had financial debt or other responsibilities to take care of parents, siblings, or children and needed to work full-time to meet these obligations. They just needed a regular job to pay the bills.
However, financial need was not the only cause. Another important one was exposure. Most of my team members just did not have good information about their opportunities outside of consumer and industrial services. Until the Covid pandemic shut many businesses down, our area had a booming economy and many opportunities for entry-level professional services. Companies were even willing to pay to train entry-level workers. These companies offered salaries instead of hourly wages as well as annual leave, employer contributions to 401k plans, education benefits, and career pathways—many benefits that were just not possible in my restaurants for most employees.
I am not trying to make value judgments about people’s employment decisions. I know that many of my team members loved serving our food—as did I—and had a flare and passion for our mission to serve healthy, flavorful food at reasonable prices. I benefited greatly from their service and did my best as an employer to reward their commitment. Except for a few positions as shift managers and two store general managers, though, there were no opportunities for advancement. And as much as many team members really enjoyed their jobs, it was tough physical work that is incredibly difficult to sustain as a long-term career.
As a former restaurant owner, I am keenly aware that we need people to support all aspects of our economy. This includes wage-based service jobs. Wage-based service jobs are also an excellent way to start a career. They provide invaluable soft and hard skills as well as professional experiences. I am a proud McDonald’s alumnus myself and learned a lot from McDonald’s University and my time serving and cleaning in that restaurant as well as many others.
At the same time, young people should also be able to move from wage-based service jobs into longer-term career opportunities if and when they choose—as I had the chance to do so. This means sharing detailed information about career paths with children and young adults early and often so they can be knowledgeable about their options. This suggestion applies for all countries and not just the United States.
What are some ways to improve young people’s exposure to the gamut of career paths? Following are three recommendations:
- Bring career exposure more comprehensively and frequently into regular educational activities, at all levels, from early childhood programs to lifelong learning to workforce development initiatives. I am not suggesting that education be solely about jobs and careers. Educational activities have many goals. But it is important for children and young adults to have deep, aspirational, and realistic understanding of career options and the paths to prepare mentally, physically, and academically for their futures. This is not only about what people do in different careers but also the paths to career entry and success. Exposure means a range of resources and activities, from reading materials, to discussions, to site visits, to presentations by people working in fields across the spectrum—especially from people from similar backgrounds as the student audiences. Career events should not be limited to a small number of special days or events during the year. They should be a regular and integrated component in the educational process.
- Exposure activities should be across the spectrum of career options. It is not enough to share information about how children can become teachers, doctors, or community leaders. Children and young people should learn about the full range of career options. Children have different interests and skills. Some may want to write books or do bookkeeping while others may want to be far from computers and spend their days farming or operating heavy machinery. Some enjoy interacting all day in person or online; others may prefer to spend their workdays with limited social engagement. The more diverse the career exposure process, the more likely children and young people can land on careers that bring the most satisfaction.
- Career exposure activities should include hands-on opportunities. One of the mistakes we often make in career-preparation activities is to start hands-on activities too late. This is especially common in teacher pre-service education, in which teaching candidates often do not start their in-school practica until the last semester or year of education. By then it is too late for someone who might be inspired by the idea of teaching but not teaching itself. Some great ways to do this are through extended career and technical simulations, internships, apprenticeships, and job shadowing. Again, the earlier and more frequent these opportunities over the course of the educational journey, the more likely children and young people will find the initial career path that works best for them.
What are other ways to increase awareness of the full range of career opportunities during the educational process? Please join the conversation and let us know what you think.
