Upwardly Global Convenes Over 60 Corporations in June DEI Employer Working Group
In the midst of dealing with an unprecedented set of challenges posed by recent world events such as the Russo-Ukrainian War and COVID-19 pandemic, Upwardly Global has remained steadfast in its goal to forge new strategies with American corporations to implement solutions for serving immigrant and refugee talent. On June 9th, 2022, Upwardly Global convened its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Employer Working Group, made up of over 650 corporations, to continue the important work to co-create solutions to incorporate largely untapped skilled immigrant and refugee talent into the U.S. workforce and abroad.
Through support from Google.org, Upwardly Global is looking forward to building out a new digital employer-facing module to further support the recruiting, hiring, onboarding, and integration of immigrant and refugee professionals in the U.S workforce. To facilitate this, we will also lean on the generosity of the Mariam Assefa Fund, the philanthropic arm of World Education Services. Our partners at Accenture are also leading a project to help Upwardly Global devise a strategic work plan by conducting a landscape analysis and facilitating stakeholder interviews with Amazon/AWS, Cummins, Deloitte, HiredScore, LinkedIn, Multiverse, NBCUniversal, NewYork-Presbyterian, O.C. Tanner, PAGNY, Salesforce, US Cellular, and Workday. Recently, Accenture provided an overview of the project and its preliminary findings, including a live demo of the platform.
In addition to our employer collaborations and programs in the U.S, Upwardly Global is excited to continue building out our highly successful support program for Afghan refugee job seekers, as well as develop new workforce inclusion programs for Ukrainian refugees displaced by the Russo-Ukrainian War. To commemorate this effort, Upwardly Global invited Fragomen, the leading law firm dedicated exclusively to immigration services around the world, to lead a short presentation on immigration policies related to Ukrainians coming to the U.S.
In May 2022, Upwardly Global sent a cohort from its Executive Leadership Team to Warsaw, Poland, to conduct a rapid needs assessment of the challenges faced by Ukrainian refugee job seekers, many of whom are highly skilled women with professional backgrounds and academic pedigrees. We look forward to developing new programming for Ukrainians in Poland and Germany, beginning with our active efforts to reach out to both current and forthcoming employer partners who have operations in this region. Many of these employers are represented in the American Chamber of Commerce in Poland, with whom Upwardly Global had the pleasure of collaborating with on a recent conference on immigrant hiring and workforce development.
Upwardly Global is the only national nonprofit organization dedicated to immigrant and refugee inclusion in the U.S. workforce. We would like to acknowledge that the essential work we are pursuing to help both Afghan and Ukrainian refugee job seekers, among many others, could not be done without both our new-coming and longstanding employer partners and collaborators.
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Upwardly Global is a national nonprofit whose mission is to eliminate employment barriers for immigrant and refugee professionals and advance the inclusion of their skills into the U.S. economy. With offices in San Francisco, New York City, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., Upwardly Global is a leader in skilled workforce development and placement.