The SOURCE addresses structural inefficiencies in workforce management to support a diverse range of employees with varied backgrounds, experiences, and circumstances. By centralizing access to support services across multiple firms, this employer-led collaborative reduces administrative burdens, strengthens retention, and creates a more equitable and sustainable model for workforce stability.
This is one of four case studies featured in our latest report on Fair Chance Hiring.
The Challenge
Employers in Michigan faced high turnover and chronic difficulty maintaining frontline positions. Individuals returning to the workforce after serving a sentence were eager and motivated to work. Yet, the diversity of personal circumstances, combined with the high cost for individual employers to address complex legal, housing, and health barriers, made retention challenging.
In traditional employment arrangements, each employer was responsible for onboarding, training, benefits, and career development, while employees were expected to navigate external support systems on their own. Although legal aid, housing, and health services were available, they were deeply siloed, placing the burden of coordination on employees with varied experiences and needs.
Employees also faced inequities in transportation, financial support, and healthcare, which could undermine their capacity to sustain work. Standard HR practices at the individual-firm level were not designed to account for these broader factors. limiting employers’ capacity to contribute effectively.
The cumulative effect was costly on both sides: employees with diverse backgrounds struggled to maintain stable employment, and employers absorbed the costs of turnover and lost productivity. By addressing these structural gaps, it became clear that a centralized support system could shift the burden of coordination away from employees, while enhancing workforce stability and opportunity.
“There’s a common assumption that everyone coming home is immediately job-ready—some are, but many need support. The bigger challenge for companies is that it’s hard to draw a straight line from point A to point B. Justice-impacted individuals come home with diverse experiences and needs, so it’s not a one-size-fits-all pipeline.”
– Interviewee, 2025
The Innovation / Potential for Structural Change
In response to workforce retention challenges, in 2003, a coalition of CEOs and community leaders led by Butterball Farms pooled resources to establish The SOURCE, a nonprofit acting as a neutral, shared-services backbone for multiple employers. The SOURCE provides a coordinated support infrastructure that helps employees with diverse backgrounds navigate complex legal, housing, and healthcare systems that can shape workforce stability.
By centralizing support services, The SOURCE enables companies to focus on employees’ skills and potential, while ensuring that individuals returning to the workforce, and other workers with varied experiences, have access to the expertise and guidance they need to succeed. This approach shifts the burden of coordination away from individual employees and employers, creating efficiencies, economies of scale, and a sustainable framework for workforce support.
This collective action demonstrated how centralized support could make employment for individuals with diverse experiences practical and sustainable. Key features include:
- Shared onsite success coaches, serving employees across multiple firms
- Centralized partnerships with legal aid, housing providers, and community agencies
- Sustainable funding through employer contributions
- Data-driven insights to continuously improve retention and workforce support across companies
- Shared institutional learning and accountability across companies, supporting coordinated strategies and best practices
The advent of The SOURCE changes the strategic landscape for fair chance hiring, enabling employers to hire with confidence, knowing that employees will have the supports needed to succeed. Employers engage with The SOURCE not as a charitable initiative, but because it makes practical business sense: by transferring the costs and complexity of workforce support to a centralized system, companies reduce turnover, increase retention, and create a more stable, capable workforce.
“I started leading some of the fair chance hiring work for my employer as a data project. Then I met people like Jimmy, who was in prison for 19 years. Now, talking to him, I’d trust him with my children. That’s the human impact of this approach.”
– Interviewee, Butterball Farms/The SOURCE, 2025
Evidence of Effectiveness
Over two decades, The SOURCE has demonstrated that a centralized support infrastructure for employees with diverse backgrounds is both feasible and durable. Employers across Michigan have contributed resources to sustain a shared-services backbone, proving that pooling expertise and support is practical and cost-effective. Today, 27 member companies fund The SOURCE and report up to a 300% ROI from reduced turnover and training costs.
Employees supported by The SOURCE represent a wide range of backgrounds and circumstances. Centralized services—including success coaches and partnerships with legal aid, housing, and health providers—help reduce the barriers that can undermine employment stability. Centralized coordination enables employers to focus on skills development and career growth, while also providing value to service partners by streamlining collaboration and ensuring that their resources effectively reach employees. This ensures that employees are better positioned to succeed, while employers can hire with confidence, knowing that the necessary supports are in place.
Retention outcomes highlight the model’s effectiveness: companies report 80% retention among employees supported through The SOURCE, well above industry trends for frontline positions. Data collected across multiple firms create continuous feedback loops, driving improvements in workforce support and retention practices.
This Michigan-based model has been replicated in nearly 10 states. The Employee Resource Network (ERN®) framework, modeled directly on The SOURCE, demonstrates that the approach is replicable in diverse labor markets and sustainable beyond Michigan. In 2024, ERNs delivered over 11,600 supportive employment solutions to employees across 160 employer member companies and achieved an average employer ROI of 657%, highlighting both the effectiveness for workers and the tangible value for employers.
Together, the evidence shows that The SOURCE is a durable innovation with the potential for structural change. It shifts the burden of navigating complex systems away from individual employees and employers, strengthens workforce stability, and provides a replicable, scalable framework. It supports employees with diverse experiences, ensuring more equitable hiring and retention outcomes across a wide range of populations and employment contexts.