The American Opportunity Index: A Corporate Scorecard of Worker Advancement
The American Opportunity Index: A Corporate Scorecard of Worker Advancement is a new effort to give companies and other stakeholders a set of robust tools that measure how well major employers are doing in fostering economic mobility for workers and how they could do better. The Index is a joint project of the Burning Glass Institute, Harvard Business School’s Project on Managing the Future of Work, and the Schultz Family Foundation.
Read the entire report below, and visit: http://www.americanopportunityindex.org/
AOI_2022_Final_Report
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AUTHORS
Matt Sigelman (President, The Burning Glass Institute; Visiting Fellow, The Project on Workforce)
Joseph Fuller (Professor, Harvard Business School; Faculty Co-Director, The Project on Workforce)
Nik Dawson (Economist, The Burning Glass Institute)
Gad Levanon (Chief Economist, The Burning Glass Institute)
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The American Opportunity Index: A Corporate Scorecard of Worker Advancement
is a new effort to give companies and other stakeholders a set of robust tools that
measure how well major employers are doing in fostering economic mobility for workers
and how they could do better. The Index is a joint project of the Burning Glass Institute,
Harvard Business School’s Project on Managing the Future of Work, and the Schultz
Family Foundation. The Index assesses America’s 250 largest public companies based
on real-world outcomes of their employees in roles open to non-college graduates—not merely their statements on corporate policy. It draws upon a new source of insight: big-
data analysis of career histories, job postings, and salary sources of more than 3 million workers at those firms.
The Index is unprecedented among corporate rankings in that it focuses on assessing
worker outcomes, not company policies and practice. Our analysis is also different from
many previous efforts because we focus on workers in roles open to those without college
degrees. It also allows us to compare opportunity creation across companies in different
industries and with different business models by comparing outcomes for workers in
similar jobs across different firms.
Our goal is threefold: to empower workers to make better decisions as to what positions
to seek and what firms to prioritize in their job searches; to recognize firms that are
setting an example of how to create opportunity; and to arm executives and HR leaders
alike with data they need to take meaningful action within their companies to boost the
competitiveness of their workforce.
We created nine metrics with which to assess the companies and determine the level of
opportunity each one affords its workers either within the firm or beyond it, as indicated
by the access to work it provides, the upward mobility workers experience, and the pay
it offers along the way. We believe that these three dimensions are the key determinants
of opportunity creation: Workers need to be able to get on the ladder, earn enough to
stay on the ladder, and move up the ladder.
We ranked the top 50 companies overall. We also identified the 50 best firms across five
different models of opportunity creation: the best workplaces to advance within, the best
workplaces to start from, the best workplaces to stay and thrive at one company, the best
workplaces to advance without a college degree, and the best workplaces at growing
their own talent.