Member Profiles
Mary Sprague, Vice President
Managed Work Services of New York
Bronx, New York
Year program began: 2001
Program sponsor: VIP Community Services
Jobseekers placed last year: 361
The Bronx has the
highest unemployment rate
in New York City and a huge
number of adult residents – some
220,000 – who live
below the poverty line. Defying
these statistics, Mary Sprague
and her team at Managed Work
Services of New York (MWSNY)
focus intense effort and
a lot of heart to guide motivated
individuals in their community
to find “a job, a better
job, a career.”
We spoke with Mary to learn
more about MWSNY’s
constituency and its personalized
approach to optimizing employment
solutions for both customers
and local jobseekers.
First, what population
does MWSNY mainly work with?
Our parent organization,
VIP Community Services, is a
multi-service agency with roots
in substance abuse treatment,
housing, and HIV prevention in
the Bronx. The MWS population
base is broader, reaches across
the City, and has changed over
time. Previously we received
many welfare-to-work referrals.
Now we mainly reach out to people
who are poor and unemployed but
do not receive public assistance
and are very motivated to work.
Our workforce includes many ex-offenders,
out-of-school youth and people
in recovery, but no one group
dominates. We hold weekly orientations
and recruit workers through neighborhood
churches, human service organizations,
local politicians and by word-of-mouth.
We also post notices in laundromats,
and these get a high response.
What types of support services
do you find are most needed?
Prior to employment,
we make referrals for legal services
to help people address housing
issues, and we help identify
resources for childcare, mental
health counseling, domestic violence
protection and drug treatment.
Once people are on the job, we
dedicate a lot of time to help
change inappropriate behaviors
and improve communication and
interpersonal skills. We also
offer financial literacy assistance,
mainly to help people access
entitlements such as food stamps,
and the Earned Income Tax Credit.
GED, ESL and Microsoft Office
classes are also available on
a voluntary basis to all who
are interested.
What types of employers do you
serve?
We have a wide
range of customers, in banking,
food services, facilities management,
higher education, government,
retail, telecommunications, manufacturing,
transportation, warehousing and
distribution. We’ve struggled
with whether to become more “sectorized” and
if we do, will focus on where
people want to work, which is
mainly in clerical and health
care positions. These require
higher skill levels, though,
and in health care, a clean record,
which is a big barrier for many
of our jobseekers.
What do you find is the biggest
challenge of operating your staffing
service program?
Balancing the needs
of employers, which tend to be
exclusionary, and fulfilling
our mission, which is inclusive,
is an ongoing challenge. And
we continually strive to do more
effective job matching. We pay
particular attention to learning
our customers’ workplace
culture to ensure the workers
we send will be a good cultural
fit, in addition to having the
necessary job skills.
As a manager, what do you wish
you had more time for?
I would love to be more
active in policy, through speaking
and other activities to let a
larger constituency know about
alternative staffing as a viable
road to overcoming poverty. I’d
begin with government, which
is unaware that the TANF reauthorization
will fail, for example, because
its rules are draconian and counterproductive.
Others could learn from our experience
about what people need to stay
and succeed on-the-job, improve
their long-term prospects and
become self-sufficient.
What are MWSNY’s
main goals for the future?
We would like to serve additional
populations, especially the large
number of underemployed, working
poor individuals in our community.
We are implementing a new, comprehensive
database that will enable us to
monitor and analyze participant
outcomes far beyond our current
tracking of job placements and
wage increases. It is an architecturally
open, web-based system that will
encourage analysis and examination.
It has been in development for
a year, has made us think about
what is important, and what we
want to measure.
What advice would you offer to
someone considering alternative
staffing as a strategy in their
community?
People should be prepared
for cash flow issues which are
huge and
demand a lot of time to manage.
Employees are paid weekly and customers
pay in 60 days – or even
later. This aspect of the staffing
business is brutal, and it’s
critical to have adequate cash
reserves. That said, we so enrich
people’s lives through the
work experiences we provide them,
and I want to continue to be in
this business.
For more about Managed Work Services
of New York, visit www.mwsny.com/
