Putting faith front and center for jobs
Kellyann Bright spent nearly two decades in the hospitality industry, working in catering and event management, before COVID-19 struck. She was among the many who lost their jobs during the pandemic.
“I felt like the world was coming to an end,” she said. “I had to look at the 17 years of my career and wonder: What did I accomplish?”
Each event and holiday seemed to bleed into the next, blurring into a never-ending cycle. She lost track of how much time had passed.
“You’re always planning six months to a year ahead,” Bright said. “Your years go by fast.”
She wanted to find a more meaningful path forward.
“I’ve got to do something completely different,” Bright thought. “I’ve got to do something where I can reap what I sow so I can enjoy my life.”
She toyed with the idea of real estate but couldn’t make up her mind.
“I was on the fence,” she said. “I took a couple of courses, but I wasn’t sure.”
Then a friend told her about WorkFaith, a free, Christ-centered nonprofit offering employment training and coaching for job seekers.
Bright, however, was not convinced. She had plenty of experience and wasn’t sure she needed to be retrained for the workforce.
Still, with extra time on her hands and no ability to work from home during the pandemic, she thought to herself, “You’ve got nothing to lose. It’s COVID. You’re stuck at home. Just do it and see what happens.”
Bright enrolled in training courses at WorkFaith in August 2020.
Now, a year later, she is an agent at Keller Williams and has a job that she enjoys. For her, WorkFaith was a first step on a journey to a new career.
“It was just what I needed,” she said.
Built on faith
What set the program apart was the faith component, Bright explained.
“The prayers and mindset — putting your spiritual life first and knowing who your creator is — it changed my perspective,” she said. “My guard came down.”
And that’s what persuaded Bright to stick with the program.
“I needed the spiritual part,” she said. “It pulled out my bitterness over my last job and helped me address it. I knew nothing good was going to happen for me unless I was able to get over the past.”
WorkFaith founder Barbara Elliott is convinced that faith has the power to create lasting change for those seeking employment. Before starting the organization, she spent years researching how Christianity could play a role in addressing key social concerns.
Elliott also worked for the American Institute for Full Employment to build a case study on Cincinnati Works, a 30-hour work-readiness workshop. The program offered everything from help with filling out applications to mastering interviews and connected job seekers with a mental health counselor, chaplain and legal advocate. Staff members helped them surmount obstacles to employment, including legal issues, child care and transportation.
In 2006, Elliott decided to adapt that model to her hometown of Houston, creating the nonprofit the Working Connection.
She wanted to distinguish her program by making faith central, instead of simply one component on the path to employment.
In 2007, the name of the organization changed to WorkFaith Connection, also known as WorkFaith.
With time, the nonprofit grew
to offer a wide range of services. There are now two locations: the main office at 4555 Dacoma and in south Houston at 2575 Reed.
Multiple ways to get involved
In 2019, Elliott was succeeded by current CEO Anthony Flynn, who notes that thereare four main components — or “onramps” — at WorkFaith.
The first is the popular Job Search Accelerator, a five-day, bootcamp-style program that provides job seekers with workforce training and spiritual support.
Daily devotionals are a key part of this class, and discussions center on God’s word and the promise tied in faith in Christ. On the final day, when students focus on Romans 12:1-2, class centers on the spiritual applications of the classes’ teaching, and students work through an outline on how to make decisions based on what pleases God.
Coaching is the second component. There are 90-minute group sessions available, as well as one-on-one sessions.
“We want to spend quality time with an individual and support them on the road to success,” Flynn said.
For Bright, who lives on Houston’s westside, her WorkFaith coach, Lois Jackson, has served as more of a cheerleader than a task master.
“When I didn’t do something, she didn’t ask why,” Bright said. “There was no shame. It was more like, ‘Do you need help?’
She would figure out a way to make the assignment easier for me to do.”
Jackson knew what Bright was going through from her own experience.
“Lois has walked in my shoes,” Bright said. “She, too, was in a situation where she didn’t have a job. Because of that, she knew exactly what to tell me.”
Jackson also pushed her forward when Bright hesitated to take her state and national realestate-licensing exams.
“I kept putting it off,” she said. “I moved the date like 20 times. Lois would say, ‘I know it’s scary. I know you’re overwhelmed, but you got this. Just go in there and do your best.’ ”
The third component is the WorkFaith Academy, composed of 90-minute workshops about leadership and other job skills. Recent classes include “How to Overcome Stress at Work,” “Resumé Writing” and “Professionalism: How to Stand Out When You Don’t Fit In.”
Finally, there is a six-hour Impact Certification program, which combines business best practices with biblical principles.
Twice a year, WorkFaith offers iWork, a hiring expo at which clients connect with prospective employers.
“Faith is 100 percent at the center of all of this,” Flynn said.
Digital innovation
Moving to a digital format was one of Flynn’s top priorities when he came on board at WorkFaith — even before COVID-19
made it necessary.
In the past, WorkFaith offered solely in-person training experiences, which limited its reach. But Flynn saw potential for the company to grow by hosting virtual options.
The pandemic accelerated his plans to move online.
“I knew, even more at that point, I could take this virtual and that would move us forward,” he said.
The first digital class began in June 2020, and that pilot proved a success.
“We actually trained more people last year than in the history of WorkFaith,” Flynn said.
In fact, last year, 2,415 men and women trained and coached at WorkFaith, compared to 956 in 2019.
Now, Flynn hopes to expand and help more people. With the digital format, WorkFaith can also reach other cities.
“We’re truly moving into a digital, innovative space,” he said.
A personal mission
Flynn wants to be ahead of the curve. The pandemic has left a lot of individuals unemployed, as well as companies in search of new employees, he explained.
“We want to bridge the gap between employers and the people who need work,” he said. “I don’t want to wait until the market reopens to start having this conversation. Let’s be the vehicle to starting preparing people to go back to work now.”
Flynn hopes that WorkFaith will be known as a place where both employers and employees can come for help.
“I want companies to know that we’re going to have a pipeline of people they can employ, and I want people to know that we’ll have a pipeline of people to employ them,” he said.
Flynn considers his move to WorkFaith a divine intervention. When he first heard about the opportunity there, he had just purchased his wife, Nikita’s, dream home.
“We didn’t even have our furniture in,” he recalled. So when WorkFaith asked him to consider the job, he replied, “Absolutely not.”
He had a job he enjoyed and was also running the businessconsulting
firm he founded in 2017, the Amazing CEO.
But Nikita researched the WorkFaith website and implored her husband to take a second look.
The organization’s mission struck a chord with her: A public relations executive, she opted to stay home to raise their two children for a decade.
“She then tried to re-enter the workplace and hit a wall,” Flynn explained. “In those 10 years, everything had changed, and she couldn’t get in.”
WorkFaith’s mission tugged at her — and also on Flynn, who grew up the child of a teenage mother in poverty.
“All the implications of that, all of the things you hear about, I lived through,” he said. “I understand what it means to dig your way out of something.”
In spite of the challenges he faced, he earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Memphis and a master’s in religion from Memphis Theological Seminary.
Throughout his career, Flynn had felt torn between faith and business — working at church plants, nonprofits and companies.
“I’ve been living in those two worlds, but I had never merged the two,” he said. “This tension lived in me, but WorkFaith presented an opportunity.”
He is convinced that people need both faith and business skills.
“In order for a person to be successful, you can’t just give them hope,” he said. “They have to have a how.”
Flynn considers hope an active word. He sees it as a verb, not simply a philosophical term.
“Hope should literally move you,” he said. “It’s what got me through.”
And faith is the ultimate driver, he added.
“Faith is critical,” he said. “When you’re discouraged, when you get down and out, you’ve got to have something to pull from. Faith keeps you going.”