There are 7 million jobs in America that will go unfilled in 2019.
This means that even if every unemployed person in America got a job tomorrow, we’d still have a labor gap of over a million people. So, what’s the solution? Well, Chris Chancey has some ideas that come from the value of the refugee workforce.
On this episode, he shares with us the importance of the immigrant and refugee workforce—a group that is behind so many of the products we use. In addition to sharing the story of Amplio Recruiting, Chris also shared some amazing stories about the radical effect something as simple as employment can have on a person.
In doing so, he makes the case that hiring refugees isn’t only a socially responsible decision but a profitable one that can have lasting spiritual impact for faith driven entrepreneurs and their employees alike.
We think you’re going to love this episode. As always, thanks for listening.
Useful Links:
Amplio Recruiting
Refugee Workforce
Refugee Workforce Book Launch Video
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
*Some listeners have found it helpful to have a transcription of the podcast. Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it. The FDI movement is a volunteer-led movement, and if you’d like to contribute by editing future transcripts, please email us.
Henry [00:02:31] Welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. We are live in our virtual studio. And actually today’s episode doesn’t take us to Atlanta where I thought it would. It takes us to Detroit, where Chris Chance’s on the road talking about a guy has been doing theroom and we have the opportunity over the course episodes to hear all sorts of different stories of entrepeneurs and all different walks of life. I don’t know that there’s a story that we’ve looked at that more closely exemplifies a guy that’s going out there and try to understand what breaks God’s heart and what might he take directly from scripture in a way that might cause him to create a business, have an entrepreneurial vision, and then take action on that in something that he thinks that breaks God’s heart. And that’s something that we might be able to solve for in society, taking care of the widow and the orphan and the refugee, the foreigner, the alien in our midst. And that’s a guy that takes his scripture reading seriously and takes his entrepreneurial passion and vision from it. And so it’s great to have Chris on the program with us. Chris, thank you for join us.
Chris [00:03:35] It’s an honor to be with you guys today and grateful to be able to jump into this conversation.
Henry [00:03:40] It’s great to have you. Chris, what do we first connect?
Chris [00:03:42] It was their hope international once. I got to serve with hope for a few years based out of Atlanta. And we got connected when you were on East Coast in Raleigh.
Henry [00:03:54] That’s right. It was that long ago. That’s cool. We’ve had as you know, of course, we’ve had Peer Greer on the podcast. Actually, now, I guess a couple times because we had him on for rooting for rivals and then generally talking about hope. And then we’re huge fans of what they do. If you don’t know Hope International, Hope International. Dot org does great Christ centered economic development. Chris work with them. Chris, was it while you were at Hope International that you came up with the idea for MPO?
Chris [00:04:18] It was actually a moonlighting on the side of sports on with it. But back at that point, Hope had a savings group that they were running within the staff internally. And so Hope actually gave me a thousand dollar loan from our internal staff savings group that launched amply our recruiting.
Henry [00:04:36] Oh, my goodness. Yeah, that’s a great story on many levels.
Chris [00:04:41] It’s awesome.
William [00:04:41] That I find out you’re working on the side, not focused on your job. And they’re like, that’s amazing. Well funded. Exactly. They were very supportive early on. And, you know, it was about a year and a house of hopeful time and doing this on the side. But those two worlds converged very quickly and still do in many ways. So I’m so grateful for that team.
Henry [00:05:01] That’s super cool. Okay. So tell us, what is Atleo and what’s the problem you’re trying to solve?
Chris [00:05:06] Yeah, so amply. Oh, recruiting. We started five years ago and essentially it was now I said I’m moving into a community that’s a resettlement area, refugee resettlement community right outside of Atlanta, Georgia, called Clarkston. And everyone we met in the community or individuals who had resettled in the US from other places around the world. And because of my time at Hope, I had some connections to some of those places in the world are refugees were coming from. And so I felt like they gave me just enough the ability to be the annoying white guy who says, hey, where are you from? I think I know someone from there you miss home and just asking all the questions that you really should probably never ask. But it led to conversations where people would say, I need a job. You know, anyone is hiring. And we had good connections in the business community and knew a lot of companies were hiring. And so we said there’s an ample amount of companies looking to bring on individuals and fill the demand they have. And there’s an ample amount of dependable employees out there looking for work. So we decided to start For-Profit Staffing Company Placing Refugees in the Jobs.
Henry [00:06:08] So there’s a video you really see on the Web site and you talk about this in the first few chapters of your book, paint the macro picture of what’s going on in the economy right now. Just tell us about. Because there are a lot of dimensions to this story. On one hand, what you have doing such a great job and providing employment. For people in need that, but on the other hand, there’s actually a lot of people and I think really appreciate this. That’s actually a pretty significant labor shortage as well.
Chris [00:06:33] There really is. So the numbers are really mind. So kind of stick with me here for a second. At first, we kind of start off with this idea that there’s 7 million jobs that will go unfilled in 2019. And million so that all of the 7 million, over roughly 60 percent of those are in what we might consider blue collar type work. A lot of manufacturing, construction, even hospitality. But there’s still a large percentage, 40 percent of those jobs that are in white collar jobs. You know, you think about tech and robotics and advanced manufacturing and some of those fields. And so seven million open jobs. And what we discovered, you look at the Bureau of Labor Statistics and even the most recent reports, even if every unemployed person in the US got a job tomorrow, we’d still have a huge labor gap, over a million people short of filling the labor shortages that we have. And of course, that directly ties into our economy and the strength of our economy moving forward.
Henry [00:07:31] So that’s it. So back to this book. On occasion, we’ll have somebody that’s written a book. We’ve had Steve Graves on the program before and really, really great executive coach. But you’re an entrepreneur. This written a book as well. And first off, plug the book just quickly to say what the name of the book is. But then I want to go back to something you mentioned the book that really made an impact.
Chris [00:07:49] Yes. So the book’s called Refugee Workforce. And so we felt like those two words and the typical kind of American context don’t really go together. You think of refugees maybe as individuals who need our support and charity, or you may think of them as potentially dangerous.
Henry [00:08:05] We probably don’t. You got in this you’ve got this a great quote to that point, which is, is this a terrorist threat, a charity case or refugee workforce? That’s a really powerful, emotionally charged question. Unpack that one when people see this.
Chris [00:08:22] Yeah, well, Israeli our story of moving into the community, I expected based on the way that I’ve consumed media and the news that I watch to meet people who were interested in handouts. And that was just the furthest thing from the truth. These individuals, they were employed before they had careers, before they were pursuing higher education. Before all of that was halted. And they had to be forced from their homes. And so why wouldn’t they want to kind of pick up where they left off and then pursue that dignity of work that they sell at one point in their life? So they want to work. They want to contribute. They want to pay taxes. So I’ve quickly realized my perceptions were challenged. They didn’t fit into this box as a charity case, but they also didn’t fit into this box that we often hear as well. We kind of describe as a terrorist threat. You know, individuals who we may need to watch very closely and may have an ill intent or a desire to kind of have an evil plot to do something in the US that we would all fear. Of course, our safety is really important. But these are individuals who are victims of terrorism. And so they didn’t fit into either categories. They’re pretty quickly rise. They’re contributors. They want a job. They want to work. And in that way, pursue the same American dream that so many other immigrants before then had the opportunity to do.
Henry [00:09:38] The concept is you’re talking through this makes me think the old adage about abundance versus scarcity is a part of the challenge where we’re looking at here is that from an abundance mindset. There’s a fear of scarcity that we have overcome, that there’s not enough room out there to let other people in the workforce.
Chris [00:09:54] Yeah, that’s a really good way to picture it. I think that one of the arguments is certainly that there’s plenty of room at the table for anybody who wants a job. And certainly those who are already in the US and they’re here legally and they have the desire to work. We should certainly make that as easy as possible for them and just recognize the opportunity they have provide on the job training, apprenticeships and help them move up in the workforce. But I think a huge aspect of the abundance and scarcity piece is recognizing there is a massive opportunity for the private sector to play a role in the development and stability of immigrants and refugees in our country. It’s not just the government’s job. And I think know private sector from investment to employment, job creation, job placement, all of that has a role to play in the process.
Rusty [00:10:42] Chris, one of the things that we love about your story is you didn’t just see a problem and stop at the role of an activist. You know, there’s plenty of those people right sounding the alarms left and right, but you’re doing your part to try to bridge this gap and solve this problem. That’s what our listeners do, right. They start with a problem with their trying to solve is entrepreneurs and then they take it and move it forward. So tell our listeners about your entrepreneurial journey of MPO. Where to start? Where is it now and where do you want it to go?
Chris [00:11:15] Sure. Yes. We mentioned earlier, you know, working with hopeful time and recognizing this opportunity of companies needing employees and these individuals that were my neighbors seeming to be dependable and people that would make great employees and starting to match those up. But, you know, really, there was a year and a half there of trying to make this thing work. And we didn’t make any money and we probably placed maybe a hundred people into jobs. But at the time, there was no precedent for me to collect a paycheck from a company for placing a entry-level employee. We weren’t really set up as a staffing company yet. And so a year and a half a really trying to figure this thing out. And so we got to the point where he said, we’re just going to shut it down. We haven’t made any money yet. Maybe this needs to be a nonprofit or maybe it needs to be nothing at all. And I really felt like for me at the moment, God was over my shoulder and I kept kind of peering back and saying, God, where are you? You know, I feel like I’m pursuing this and I don’t sense your presence in this pursuit. And so we shut everything down. And it was about two weeks there where there was no activity at all. And I remember one morning I get a phone call from a company and they said, hey, we want to hire 40 people. We heard about your do and they need to be on your payroll. You need to cover the workers comp. And if you can do that, we’ll start tomorrow. And I said, thanks for the call. But we’re out of business because we couldn’t do the things that you just described. And the guy on the other end in a line said, I’ll give you three days to figure it out. And he hung up the phone. And so I just was in a moment of I again. God, what are you doing? I got I don’t understand. I don’t see where this is leading. And I look down at my phone and I had a phone call scheduled with a gentleman from Chicago I’d never met who was wanting to talk about microfinance. And so I get on the phone and this guy put everything aside about staffing and refugees for the moment. And he begins telling me a story. And he says, I just sold a staffing company in Chicago. And now I’m serving as a consultant for startup staffing agencies. And so my mouth drops to the floor and he’s continued to tell a story. But in that moment, God’s position shifted in my mind. He was never behind me over my shoulder. And I think we as business people, sometimes that’s the kind of sense we get. But instead, he was right in front of me. He’s the fire by night, cloud by day, leading me on completely dependent upon him, kind of God. And that was a pivotal moment for me and the way I perceived his role in the business as well as for the business itself, because we did talk about microfinance, but I did at the end of the call share about the story of what we’ve been doing. The call I just received, so virtually God more in two phone calls in 10 minutes than I’d been able to accomplish in a year and a half of white knuckling and trying to make this thing happen. And so three days later at the advice of this guy, we were set up and, you know, it took a lot of some things in place. But essentially from that point forward, we’ve seen massive growth. And, you know, that was a really pivotal story for me. Give us a sense of the scale of the company now. Yes, we’re right at five years old. We’ll do a little over 5 million revenue this year. And so we’ve placed 4000 refugees in full time employment at right around 300 companies. And so our base is in Atlanta and then we have offices in Raleigh and Houston, Dallas and then our newest office here in Detroit. And so the goal is to be in twenty five locations by 2020.
Rusty [00:14:33] Amazing. You know, one of the questions we all ask ourselves is supply and demand. Will there be enough supply or will there be enough demand? Talk about both sides of that equation. As you look at what you’re doing.
Chris [00:14:44] Yes, that’s a great question. Obviously, right now in the US, when it comes to the whole refugee resettlement mission, there’s a huge discussion around what will the numbers look like this year? What will the numbers look like next year and the month of September? The president annually makes a declaration of how many refugees will be resettled in the following year. So that should come out in any day and it most likely will be around sixteen thousand one, which pales in comparison to what Reagan set in place in 1980, which was ninety five thousand a year. So we’ve seen numbers well over that. And then over the last couple years it’s been around the thirty thousand twenty thousand mark. So certainly from that vantage point, there’s not as many individuals coming into the country and resettling, but there’s over 2 million refugees in the US currently. And one of the interesting stats that we see about the refugee admission process in the U.S. is that right at 70 percent of the refugees who come into the US aren’t prime working age to contribute to the economy. And so you see many of those taking jobs in manufacturing and taking jobs and customer service type roles. And that’s just part of helping us fill that labor shortage we have and growing the economy.
William [00:15:53] Chris. William here. Thanks very much for coming on sharing your story, I remember reading about Clarkson a while back probably 10 years ago. I think he said, you know, the people that read the book, but it’s an awesome book called Outcasts United by Warren St. John talks about a soccer team and Clarkson and how that brought a lot of the refugees together is just an amazing story of what’s happening in a community. And kind of was my first eye opening experience to the world in which you you live and serve. And I just remember some of those stories and I ask if you would share some of the stories you’ve placed. Five thousand people maybe give us a window into two or three of them. Tell me about their lives. Tell me about where they came from. Tell me about what jobs they have now and what their lives look like today after working with an employer.
Chris [00:16:37] Yeah, yeah. I would love to do that. You know, we try to set the stage early on in the book that, you know, I’m certainly not the protagonist in this story. I’m just the one writing it down. I get to work with heroes and people who’ve overcome insurmountable odds. And so one of the coolest stories, that’s like such a really recent development. You know, the first six chapters of the book was really looking at how economics are impacted in the US by the refugee community and how businesses are supported. But in Chapter 7, we actually talk about what there seems to be no research on, which is how job benefits the refugee. And so we tell the story of one of our employees named A.B. And there’s just a really cool development. Her story as of this past weekend, I’ll share it really briefly. So. So noby is a refugee from the country of Congo. There’s a constant civil unrest and violence in Congo over the last several years, several decades, unfortunately. And so she’s actually fled for her life on two accounts. So the first time her and her family ended up in a refugee camp in Tanzania, she met her husband there, who was also a refugee from Congo. So they got married. And after a few years, things had settled down. He moved that. He wanted to move back. So they move back. And war comes again to their village. You know, there were buildings being set on fire and they flee for their lives. And at this point, they had a seven year old son. And what unfortunately happens in some cases when there’s chaos all around and everyone in your village is running. She was separated from her son and she was never able to find him. And, you know, in a situation like that, that’s her number one priority. She doesn’t care about her life. She’s just trying to find her son. And she did everything she could. She couldn’t find him. So her story continues. She ends up getting resettled in the U.S. a few years later, and she ends up coming into our office and sharing your story with us. And we helped her get a job at a cosmetic manufacturing company just down the road from our office. At the time, she didn’t have a car. So she was able to get to work. And she has through that job, through learning English, through getting promoted. She was able to buy her own house. She has her own car. She’s supporting her family. And through that process, you kind of see this sense of dignity in her work start to be displayed. And she kind of went back to her roots, some of the things that she enjoyed doing back home. She started singing again. And so she recently posted a YouTube video where she has already one hundred thousand hits on the video. And here’s the cool part of Sawyer. So we got all that in the book, and that’s great. The video goes out to all the people that are kind of in her network, in her community and alive and well. Her son sees the video in Tanzania and says, that’s my mom. And he shows it to someone he knows that used to know his mom and she had her phone number. So last weekend we’re launching the book. He got the book launch party going on. And I know he comes up to me and says. I found my son. What do you mean you found your son? She’s like I told him on the phone today. My friend called me and said, I’m sitting next to your son and gave him the phone. And so he’s 14 now. Obviously, we don’t claim any responsibility in the way that God ordained and orchestrated that event. But just the power of employment and the dignity of work and how that can put someone in a position to be able to restore their life. It is incredibly impactful. There’s so many amazing stories. And, you know, I would love to share more of the book has several. And that’s when it’s top of mind right now, huh?
William [00:20:02] Top of mind for a good reason. Wow. I’m sorry. Take a second on that. I mean, that’s just amazing. I have a two year old son. So when I hear that story, I can’t, you know, can’t imagine being separated for seven years. That’s just amazing. And I have lost hope and hope to be restored. What an amazing feat. You have two stories like that. And thank you for sharing that and take us when they are deeper into the business. What types of jobs are you typically placing people with? Give us a sense for who your clients are. I just want our listeners to get a real sense of the full refugee workforce and what skills and trades and sort of what this whole picture looks like as you continue to try to build it out.
Chris [00:20:42] Yes. So we get to work in all types of industries. We really focus on manufacturing and warehousing. And we work in hospitality and we work in construction as well. And so, you know, we get to be a partisan, really unique stuff. You’ve got individuals who are making all the headlights that you see on Tesla cars. Any Tesla car that headlight came was most manufactured in the hands of a refugee here in the US. We’ve got we’ve got I mean, you know, it runs the gamut. All the coolers that you can buy from Wal-Mart, they’re all made in the hands of refugees. You know, just some interesting stuff that we get to be a part of. We’ve helped lay fiber optic cable from Google. And then, you know, so many companies that you’ve never heard of before that are really integral to the day to day life in the US. So Whincup is a company that provides a lot of the cups that we drink out of so many kind of restaurants or fast food companies. FLSA puts in the, you know, the pipes for sprinkler systems and almost every corporate office in the country. So we get to have our hands in a lot of different stuff. But just a reminder of how important the immigrant and refugee workforce is to our country. It’s behind every product we purchase and every service that we use, you know, and we continue to hear messages about let’s bring manufacturing back to the U.S.. Let’s grow certain industries that used to be really formative for the US. And at the same time, we’re also trying to limit the individuals who are allowed to come in or make it more difficult for them to access the same opportunities that others have had before then. So there’s conflicting messages there. And I think it’s just important to be aware of that.
Henry [00:22:18] So if I’m an entrepreneur and I’m listening to this and I get it and I’m saying, oh, my goodness, actually, as it turns out, I do have a lot of job openings and I’d love to be able to have some diversity in the workforce. And I get that these are people coming in working age and maybe there’s opportunity here. Aside from Korn and Pleo, which is, I think, you know, a great first step. What are the things you don’t need to make it? Five things. But let’s move three things. Maybe just two things. Where are things I need to know. What do I do next? I had this person walk me through the things that an employer who wants to take action on what they heard today, what did they do? What do they need to know?
Chris [00:22:57] That’s such a such a great question. One of the things that we are. That we kind of stumbled into in the process of writing a book, and I don’t mean to keep plugging the book. But I mean, it’s just top of mind for us. And what we’ve learned and we’ve tried to pour everything into it. And so it is a good resource for that or this person that we’re kind of imagining. But one of the really pivotal things that we saw as we surveyed a ton of the companies that we work with is one of the most important pieces that’s easy to just leapfrog over is you’ve got to have a really strong, healthy culture in place before you can expect to go and bring in people. And I don’t care what their skin color is or cultural background, they have you know, I have a healthy culture. I mean, first of all, that’s really in business. I mean, that’s really part of the faith driven entrepreneurs goal. Right, is to create a really strong community where your faith and your values can be obvious and can be shared with others. But it’s so easy to think, hey, I want to make diversity happen in our company. I want to create diversity and that be the goal. But all the companies we surveyed, what we saw in every case was diversity was never the goal. Their focus was creating a healthy culture and a byproduct that became diversity. And so they have this incredibly diverse culture with people from all over the world working for them. But that’s a really critical piece. So even when we go into a company and we look at if they’re gonna be a good fit for us, we have a 30 point scale we take our company through. That’s one of the pieces. That’s just gotta be the evidence. So if you’re out there and you’re thinking, hey, I wanna consider this or do this, first look in, really, do you have a healthy culture in place so that when you bring other people in, they can thrive, they can flourish. And so maybe if that’s number one, then number two is be very considerate of the onboarding and training processes that you have in place. You probably need that whatever that onboarding process looks like. You probably need to double it. There’s gonna be a little bit of sacrifice, a little bit of give on the front end. But if you’re willing to make some of those investments and how you train and onboard individuals, you will be incredibly blessed them in the long run. In terms of we see this across the board, we see an increase in retention. We see an increase in productivity. We see an increase in profit. So if you’re willing to give a little bit on the front end and look at your processes and make some adjustments there to better engage this community, you’ll definitely be rewarded in the long run.
William [00:25:21] That’s a great overview of really, really appreciate you taking care of that as we come to a close. We want we just can’t thank you enough for your time. We’ll obviously post a link to the book to refugee workforce. Chris has just launched a few days ago. Right. Brand new Tuesday. Depending on when this airs, you know, it’ll still be a new off the shelf book. And so as we come to a close, I mean, you’re writing a book, you’ve been deepened the story, you’ve gone deeper into the story to write the book. Tell us where God has you today. Whereas his word coming alive to you during the season, maybe as a book writer for the first time or maybe as someone just continued to lean into the stories of the clients you serve in your organization. But where does he have you and take our listeners with you on a little journey?
Chris [00:26:05] Yeah, I would love to do that. I think for me right now, you know, we we’re in a unique position as a team. We have such an incredible team around the country. And, you know, I don’t ever want to make it seem like, you know, I’m doing anything. We just we have an incredibly gifted team. But our team on a daily basis is in a position where we’re straddling political views and cultural beliefs and religious beliefs. And it’s, you know, it’s a balancing act there. And I think for me personally right now, just really filling that sense of being biblically grounded before I can make any judgments or share any opinions about what I think should be going on politically in our country. And so this past Sunday, I going to speak at my home church down in Waycross, Georgia, and south Georgia. And, you know, I got to share on that political topic of integration and what the Bible has to say about that. And that’s really for me was. Let’s all start at the same place that we’ve got to be biblically engaged before we can be politically outraged. I think it’s just so easy for us to share our opinions on social media or, you know, to just kind of get on our soapbox about something. But we first need to check ourselves and make sure, hey, is this is this grounded in biblical truth? And so in the case of immigration, just to share one verse, I spent a lot of time in Deuteronomy, but you really see it in Exodus, Leviticus and it around you look at the Old Testament wall. Every time that there’s a law around caring for the widow, the orphan and sojourn, there’s always this one Can-Am and it comes right after it. And really not a command is more of a statement. It says, you know, care for the soldier because you were sojourners in Egypt. Every single time as you look at it, that phrase is always there after care for the soldier and because you were one. And I just think we all as a collective community and as the church need to recognize, hey, God’s been faithful to us. And so we need to extend that same hospitality and that same grace to the immigrant, to the surgeon or to the refugee, to the foreigner that is among us, not just for our economic good, even though that’s substantially going to be the case, but certainly for just the holistic view of the gospel. And I think that’s clear and evident in scripture throughout. And that’s really been something that I’ve been chewing on a lot lately.
Henry [00:28:18] That’s really motivating from this time to be super encouraging. And again, I’m drawn back to the thing that we had talked about before, and that is that you are biblically engaged and through your work at hope and just in your own discipleship. And then you saw a challenge and you went out there and you’ve been solving it and you’re starting to do it at scale. And I also I love the fact that you’ve got a vision to be in 25 cities. My hope and my prayer is that you’re able to be super effective at that and that you’re able to be a great witness about why you do what you do to both the refugees that you work with, but then also to the employers. I think that’s a great illustration, great takeaway for me. And I also am embarrassed to tell you that I didn’t understand, you know, we’ve had other guests have talked about artificial intelligence and worried about the fact that algorithms are replacing jobs. It’s actually is very encouraging, the fact that there are actually lots of jobs that are still out there. We’re going to have an economy where there is going to be opportunity for people to plug in and let’s see how we can love the refugee in our midst and help power our economy and bring these people in and love them by giving them some of the love they really need, which is working. You know, you see, one of the things that breaks my heart is seeing these thousands and thousands, if not millions of people to sitting in refugee camps. We all know that they’re creating the image of a working God who worked hard for six hours, seven days in his work continues to this day. If you’re sitting in a tent, we haven’t completely loved them. We’ve given them some basic shelter. And you’re getting out there and saying, let’s take it the next step and let’s get them really engaged in a vocation that gives them honor and dignity and allows them to really contribute to society. So thank you for the work that you do on that. It’s super motivating that outreach center.
Chris [00:29:58] Thank you. Thank you, guys.
Rusty [00:30:01] Good luck on the book. Have fun out there on the tour. It should be a lot of fun for you.
