Social Impact Strategy & Results
Case Study: EQ Mentorship-to-Internship Program
Case Study: EQ Mentorship-to-Internship Program EQ Impact and YouthBuild partnered from coast to coast: Seattle, Los Angeles, Chicago, Harlem and Boston. This program empowered students with job exposure, mentorship, training and job placement at EQ Office and with our vendors and tenants.
The COVID-19 pandemic prompted widespread human capital challenges that required new strategies to fill staff shortages and boost talent retention. We built our mentorship-to-internship program to address these concerns, providing win-win-win opportunities for students, vendors and smaller tenants. Our weekly training sessions went beyond the hard skills youth needed to thrive on the job and incorporated soft skills taken from EQ’s EQU training program, including personal presentation, selfawareness, communication skills, conflict resolution and self-advocacy. We also supported resume development and conducted hundreds of mock interviews. The program included a total of 37 training sessions in different cities throughout the 2021 reporting year.
Students in the program gained construction and building management experience through our Compton YouthBuild renovation project. This initiative brought together 140 volunteers to lead 16 YouthBuild students through more than 500 hours of training in all aspects of construction, giving them critical job exposure across a wide range of trades: • • • • •
Electrical Landscaping HVAC Engineering Painting
• Flooring • Drywall and Cement Masonry • Plumbing
Our local properties complemented these soft skills trainings with additional forms of support for the internship and beyond. We offered students work clothing when needed, transportation to job sites in the form of Lyft cards and bus passes and prep sessions for weekly meetings with their internship supervisors. Our employees, tenants and vendor partners were able to volunteer, honing their mentorship capacity, public speaking skills and sense of meaning on the job. Together, we ensured that students continued to advance their careers throughout the COVID-19 pandemic while providing top-notch talent for open jobs.
EQ Office
Sean Walsh and James Grogan stand with YouthBuild students and instructors at Playa District. Photo credit Chip Rountree.
ESG Report 2020–2021
Social Impact Strategy & Results
The internships at the Compton YouthBuild renovation project led to multiple job opportunities at EQ Office. For example, YouthBuild alumna Maria Diaz accepted a building position at EQ Office’s Playa District campus after participating in the project as a construction assistant. Diaz’s parole officer initially placed her in YouthBuild when she was 16 years old.
“Joining YouthBuild made me see everything different . . . I have three kids to go home to. I do it for me, and I do it for them.” Maria Diaz, YouthBuild program graduate
EQ Office
Case Study: YouthBuild Mentorship-to-Internship Program
These success stories extend to every internship program across every location. In Seattle, we helped secure full-time positions for five formerly homeless students to work at Anderson Construction and Landcare.
Above: A YouthBuild student removes ceiling tiles at Playa District. Photo credit Chip Rountree. Below: EQ employees and partners connect with YouthBuild students during one of our 37 mentorship sessions this year. Photo courtesy of EQ Office.
ESG Report 2020–2021