Greyston brownies

greyston-bakeryGreyston is a bakery with a different view on the world. They don’t hire people to bake brownies, they bake brownies so that they can hire people.

Founded in 1982, Greyston is the USA’s “leading social enterprise“, and explicitly aims to support underprivileged people in New York state by providing them with the employment, skills and resources needed to lift them out of poverty.

They specifically hire people who find it hard to get work elsewhere. And once hired the company’s ‘pathmaking‘ approach is focused around helping each employee to become a more fulfilled, self-sufficient, accomplished individual.

What if every corporation approached employee development this way? What if every performance review started from an understanding of who the individual is, what they want to achieve in life, what their next steps are, and whether/how the company might support that?

For Greyston the result has been a bakery that has grown to a turnover of $16m (2012) and has been appointed supplier to Ben and Jerry’s.

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