Homeboy Electronics Recycling offers advice on how to work with formerly incarcerated personnel and offer second chances.

Hiring formerly incarcerated personnel offers rewards and fills gaps in labor shortages, but it comes with different challenges that employers need to be aware of.

Homeboy Electronics Recycling, Los Angeles, has been offering second chances to formerly incarcerated personnel since it launched in 2011. The company received R2 (Responsible Recycling Practices) certification in 2015. The company was originally called Isidore Electronics Recycling when it opened. It was later acquired by Homeboy Industries, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit that offers re-entry services to formerly incarcerated people, including job training.

Kabira Stokes, founder and CEO of Homeboy Electronics Recycling, says it’s important for recyclers interested in trying this hiring approach to connect with a local nonprofit to find the labor.

“Really find a nonprofit in your community that you can go to who will send you folks who are ready to work and want to work. That’s your best bet,” she says.

Homeboy Electronics Recycling partnered with Homeboy Industries. As an electronics recycler that offers secure destruction services, Stokes also ensures that none of the employees she receives have committed identity theft.

Chris Zwicke, chief operating officer at Homeboy Electronics Recycling, says taking this approach to hiring can’t just be an afterthought. He says a company needs to be entirely committed to pursuing this avenue of labor.