The Employment Hope Scale: Measuring an Empowerment Pathway to Employment Success

“[The authors] have developed and validated the Employment Hope Scale (EHS). EHS was originally designed to measure an aspect of psychological self-sufficiency (PSS) to complement a rather dominant paradigm of economic self-sufficiency (ESS) in workforce development…Employment hope is a necessary and key condition for achieving economic success for low-income jobseekers. To test the relationship between PSS and ESS, emerging studies have hypothesized and found that ESS is positively affected by employment hope. Particularly for low-income jobseekers, employment hope has been found to be a positive psychological motivator, non-cognitive internal strength, and psychological empowerment tool that help one sustain the uphill battle of job search, employment, and retention. In other words, employment hope is critical for individuals to continue believing in the ‘possible-self’…against all obstacles and remain committed to their career paths…[T]his chapter sought to test for revalidation of the Short Employment Hope Scale (EHS-14), a new name for the original EHS that was modified into a four-factor scale in an earlier multi-sample confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) study. Using a more recent sample of 661 low-income jobseekers surveyed in 2012, this follow-up study tested the extent to which EHS-14 is a robust measure in a different independent sample. This client-centered measure captures the state of one’s psychological empowerment, futuristic motivation, skills and resources, and goal-orientation as a developmental process” (p.1-2). (Abstractor: Author)

“…[E]mployment hope embodies the essential container that holds together all principal ingredients for one’s success in employment and career development. The ingredients includethe hard skills—i.e., education, skills, training—and the soft skills—i.e., being punctual, following workplace rules and directions, managing anger and frustration in situations of stress or confrontation, etc. Employment hope may be the precursor necessary for nurturing personality traits or non-cognitive skills that Heckman (2013) would maintain to contribute significantly to various success outcomes—i.e., openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism/emotional stability. This chapter proposes employment hope to be the soil from which these traits can grow and blossom into any contextualized success outcome. Given the support for hope as a factor that contributes to positive outcomes in other circumstances, this paper posits that the concept of hope could play a vital role in increasing employment opportunities for historically difficult-to-employ clients served in various social service settings…[A]pplying employment hope to workforce development programs also has mezzo and macro implications. Both Hong and his colleagues (2009) and Juntunen and Wettersten (2009) point out that labor market inclusion of traditionally disenfranchised groups and low-income persons need to be addressed in conjunction with clinical interventions. Moreover, economic mobility relies on more than a change in job structure. Policy, family, and educational institutions must be rejuvenated, as well. These structures that impede economic mobility also, consequently, impede employment hope” (p.14-15). (Abstractor: Author)

• Last Updated:
• Created:
• Resource Publication Date: 2013
• Author(s): Hong, Philip Young P.; Choi, Sangmi
• Organizational Author(s): School of Social Work, Loyola University Chicago
• Funding Source: Funding source not identified
• Resource Availability: Publicly available
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• Posted in: Workforce System Strategies