ESOL Is a Workforce Strategy. Most Employers Still Treat It Like Charity

Lee Williams, MSOL

Career Navigator & Organizational Leadership Consultant | Pursuing EdD in Leadership & Innovation | Driving Transformational Change in Human Services & Higher Education | DEIB Advocate | Experienced | Bilingual

March 31, 2026

Last Friday, I sat in an ESOL listening session alongside my supervisor, other stakeholders, community partners, employers, and representatives from the Governor’s office. It was a well-organized, thoughtful session. Organizations across Massachusetts, MassHire among them, shared what they are doing to build English language capacity in the workforce, and there was genuine energy in the room. I left grateful for the conversation. But I also left with the same question I had raised to the panel still echoing in my mind, because no one had given it a direct answer.

I asked: What is the conversation that employers in Massachusetts are having with state government about their responsibility to invest in the development of their own workforce, especially workers for whom English is not a first language?

The State Is Doing Its Part. What About Employers?

Let me be clear about what Massachusetts is already bringing to the table. The Healey-Driscoll Administration announced a $10 million investment, proposed by Governor Healey and included in the recent Fair Share supplemental budget, to expand access to workforce training programs for 3,000 to 3,500 residents and reduce the waitlist for English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) services. By aligning and leveraging additional state resources, the administration expects to provide career-related ESOL to a total of 4,500 to 5,000 additional individuals over the next two years (Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 2025a). In FY24, the Workforce Training Fund Program (WTFP) reached a record high, awarding 33 grants totaling more than $2 million to train 1,053 workers in ESOL across 39 employers. The Healey-Driscoll Workforce Agenda explicitly identifies ESOL for work as a priority, calling on the state to leverage WTFP grants to increase employer use of ESOL training as both a hiring and retention strategy (Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 2024).

That is not a government sitting on the sidelines. That is a government actively investing in the workforce. Is it enough? That question is for another edition. The WTFP is, by design, a cost-sharing model. Employers contribute through a surcharge on the unemployment insurance tax, and grants must be matched by employer investment depending on the program type. The infrastructure for shared accountability already exists. The question is whether employers are taking the spirit of that model seriously, or simply waiting for the state to carry the full load. Too many are doing the latter.

Who Is Actually in That Workforce?

Before we talk about what employers should do, we need to talk about whom they are already benefiting from. That answer is not abstract. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2025), in 2024, foreign-born workers accounted for 19.2 percent of the U.S. civilian labor force, up from 18.6 percent in 2023, a figure that has continued to rise year over year. That translates to approximately 31.4 million foreign-born individuals actively participating in the labor market, contributing to health care, construction, hospitality, and human services, industries where the demand for workers remains consistently high. In the Northeast specifically, the foreign-born share of the labor force reached 22.7 percent, making this workforce population even more central to regional economies like ours here in Massachusetts (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025). These are not peripheral workers. They are foundational.

Immigrant workers, particularly those who came to this country navigating systems designed to exclude them, bring something that is difficult to quantify but impossible to ignore: discipline. They show up. They adapt. They sacrifice. They persist through language barriers, cultural adjustment, systemic inequities, and professional environments that were not designed with them in mind. When they are given the tools and the support to thrive, they do not just perform; they become some of the most loyal, dedicated, and productive members of any organization. I write this not as an abstraction. I write it as an immigrant who has lived it.

According to Gallup’s Employee Retention and Attraction data, 68 percent of departing employees in 2024 cited engagement and culture, or wellbeing and work-life balance, not pay, as the primary reason they left their employer (Gallup, 2024). Only 16 percent identified pay or benefits as their primary driver of departure. For immigrant workers specifically, the absence of language support, professional development pathways, and a genuine sense of organizational belonging can be the deciding factor between staying and walking out the door. The cost of that departure is real. According to the Work Institute’s 2024 Retention Report, U.S. companies spent nearly $900 billion replacing employees who quit in 2023 (Work Institute, 2024). If employers are looking for a return-on-investment argument for workforce development, the math is already on the table.

The Case for Cohort-Based, Industry-Aligned ESOL

Here is where I want to push the conversation further than most listening sessions go. ESOL training that is generic, divorced from the realities of the industry the worker is actually in, will always underperform. A direct support professional learning English in a classroom designed for someone entering retail is not being served. A food production worker memorizing vocabulary that has no connection to their daily workflow is not being equipped. Adult learners are not empty vessels waiting to be filled. They come with expertise, lived experience, professional histories, and an urgent need for learning that is immediately applicable to their lives.

Research grounded in Robert Kegan’s constructive-developmental theory demonstrates that cohort-based models in ESOL and adult basic education settings are particularly effective because they account for the developmental diversity of adult learners and create structured environments where different ways of knowing are supported and challenged at the same time (Kegan, 1994). Malcolm Knowles’ andragogy framework reinforces this: adults learn best when content is relevant, self-directed, and connected to real-world problem-solving (Knowles et al., 2015). When ESOL curriculum is built to reflect the language, tasks, and scenarios of a specific industry, retention of learning improves, confidence accelerates, and workforce performance follows.

Peer-reviewed scholarship in human resource development has established a consistent positive relationship between participation in workplace learning and employee engagement, lower turnover intention, job satisfaction, and improved job performance (Noe et al., 2022). This is not theory for theory’s sake. These are measurable organizational outcomes that employers should be demanding, not waiting for someone else to deliver.

Employers who received WTFP General Program grants during FY2024 project to add more than 2,800 additional employees in Massachusetts by 2026 (Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 2024). That is the proof of concept. Investment in workforce development, including language development, grows organizations. The employers who understand this are already moving. The ones who do not are sitting in listening sessions expecting the state to solve their turnover problems.

The Infrastructure Already Exists. What Is Missing Is Coordination.

Massachusetts has strong ESOL providers. It has workforce development organizations doing exceptional, underfunded work in communities from Worcester and Boston to nearby Providence, Rhode Island, a regional ecosystem that does not stop at state lines. What is missing is not capacity. What is missing is a structured, accountable partnership between those training providers, the employers who benefit from their graduates, and the state government that is already investing public dollars into this system.

Career Support and Advancement Navigators have a critical role to play in this architecture. These are professionals who sit at the intersection of workforce systems, adult learner support, and organizational development. A well-positioned navigator does not merely help workers find jobs; they help organizations understand who their workforce is, what those workers need to grow, and how to build development structures that reduce turnover and increase internal mobility. When navigators are embedded in or connected to ESOL training programs, they translate learner progress into career pathways, connect workers to advancement opportunities, and serve as the human bridge between language acquisition and professional identity development.

That is not a support function. That is a systems function.

The model I am advocating for looks like this: ESOL providers curate industry-specific cohort curricula in partnership with employers who agree to co-invest in the training, support active participation, and commit to advancement pathways for program completers. MassHire Career Centers and workforce navigators facilitate connections, track outcomes, and hold all parties accountable. State government creates the incentive structures and accountability frameworks that make employer participation meaningful, not optional.

This vision is already partially embedded in the state’s own strategy. Adult education and ESOL providers are expected to collaborate with local MassHire Workforce Boards and Career Centers on recruitment, career services, and job placement activities (Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 2025a). The infrastructure exists. It simply needs employers to stop treating it as someone else’s responsibility.

A Final Word

The workers showing up every day in this Commonwealth’s most essential industries, health care, human services, manufacturing, and food systems, deserve more than access to a waitlist. They deserve employers who see their potential, invest in their growth, and build the kind of organizations where the discipline and resilience they bring are met with real opportunity. The state cannot do this alone. Nor should it have to. The question I raised in that room last Friday was not a rhetorical one. It was a leadership challenge. And it is one I intend to keep asking until the answer changes.

About the Author

Lee Williams works at the intersection of nonprofit human services, adult learning, and organizational leadership pathways. He holds a Master of Science in Organizational Leadership (MSOL) and is currently a doctoral candidate in Leadership and Innovation at Purdue University Global. He is the author of the Leadership Equity Report. He can be reached at info@iamleewilliams.com

References

Commonwealth of Massachusetts. (2024, September 26). Healey-Driscoll Administration awards $11 million to businesses for workforce training programs. Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development. https://www.mass.gov/news/healey-driscoll-administration-awards-11-million-to-businesses-for-workforce-training-programs

Commonwealth of Massachusetts. (2025a, July 16). Healey-Driscoll Administration celebrates $10 million investment in workforce training for English learners. Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development. https://www.mass.gov/news/healey-driscoll-administration-celebrates-10-million-investment-in-workforce-training-for-english-learners

Commonwealth of Massachusetts. (2025b, July 16). Healey-Driscoll Administration awards $2.7 million in workforce skills grants. Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development. https://www.mass.gov/news/healey-driscoll-administration-awards-27-million-in-workforce-skills-grants

Gallup. (2024). Global indicator: Employee retention and attraction.https://www.gallup.com/467702/indicator-employee-retention-attraction.aspx

Kegan, R. (1994). In over our heads: The mental demands of modern life. Harvard University Press.

Knowles, M. S., Holton, E. F., III, & Swanson, R. A. (2015). The adult learner: The definitive classic in adult education and human resource development (8th ed.). Routledge.

Noe, R. A., Tews, M. J., & Marand, A. D. (2022). Individual and situational characteristics influencing the motivation to voluntarily participate in learning activities. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 133, 103691. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2022.103691

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2025, May 20). Foreign-born workers: Labor force characteristics, 2024(USDL-25–0847). U.S. Department of Labor. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/forbrn.htm

Work Institute. (2024). 2024 retention report.https://info.workinstitute.com/hubfs/2024%20Retention%20Report/Work%20Institute%202024%20Retention%20Report.pdf