Impact Profile: Enlightened Inc.

When we spoke with Enlightened Inc.’s Human Resources Generalist Tyshonna Delaney, a word we heard often was “family.” It’s a value that drives every aspect of the D.C. consulting firm’s work whether they’re working with international, regional, or local clients, including their youth apprenticeship partnership with CityWorks DC. In our conversation, Delaney explained how Enlightened’s value-driven culture shaped a holistic apprenticeship program that provides wide-ranging experiences leading to central roles in the company’s ongoing work for apprentices Ricaya of KIPP DC Legacy College Preparatory, as well as Evan and Dion of Friendship Tech Prep Academy.

The first step to all of that, Delaney says, is looking through the lens of Enlightened’s vision. “Vision makes the decision, right?” she says. “Vision led us to hiring apprentices, because our goal is to make sure that we instill great value, integrity, excellence, and definitely principles and good morals into the younger generation. Because, of course, they are the ones who come after us.”

Delaney says she and others envisioned thorough and reflexive roles that benefit Enlightened, but also the youth apprentices. That meant “collaborating with our partners, with our community, and focusing on certain opportunities that allowed us to produce a return on our investment,” she says. “Our decision to hire more and more apprentices extends beyond our need for them, but their need for us.”

“And as I tell the apprentices all the time,” Delaney says, “Knowledge is not power until it is applied knowledge. And so having them work side by side with us, and them understanding our vision and our mission––I think that they feel a part of what we're actually doing.”

For that approach to work, Enlightened had to think holistically about roles and their apprenticeship journey. “They're not locked into just the HR department or just IT,” Delaney says. “They get to experience every facet of our organization. They get to work with our executive leadership, meaning our CEO and leaders in and outside of the office. They're afforded numerous opportunities to attend events and to showcase themselves and their greatness. These opportunities help them to build professional communities that support them now and into the future.”

Delaney says that A-to-Z exploration of the full Enlightened organization teaches apprentices sustainable skills that they may not gain in a role with a limited scope. “We provide our apprentices with high quality on-the-job training and with rigorous work experience that develops their job skills simultaneously while supporting their efforts to perform at optimal level –– and gives them the opportunity to see the benefit of their contributions,” she says. 

“That may be verbal input, their ethics, their work ethic, what they put into certain tasks so that they can see the benefit and treating them as a partner, handling them as a partner, but making sure that they're professional about how they approach their tasks, teaching them how to communicate, when to communicate, the flexibility in your communication,” she says. “How to be a great partner to your partners. Because as we all know, us adults, sometimes we're not the friendliest.”

“We understand the significance of building a tribe,” says Delaney. “Building community and having strong relationships. And in return, our apprentices trust us beyond just their professional development.”

That means celebrating wins at work and outside of it –– like how Enlightened’s full cohort of CityWorks apprentices won full scholarships to college. “It's exemplary, truly an example of Enlightened's core values,” she says with a smile, “which are intensity, integrity, intelligence, and innovation.”