By Rob McInnes
Over these past few months, I’ve been in regular contact
with a great guy who has been planning and coordinating a
seminar for local employers - on how to effectively employ
people with disabilities. Although he didn’t have a lot of
connections with employers in the area, he recruited an
excellent trainer and he was very diligent about promoting
the event in his community. Given all indications, he was
expecting about forty participants. When the curtain rose,
so to speak, there was an audience of one. After all his
months of hard work, only ONE real live employer actually
showed up for the event. I am sure that it was pretty
disheartening for him. However, it is not an unusual story –
I hear it, in various forms, much too regularly.
So what is it with employers? Don’t they care about
people with disabilities? That, in fact, is the assertion of
many of the disappointed hosts of such events. Further
proof, they contend, that employers aren’t interested in
employing people with disabilities. Personally, while that
may be true for a small number of employers, I believe that
there are a lot more (less sinister) factors that affect an
employer’s decision to attend a meeting or not. In that
context, let me share just a few ideas for planning group
meetings with employers…
RESPECTING TIME
Here is a promise that I can make you. If you surveyed a
group of employers and asked them what they needed to be
more effective at their jobs, “Another meeting to go to”
wouldn’t be at the top of their lists. Very few people who
are in business today have the luxury of time to spare.
Dozens, if not scores of tasks are competing for their
attention at any given moment in time. For someone to take a
day or even a half day away from their work to attend a
seminar, the nature of the event has to be not just “good”,
it has to be “compelling”. This is especially true of
employers with smaller companies. Hours away from their
place of business is likely to costly to them in the form of
lost productivity, lost sales, or diminished customer
service. If we are going to work effectively with employers,
we are going to have to respect them – and respect the value
of their time.
I have two contrasting stories to share. The first is of
the time that I was asked to help plan a one-day
disability-focused training seminar for employers that was
being sponsored by a government agency. In reviewing the
proposed program with them, I noticed that it was scheduled
from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM - with two half-hour refreshment
breaks and a two-hour lunch break. I pointed out that,
scheduled that way, most attendees would not likely have any
effective time at their offices before or after the event –
that they would have to forgo an entire day’s work for only
four hours of actual program content. I suggested starting
the program earlier and making it a half-day event.
Arrogantly, the gentleman in charge said “If they want the
cooperation of our office, they will attend the whole day.”
In contrast, my friend Gary Karp has developed an excellent
on-site training program for Hiring Managers. To do so, he
met with Human Resources personnel from several companies.
Among h is key questions were: how much time the Hiring
Managers would be able to invest in the seminar and, within
that time frame, what were the critical outcomes that need
to be achieved. Based on respect for the demands of their
jobs, Gary has developed a high-impact program within a time
frame that most Hiring Managers can afford.
Most employers these days don’t think about how they are
going to “spend” their time. They think about how they are
going to “invest” it. Their decisions are very much about
the “return on their investment”. If you are planning an
event, think in terms of cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness
– and promote it that way. In terms of time, shorter is
better. In terms of content, think more with less.
KEEP TO FAMILIAR GROUND
For the most part, a good rule of thumb is to hold your
event in a place that is already familiar to employers.
Don’t ask them to venture into unknown territory. Many
employers may already be somewhat uncomfortable with your
topic area. Don’t ask them to come to a location that will
add to that discomfort. If at all possible, hold your
meeting in a hotel, conference center, or similar setting
that employers or professional groups in your community
typically use for their own meetings. Your event is likely
to gain some immediate credibility by being held in a
location that employers are familiar – a place that they
already associate with business functions – a location they
already have a business connection to.
From my own experience, a good example of what not to do
was demonstrated by a group of community agencies that
planned a job fair for people with disabilities. Employers
in the area were very familiar with job fairs and their
recruiters attended them regularly. Most of the other job
fairs were held at one of two downtown conference centers.
The “disabled job fair”, however, was held at a suburban
neighborhood community center (because it was cheap). As you
can guess, it didn’t attract a lot of employers and, yes,
the company that had its booth next to the bake sale table
was not impressed.
If the cost of meeting space is an issue, consider asking
a local company to host the meeting for you. If they are
convinced of the value of your event, most companies will
gladly entertain this prospect. If they don’t have their own
meeting spaces, they may belong to industry associations
that have seminar rooms for their members’ use. Consider
also partnering with business associations like your Chamber
of Commerce or Manufacturer’s Association who often have
meeting space available.
Of course, like any good rule, there are certainly good
exceptions to this one. For instance, depending on the
nature of your meeting, it may be valuable to hold the
meeting on-site at a community-based organization –
particularly if a coinciding tour of the facility and its
programs would be seen as a valuable prospect to your
attendees.
DON’T GET INTO CARS (OR MEETINGS) WITH STRANGERS
I don’t know about you; but dinner invitations from
complete strangers raise red flags for me. (This is possibly
because the only one that I ever received and attended
turned out to be a high-pressure Amway meeting.) Similarly,
employers are likely going to favor invitations from groups
that they know and respect more than from groups that they
haven’t heard of.
If you are going to invite people to attend a meeting
about disability and employment issues, and if your
organization is not well-known and respected in your
business community, team up with an organization that is!
Hold a jointly-sponsored event. Consider what other
organizations might make a good partner for you. Partnering
in such an event could enhance the reputation of another
organization, help them gain visibility, or give them access
to new customers. It could be a company that offers
management training to local companies, one that does
consulting on workforce diversity issues, a temporary
staffing agency, a professional association of some kind…
there are many possibilities where a win-win partnership is
evident.
If co-sponsorship isn’t going to work for you, you might
consider an endorsement from a company or business leader
that is respected in your community. I once held a national
conference for employers. The brochures were mailed out as
attachments to a letter of invitation to attend – each
personally signed by the CEO of a major national bank. The
letter, of course was on the bank’s stationary. (In fact,
the bank generously offered to handle the entire mailing for
us at no cost.) Needless to say, with that CEO’s
endorsement, our event was much better-attended than we
could have hoped for if we had relied on our own name
recognition.
THEIR OWN WATERING HOLES
If you were a wildlife photographer and you were keen on
getting some great shots of a group of deer, how would you
go about it? Would you discover the location of their
watering hole and haul your equipment over there to take
your shots? Or would you go about creating your own watering
hole and try to draw the deer over to where you were more
comfortable? Surprise, surprise… most employers already have
their own “watering holes” – places where they regularly
gather together under one roof. Yet, most disability-focused
organizations that want to educate employers spend an
incredible amount of time and effort in trying to create new
watering holes – and then attracting employers to them. Such
“special” disability-specific events are too frequently
poorly-attended by employers – and/or attended by the same
already-committed employers who show up at every such event.
Strangely, we seem more comfortable trying to get the
mountain to come to us – rather than going to it (and
blaming the mountain when it doesn’t move!).
I am not advocating the end of such “special” events; but
I am advocating that a lot more organizations spend a
greater portion of their talent, energies and resources on
efforts that will educate and support employers where they
already congregate. I have found that many, many of the
organizations that employers belong to are very receptive to
including disability related content in their meeting
programs, conference workshops and even special events – IF
the content of the presentation is useful, informative and
well-presented.
Frankly, I am continually amazed both by the variety of
such associations that employers belong to - and by the
general lack of awareness that community-based organizations
have of them. I would strongly encourage every
community-based organization to develop an inventory of such
groups in their community, make contact with key
representatives, and meet to discuss the most effective ways
to educate their members on disability-related issues. The
only way to get a complete picture of these groups in any
community is to begin asking employers; but a good starting
place is to find out if any of the following exist in your
area:
• Local Chapters of Society for Human Resource Management
• Local Chapters of the Industry Liaison Groups
• Local Chapters of the American Society for Training and
Development ASTD
• Diversity Practitioners Groups
• Employment Equity Managers or Equal Employment
Opportunity Coordinators Groups
• Local Chapters of the Manufacturers Association
• Human Resources Committees of the Chamber of Commerce
This article was written primarily for people in Human
Services who are in the business of improving employment for
people with disabilities. If you are an employer and have
read all the way through this article, I would encourage you
to consider which of the associations you belong to that
might welcome a presentation on disability and employment
issues. Pick the most likely one and take it upon yourself
to make it happen! You’ll likely want to check around your
community to find the most effective person or group to
conduct the training itself.
© Rob McInnes, Diversity World, June 2004
(If not used for commercial purposes, this article may be
reproduced, all or in part, providing it is credited to "Rob
McInnes, Diversity World - www.diversityworld.com". If
included in a newsletter or other publication, we would
appreciate receiving a copy.)
