By Rob McInnes
Throughout North America there are hundreds of companies
that attest to their success in employing people with
disabilities and the value that employees with disabilities
add to their operations. While they are definitely a
minority within the business community, they represent all
sizes of companies and all sectors of the economy. Many of
them, like Marriott, IBM and the Royal Bank of Canada, are
large well-respected companies with branches throughout the
world. Most of them represent the much larger sector of
small and medium size companies. With many larger companies,
it is often not the entire company, but a specific
department or a local branch of the company that has
experienced unusual success in employing people with
disabilities.
What is it that makes these companies successful at
hiring and employing people with disabilities? This is an
important question for other companies who are looking for
“best practices” to emulate. It is an equally important
question to governments and the host of non-profit
organizations that are seeking ways to increase the
workforce participation of people with disabilities. Of
course, the question is probably most compelling to people
with disabilities who, in their quest for employment, are
experiencing resistance and discrimination from employers.
There are likely several ingredients to success that
could be identified. However, one of the factors that seems
to regularly distinguish companies that experience success
in hiring people with disabilities is their involvement in
one or more formal PARTNERSHIPS with disability-focused
organizations in their communities. For the purposes of this
article, I’ll refer to these organizations as “CBOs” –
community-based organizations. Included under that umbrella
are programs run by state departments of rehabilitation,
educational institutions, one-stops/workforce development
offices, nonprofit organizations (e.g. Goodwill, United
Cerebral Palsy, Independent Living Centers) and similar
organizations.
In approaching this area, I believe it is helpful for
employers to think of these CBOs as they do other
vendors/suppliers to their companies. As suppliers, CBOs
have many resources that can be advantageous to companies
who are seeking to better employ people with disabilities.
These can include (but are not limited to):
1) An identified pool of job seekers with disabilities
2) Expertise in job accommodation options and access
technologies
3) Information and/or training on disability etiquette.
4) Support, follow-up and possibly on-the-job coaching
for newly-hired employees
5) Knowledge of funds and other services available to
support employers in hiring/employing people with
disabilities.
If your company would benefit from these kinds of
services, find out what vendors there are in your area and
compare their offerings. Mainstream, Inc. in Bethesda, MD
used to have an excellent online checklist for employers to
use in evaluating the quality of CBOs that they might want
to partner with. (Their website is currently under
construction. If anyone has a copy of the checklist, let us
know. Perhaps we can reprint it next month.) You might want
to draft your own survey before you begin contacting CBO’s
in your area. It could include such considerations as:
• How many people with disabilities do they place
annually?
• What percentage of their job seekers have the kinds of
skill sets that you are seeking?
• How do they screen and assess their clients?
• What other services can they provide for you? (i.e.
Some CBOs can offer job accommodation support, in-house
disability-related staff training, etc.)
• What post-placement support do they offer you and/or
the employee? (e.g. Many CBOs provide post-placement
retention-focused support.)
• What mechanisms does the CBO have to keep attuned to
your recruiting needs and to keep you alerted to prospective
applicants?
• What other employers can you contact for references on
their services?
The kinds of partnerships that you can forge with CBOs
can vary according to your needs, their resources, and your
combined imagination. Here are just a few examples:
• State Compensation Insurance Fund (State Fund) in San
Francisco contracts an entire department of its operation to
San Francisco Vocational Services. People in that operation
are employees of San Francisco Vocational Services, but
State Fund uses it as a recruiting source – hiring the most
promising employees for jobs within the larger company.
• SunTrust Bank in Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth
University (VCU) and Manpower have developed a collaborative
partnership to increase the presence of people with
disabilities in SunTrust’s workforce. VCU works with local
CBOs to identify job seekers with disabilities. Manpower
assesses and places some of these individuals in temporary
positions at SunTrust. VCU further assists SunTrust
personnel to effectively accommodate and supervise these
employees. Some of these employees are hired for regular
positions within SunTrust.
• For over ten years, the Skills Training Partnerships
program of the Canadian Council on Rehabilitation and Work
has created partnerships between CBO’s and employers across
Canada. Through this program, employers identify jobs with
predictable turnover that require skill sets that can be
developed over a training period of a few months.
Collaboratively, they then develop programs to train people
with disabilities in those specific skills and for those
specific jobs.
• The Marriott Regional Worldwide Reservation Center in
Santa Ana, California partners with the Braille Institute
and the Department of Rehabilitation to recruit and train
people who are blind or have low vision. As Marriott
Associates, these individuals are hired by the Center to
take guest room reservations. Over 130 people with
disabilities have been hired through this program.
Partnerships such as these can increase the capacity of
companies to successfully employ people with disabilities,
improve the ability of CBOs to understand and respond to the
needs of the business community and, of course, increase
employment opportunities for people with disabilities.
If you want your company to experience more success in
employing people with disabilities, consider forging such a
partnership with a CBO in your area. In addition to meeting
your professional goals, it can also be a personally
enriching and satisfying venture - abounding in new
experiences, professional associations and friendships.
If you work for a CBO that supports people with
disabilities to find work, you may want to further explore
the human resources needs of businesses in your community
and look for opportunities to establish specific programs
and more formalized partnerships that will enable companies
to more successfully make people with disabilities a part of
their workforces.
© Rob McInnes, Diversity World, July 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.)
