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Support Grows for Disabled Job Seekers follow this blog post

posted by on Oct. 2, 2008

The ADA Amendments Act of 2008 (ADAAA) was signed into law on September 25th.This newest act corrects some of the inequities left unaddressed by the original ADA that was passed 16 years ago but, it won't impact staffing until corporations recognize the value of a truly underappreciated and underutilized labor pool

 

Suzanne Robitaille writing in the Wall Street Journal this summer reminded us of the challenges faced by the nation�??s working-age disabled- only 38% of whom have a job.
 
She pointed to the great strides that have been made and

documented several laudable efforts by companies who make a difference. Two examples mentioned in her article:

 

-Rich Donovan, a former Merrill Lynch Trader who has cerebral palsy founded LimeConnect in 2006 with Merrill as a his first partner to help people with disabilities find jobs. With the addition of Pepsi, Google and Goldman Sachs, Donovan�??s firm last year �??sourced more than 300 disabled internship candidates from two dozen universities.�??

 

The National Business & Disability Council with the initial help of Booz Allen Hamilton supports �??Emerging Leaders�??, a diversity internship program that has placed 75 students in summer internships in the last three years. AIG, KPMG, Liz Claiborne and P&G are among the 30 firms who support the program today.

 
Beyond the acknowledgement of a narrow band of best practices, there is still much work to be done. 
 
- Your website is a reflection of your breadth of diversity. Our review of corporate websites is still somewhat disappointing with regard to welcoming people with disabilities. Few photos of employees on company staffing pages show individuals with visible disabilities. We count no more than 5 of the Fortune 500 who clearly depict their disabled among their profiles. This can be easily fixed.
 
- Access to content that allows disabled job seekers to assess a firms openings and employee value proposition is open to debate. Clearly marked accommodations for people trying to navigate staffing pages (visual, auditory or motor) are few and far between. ..and the disabled are becoming more agressive seeking solutions.
 
Two years ago a NY Bank was targeted for its lack of access via online applications. Changes were quickly made and the suit was dropped. Last month Target settled a �??two-year-old class-action lawsuit alleging that visually impaired people were blocked from using their website by technical incompatibilities the company declined to fix.�?? This was a customer focus but how far behind are you?
 
It isn't just making the technical fixes, it is also the transparency that is critical. An example of a best practice is the GE Careers Accessibility Statement - a clear effort to move forward
 

- Before accommodation there is the interview process. Companyu Affinity Networks of people with disabilities can offer staffing leaders and their recruiters significant insight on the hiring on the hiring of people wioth disabilities. (The Suzanne Robitaillearticle singles out networks at KPMG, Eastman Kodak, IBM and Pepsi.)

 
- Finally, think about the training recruiters receive in recognizing and handling the needs of people with disabilities in the recruitment process.
 
Several years ago CareerXroads had the opportunity to study the challenges of graduating seniors from Rochester Institute of Technology�??s National Technical Institute For the Deaf (NTID) under a grant they received from IBM.

 

Our final report was included in a WSJ article and we received a great deal of response- including one email from a young man who had recently graduated from NTID and whose story is worth repeating.

 

He had graduated with a Computer Science degree near the top of his class and spent a frustrating 6 months applying to positions (after lots of initial response that quickly tailed off as recruiters learned that he required a TTY.

 

He persisted however and was thrilled to have recently received an offer. He had a question though. A week earlier he had been online at a company�??s staffing pages reviewing an entry level programming job when he was offered an opportunity to enter a chat-room to talk with a recruiter- which he did. After getting a positive response from the recruiter he was given a code to an online test- which he passed with flying colors. Then he received the offer, conditional of course on a background check.

 

His question? �??I start work next week�??, he said. �??When should I tell them I�??m deaf?�??

 

�??Now, would be a good time�?? we responded.

 

We renewed our acquaintance with one of the NTID career services professionals at the National NACE conference earlier this summer. Despite improvements it is still telling how few firms seek top engineering and computer science graduates at RIT-NTID. It is about walking the talk�?�so to speak.

 

Our belief is that recruiters are a critical piece of the solution when it comes to hiring quality candidates who may also be disabled. Learning how to examine the candidates ability and not be distracted by their disability is a part of it.

 

Ensuring a recruiter is trained to easily accommodate a range of disabilities in the recruiting process is also and obvious competency �?? and yet no public seminar geared specifically  to guide recruiters in this effort is readily available. A partnership between Cornell and the NJ SHRM Council is close (but what we think will resonate is still a step away).

 

Perhaps the most interesting statement a firm can make is if a recruiter or recruiting leader happens to have a visible disability. RBC and Wal-Mart are two firms we admire who walk the talk. We would enjoy meeting others.
 
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  • 1 point 8 months ago

    Have you heard about what Walgreens did with their distribution center in South Carolina? A third of the workforce there is disabled yet it is the most efficient and productive of all their warehouses. They are building a new one in CT in 2009 which will also employ the disabled.

  • 1 point 9 months ago

    At the b-school level Gerry, when future "leaders" are "groomed"; recruiter training will have minimal impact unless it is something that one can "demonstrate" creates shareholder value. Now some of us implicitly know this but have yet to do something tangible with it.

    Until now...

    If I end up being President of the NJ SMA chapter, I vow to have the topic of "disability hiring" woven into each monthly chapter meeting and topic.

    There you go. Step 1.

  • 1 point 9 months ago

    Excellent comments and there is no question that there are outstanding resources.

    The problem is that few recruiters and recruiting leaders have incentives, metrics, training, strategies, etc. built into their processes and, in fact, are mostly highly incented (by virtue of the pressures of the job) to ignore the surfacing of people with disabilities [who therefore have a high likelihood of finding themselves in the "not considered" category rather than the applicant pool.)Just Fact.

    The solutions are education. Show me one conference this year that offers recruiter training or a relevent concurrent session. Name one company that requires relavant training for all new recruiters regardless of their experience.

  • 1 point 9 months ago

    Another great resource is the Employer Assistance & Recruitment Network (EARN)

    EARN is a cost free national employment referral service sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor, with additional support from the Social Security Administration. The site provides unlimited job postings distributed to numerous local employment service providers who assist employers find job ready disabled candidates in their community. http://www.EARNworks.com. It�??s also a great source for disability employment information.

  • 1 point 9 months ago

    Gerry-

    This new act is "groundbreaking" because it effectively "overturns" many Supreme Court rulings since the original ADA that have denuded the intent of the bill.

    �?� Employees will be evaluated without regard to the hearing aids, medication, prosthetic devices and other measures they use to manage their impairments.

    �?� A new provision ensures that people who are fired or suffer other adverse employment actions because they are regarded as disabled (not transitory or less than six months) can prevail if they prove that they were discriminated against. It was also clarified that employers will not be required to provide a reasonable accommodation to individuals that are regarded as disabled.

    �?� A new, non-exhaustive list of major life activities that will now include caring for oneself, performing manual tasks, seeing, hearing, eating, sleeping, walking, standing, lifting, bending, speaking, breathing, learning, reading, concentrating, thinking, communicating, and working. In effect, major life activities will also include the operation of major bodily functions, including functions of the immune system, normal cell growth, digestive, bowel, bladder, neurological, brain, respiratory, circulatory, endocrine, and reproductive functions.

    �?� The bill directs courts to interpret the definition of disability consistent with the new provisions. �?� ADAAA explicitly authorizes the U.S. EEOC and the Departments of Justice and Transportation to issue new regulations.

    This is a VERY good bill and Senators Tom Harkin and Orrin Hatch should be thanked for their tireless efforts over the years. Perhaps now more recruiters will begin to think in inclusionary terms rather than the pervasive exlusionary way that much of our profession works.