Making the Business Case for Hiring People with Disabilities
W. Roy Grizzard, Ed. D.
Assistant Secretary
U. S. Department of Labor
American Legislative Exchange Council Annual Conference San Francisco, CA July 21, 2006
Thank you for that kind introduction, and for inviting me to participate in this program. The American Legislative Exchange Council plays an important role in the policy arena. Since I come from an agency that focuses on policy, I feel right at home.
Thank you, Michael [Keegan], for giving me the opportunity to address the Commerce, Insurance & Economic Development Task Force. I share this committee's philosophy that "economic freedom is the cornerstone of our prosperity and our political freedom."
And, my agency certainly embraces policies that promote employment and economic prosperity for persons with disabilities.
About ODEP
First, let me tell you a little about the Office of Disability Employment Policy, or ODEP, as we call it. We are the newest agency in the U.S. Department of Labor, established in 2001.
While a number of agencies in the Department have regulatory responsibilities, ODEP is not one of them. We neither legislate - nor regulate - nor adjudicate.
Our mission is to provide national leadership by developing and influencing disability-related employment policy as well as practices affecting the employment of people with disabilities.
Our vision is "A world in which people with disabilities have unlimited employment opportunities."
People with disabilities have disproportionately high unemployment rates as compared to non-disabled individuals. Far too many people with disabilities are not in the workforce - and not because they do not want to work or don't have the skills to work.
For ODEP to make a difference, we know that we need to work in cooperation with a variety of partners.
The members of ALEC are certainly well-versed in partnerships. I know that you approach policy making through a dynamic public and private sector partnership to support research, policy development, and dissemination activities."
Similarly, ODEP works with service providers, educators and the workforce development system, -- to name just a few-- to engage in research and policy development, as well as education and outreach activities.
ODEP'S Employer Focus
But, of critical importance is our work with employers. It really doesn't matter how many individuals are ready to work, if there is weak demand for that supply. We understand that the policy solutions we propose must fit easily within our market-based economic system.
Why should employers be interested in hiring people with disabilities?
Not because a company wants to feel good, or because a company is concerned about compliance - but because a company wants to hire the very best person for the job, the individual who can and will contribute to the bottom line!
Those bottom line results must translate into shareholder delight. In the world of small business, where cash is "king," those results must be realized quickly.
Business Challenges
We know that there are significant challenges ahead. Businesses must find ways to meet the challenges of an aging, shrinking labor force.
According to the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics, or BLS, by the year 2014 - that's only eight years away - 36 million people are expected to leave their jobs and will need to be replaced. Another source tells us that between 2010 and 2030 the workforce will shrink by 10 percent.
We believe employers can meet such challenges by hiring people with disabilities. Right now businesses have the opportunity to tap into a young and growing talent pool.
There are more educated and better prepared workers with disabilities than ever before. Do you know that nearly 10 percent of all undergraduates, or approximately 1.53 million students, report having one or more disabilities?
Further, through ODEP's Workforce Recruitment Program, we have discovered that approximately 25 percent of these students are majoring in computer science, engineering and science. They are developing skills and knowledge critical in the contemporary workplace.
Business Case
In the last few years ODEP has done considerable research on employers, their business needs, their views, and the perceived impediments to hiring people with disabilities.
Our Employer Assistance & Recruiting Network (EARN) conducted 26 focus groups in 13 cities with executives and human resources professionals across an array of industries.
We learned that the most prevalent employer concerns were the following:
- finding and keeping qualified employees,
- finding employees with the right work ethic, and
- managing costs and benefits. .
Let me address each of these concerns:
Employers' top concern is finding qualified employees.
When employers learn that more and more young people with disabilities are graduating from high school and college, and that people who experience a disability have creative problem solving skills, employers recognize that many candidates with disabilities do have the talents, skills, and experiences for which they are recruiting.
Employers are concerned with performance and retention.
When employers learn that workers with disabilities have comparable performance and retention ratings to those of employees without disabilities, they see that hiring, retaining, and promoting people with disabilities positively impacts their bottom line.
What we have learned from data collected by our Job Accommodation Network (JAN) is that 84 percent of the inquiries from employers are an effort to retain valued employees. These are employees whose average salary is $48,000 a year.
Employers say job accommodations are costly.
When employers hear that almost half of the accommodations that are needed actually cost nothing, and those accommodations that do have a cost typically cost only $600, then they see that they can make accommodations easily and cost effectively as well.
I think the typical cost bears repeating: $600. That's less than the cost of airfare between Washington, DC, and San Francisco - assuming you can get the economy fare.
ODEP's employer research produced findings that support a strong business case for the employment of people with disabilities. This business case demonstrates that investing in workers with disabilities is indeed a sound investment
New Freedom Initiative Awardees
And there are some wonderful examples of employers who are doing making such an investment. We recognize them, individuals, and non-profits annually with the Secretary of Labor's New Freedom Initiative Award. This year's ceremony will take place on October 26.
To date Secretary Elaine L. Chao has presented the Department's New Freedom Initiative Award to 13 businesses, ranging from large corporations to small family-owned businesses.
Although all the information is available on ODEP's website (www.dol.gov/odep), I would like to take a minute to give you the "honor roll" of NFI Awardees:
They include Fortune 1000 companies: Bank of America, Booz Allen Hamilton, Cingular, Computer Sciences Corporation, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Manpower, Merck, Microsoft, and Sun Trust Banks.
They include a small Virginia- based technology consulting company: Tec Access.
They include family-owned or local businesses: Giant Eagle - a Pennsylvania-based grocery chain; and A & F Wood Products - a family owned business in Michigan with a total of 20 employees - seven of whom are persons with disabilities.
Circle of Champions
We call these outstanding businesses our Circle of Champions. Recently, ODEP hosted a meeting of this group to exchange information. We learned about their experiences, which strategies work and which don't. And, we were struck by their commitment to collaborate on new and innovative strategies to help ODEP expand its reach, and strengthen its impact in order to achieve our vision.
The keynote for the meeting was delivered by Susan Meisinger, President and CEO of the Society for Human Resource Management.
In her remarks, she pointed out, "We are entering a 'perfect storm,' where employment is up, the economy is strong and workers are migrating into retirement. This is a 'perfect opportunity' for people with disabilities ."
If companies don't do business with the disability market, their competitors will, she said.
Participants at the meeting agreed. Businesses are involved in a war for talent.
These companies also shared with us some of their best practices in addressing the role that people with disabilities play in bottom-line decisions
- Treat hiring people with disabilities as a business decision.
- Don't compromise hiring standards, and incorporate plans for career paths.
- Secure commitment from the top levels of leadership within a company.
- Example: Cingular Wireless created a task force of company leaders and persons with disabilities that analyzed departments and developed recommendations for making them more disability-friendly.
- Guess what happened? The recommendations led to product innovations and contracts with vendors who employ people with disabilities.
- Make the commitment to employees with disabilities intrinsic to a company's culture.
- Provide awareness and sensitivity training materials.
- Increase visibility through awards programs, internship programs, mentoring, and other activities.
- Example: Booz Allen Hamilton has an Emerging Leaders Program, in which they place top college students with disabilities in highly selective positions.
- Offer flexible and adaptable work practices.
- Rather than worrying about making workplace accommodations, think about these adaptations as "productivity tools."
- Example: CVS was able to return a valued employee back to work, after he had a stroke, by giving him a flexible work schedule.
- Share best practices with other companies.
- Bank of America shared its model with other companies and gave them a tour of their operations.
- Three of the five companies are now starting their own disability employment initiatives - not because they need a new initiative, but because they see the values that individuals with disabilities can add to their overall profits and success.
- Build active relationships with disability employment groups, who can offer information and resources.
- Example: Giant Eagle connects with community organizations in order to identify students with disabilities to mentor, and has hired hundreds of employees with disabilities, ranging from lot attendant to human resource manager.
- Example: ODEP provides two important - and cost-free - resources:
- Employer Assistance & Recruiting Network (EARN) (www.earnworks.com), which can assist employers in locating qualified job candidates with disabilities, as well as answer questions related to disability and the workforce.
- Job Accommodation Network (JAN) (www.jan.wvu.edu), which can work with employers one-on-one to help them make workplace accommodations - workplace productivity tools -- for employees with disabilities.
This is business - not the government -- talking.
Clearly, the companies in the Circle of Champions share ODEP's vision - a world in which people with disabilities have unlimited employment opportunities.
Conclusion
As you know, these companies would not put in the time and effort to hire individuals with disabilities if it weren't in the best interest of the company.
They don't do it to feel good, nor should they. That's the wrong reason to hire anyone.
Employees must be qualified to do the job that business needs to have done.
The more qualified individuals with disabilities that enter the workforce, the better for our economy. Employers are looking for the talent that will keep them competitive in the global economy.
As with any employee, the best candidates with disabilities will be in high demand. That highly qualified individual could be the next Bill Gates, or the next Nobel Prize winner in medicine, or the next Pulitzer Prize winner.
All employees with disabilities won't make it to the top of the field. But, I can assure you of one thing: All will deliver a full day's work for a full-day's pay. All will help contribute to the bottom line.
Thank you for your kind attention.
