How to Improve ROI: Employment Solutions for Small Business
Narrator:
You're about to see and hear what the leaders of three small businesses
have to say about leadership, commitment, and increasing their return on investment by employing innovative practices and making proactive efforts to recruit, hire, and advance people with disabilities.
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This Roundtable Discussion was held at Virginia Commonwealth University on May 8, 2007, among small business leaders, W. Roy Grizzard, Ed.D., the first Assistant Secretary of the Office of Disability Employment Policy, United States Department of Labor, and Amy Armstrong, Ph.D., Certified Rehabilitation Counselor of Virginia Commonwealth University.
Amy Armstrong:
With us, we have Garth Larson. Garth is the Founder of Positive Vibe Cafe, a popular restaurant in Richmond, Virginia, that also serves as a training facility for people with disabilities, and budding chefs in the making.
With us, as well, is Brian Jones. Brian is the President of Getloaded.com, the internet load board for the transportation industry. Brian's company continues to enjoy an astonishing growth rate, year after year, and is a leading employer of persons with disabilities.
Debra Ruh is also with us today. Debra is an internationally recognized leader in making technology accessible to all, and is the Founder and President of TecAccess. Her award-winning company works to create a fully accessible world of technology by placing employees with disabilities into roles as accessibility experts.
Amy Armstrong: What led each of you to recruit people with disabilities?
Brian Jones:
We did not actively recruit. They came to us. We put an ad in the Richmond paper for a data entry position. And we had a wonderful lady that applied and turned out to be by far the most qualified individual for the data entry. She was hearing impaired.
Amy Armstrong: What has been your experience with training your staff with disabilities?
Garth Larson:
One of the most important reasons that I think is often overlooked is the effect that the non-disabled employees have, the perspective that is changed, the education that occurs. We've had several people come in without understanding what it is like to be around somebody with a disability, and they have come out of there, not only promoting it, but enjoying it, respecting it, and seeing the true talents that they have to offer.
Brian Jones:
My opinion is, we did not have to make that many different accommodations for the two disabled folks we have. The lady that first started, our very first one, she came with an interpreter who sat through her two-week orientation and did the interpretations for her, throughout. If my recollection is correct, that was at no cost to our company. When we needed to do additional training, when we came out with an enhancement to our software, we brought the interpreter back out at a very minimal cost.
Debra Ruh:
We try to accommodate all of our employees. We accommodate when somebody's ill, when somebody – maybe their wife had a baby. We have one employee that doesn't like to speak in public or if there's too many people in a room, he gets nervous when he goes to speak. They don't, quote, "have disabilities," but we try -- we accommodate all of our employees.
Brian Jones:
The cost that it takes to bring a new employee on is, that is so much more than the minor cost to train your employees, whether they're disabled or non-disabled. Anytime you can retain employees for a longer period of time, you save a significant amount of money on your recruiting costs, and so forth. So I think the money spent on training is well worth the cost.
Amy Armstrong: What benefits have each of you noticed by diversifying your workforce and hiring people with disabilities?
Debra Ruh:
We're a technology company, and we're in a relatively new industry that -- we have to be very creative, so, since so many of our employees -- we have a lot of employees that have severe disabilities. And our world isn't really made for some of those employees with the severest of the disabilities. And we like to say, in the business world, "thinking outside the box." We have found that our employees not only are they very passionate about our company and our clients and want really to make them be successful, but they're so creative in the solutions that they come up with.
Brian Jones:
We just try and create a culture that people want to work there. No matter who you are. Whether it's from a benefits package, whether it's from an environmental end, down to painting the walls and the pictures we put up. Um...if we're not trying to define new ways to retain our employees, then we are going to be at a loss.
Debra Ruh:
We've run into technology issues with making a piece of hardware accessible. For example, we have a gentleman that's a quadriplegic. And one of our clients, Canon, had asked us to -- what would we recommend they do for -- to make a completely accessible copier? And this gentleman came up with 15 pages of suggestions that were sent to the D.C. engineers and then to the New York engineers, and all the way to the Tokyo engineers, and a lot of those suggestions are being implemented in the Canon copiers today.
Brian Jones:
The individual that we brought on that had Muscular Dystrophy, he was hired in to work in the call center. And after being with us for a short period of time, we realized that he had a much larger skill set than we ever realized -- to the point where, now, we are internally interviewing him to fill an I.T. quality assurance role, where he's going to be reviewing our site and some of the code before we make it publicly accessible. And it was just fascinating to see how you brought someone in for one thing, and then they have all these hidden talents they can help you out in so many different ways.
Garth Larson:
We had an individual that worked for us, and still does. Comes to work every day two hours early, and he started the very first day we opened. Been there two and a half years, works almost every single shift in the kitchen. He came in one night ten minutes late. He didn't say a word. He has a spinal cord injury. He's in a manual wheelchair. Went right past me, clocked in, did his job -- works in the kitchen, does an outstanding job back there as a prep cook -- and was leaving that night, and one of his coworkers asked him, "what happened?" Reluctantly, he told the story that his car had caught on fire. He had to physically drag himself out the window and onto the sidewalk and ask a bystander to come into his car, yank out his adaptive driving equipment, pull out his manual wheelchair. He popped in the chair, he put the equipment in a knapsack, and hand-wheeled himself two miles to come to work. He was scared he was going to lose his job.
That dedication is something I know I’ll never know in my job. That opportunity that he was given, he was taking full advantage of, and that's the type of reliability I think you find with people with disabilities.
Amy Armstrong: How has including employees with disabilities impacted your Return on Investment?
Brian Jones:
When we can bring on employees that provide great customer service, are loyal to the company, and embrace what we, as a company, are trying to do, the return on investment is just tremendous. Our experience with the two individuals that we've brought on that have had disabilities have done that tenfold. So the amount that it hits the bottom line from a recruiting perspective is so minimal, compared to the return you get by bringing on excellent employees that help embrace that customer service spirit, that I really feel like it's going to be something that's going to help our company continue to grow, so the bottom line only continues to get a little bit better.
Amy Armstrong: Dr. Grizzard, do you have any closing remarks that you would like to make?
W. Roy Grizzard:
I think that what we've seen here is that one of the primary investments for any business, large and small, is that investment they make in human resources, because it's that talent that will provide a success to any business. Many of the small businesses of the country do not, perhaps, have the resources to understand about accommodating, providing access technology, and where to recruit, how to retain, how to promote people with disabilities. We provide that type of information at the Office of Disability Employment Policy. At the end of this tape, we'll scroll some of those resources. But we would hope that those watching this tape, who are considering employing people with disabilities, will understand that vast resource that is out there.
Amy Armstrong:
I'd like to thank Dr. Grizzard and our panel of employers -- Garth, Brian, Debra -- for being with us today and sharing their stories of how they successfully promote the employment of people with disabilities. I wish you all continued success.
Thank you.
All: Thank you.
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The Office of Disability Employment Policy of the United States Department of Labor gratefully acknowledges Virginia Commonwealth University for participating in this program and for the use of its studios.
Employer Resources
Job Accommodation Network (JAN)
Productivity, Tools and Strategies When Hiring, Accommodating and Retaining Employees
www.jan.wvu.edu
800-526-7234 – V/TTY
Employer Assistance and Recruiting Network (EARN)
Recruiting, Hiring and Business Case Resources
www.earnworks.com
866-EARN NOW (866-327-6669) – V/TTY
Office of Disability Employment Policy
U.S. Department of Labor
Publications, Fact Sheets, Interview and Hiring Tips
www.dol.gov/odep
202-693-7880
877-899-5627 – TTY
The statements expressed during this program do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the U.S. Department of Labor. Nor does mention of trade names, commercial products, or organizations imply the endorsement of the U. S. Department of Labor.
