Stories about individuals with disabilities in the workforce continue to pour in during National Disability Employment Awareness Month (NDEAM). While it’s great that local newspapers list NDEAM community events and publish editorials by leaders of organizations whose mission includes providing career training and employment opportunities to people with disabilities, these examples better accomplish the goal of showing why inclusion often results in better bottom-line outcomes for the businesses.
The Tallahassee Democrat has been publishing profiles of people with disabilities in the workforce all month long, among other stories. Earlier this month, we had linked to one of their stories about the Sirata Resort in St. Petersburg. Here’s a searchable list of all their NDEAM articles, but be selective in what you read as the paper limits access to non-subscribers. I especially liked the one about bank teller Rachel Doeble, who has become the manager’s “right-hand.”
Beth Reece of the Defense Logistics Agency has one of the best stories we’ve come across so far during NDEAM. She covered a presentation on hiring people with disabilities given to military personnel by Claiborne Haughton, Jr., a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for equal opportunity who now operates his own diversity consulting firm. There’s a nice photo of Haughton on the Fort Riley Post website, but the version of the story on the Defense Video and Imagery Distribution System includes the following quote by Haughton that demonstrates why the Department of Defense is one of the most forward-thinking institutions when it comes to recruiting employees with disabilities:
… [E]mployers often point to human resources, EEO and diversity officials as those with the authority to make changes. Haughton said this ‘passing of the buck’ reminds him of a story about four people named Anybody, Everybody, Somebody and Nobody: There was an important job to be done, and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did. Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody’s job. Everybody thought Somebody would do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody would not do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done.
Curiously, the names of the employees with disabilities were not used in this article by Charlie Bermant of the Peninsula Daily News. But he relates some nice examples of how people with disabilities have enhanced different businesses in Port Townshend, Washington.
In her story for the Central Penn Business Journal, Heather Stauffer not only tells some good anecdotes about people with disabilities in the workforce but provides information for employers to access resources that will help them hire and accommodate new workers. Stacy Kyle of the Pennsylvania chapter of the Business Leadership Network tells Stauffer that companies who don’t recruit people with disabilities are limiting their applicant pool needlessly:
We’re not expecting employers to hire people who can’t do the job. When you consider this population, right off the bat you’re expanding the options of the best person to do the job.
Use the comments section to share any stories you have about the value employees with disabilities have brought to the workplace.