Report of the Employer Workgroup
Findings and Recommendations on the Employment of People with Disabilities
Submitted: September 23, 2002
To: the Rhodes to Independence Steering Committee
and the Human Resource Investment Council
Employer Workgroup Members
| Steve Kitchin |
Vice President Corporate Education & Training, New England Institute of Technology, Chairman of the Board of Workforce Partnership of Greater Rhode Island |
| Mary Lou Buonaccorsi |
Human Resource Consultant |
| Lauren Slocum |
President/CEO, Central Rhode Island Chamber of Commerce |
| Ernie Vergano |
Vice President, VR Industries |
| Thomas J. Rossi |
Consultant, representing National Federation of Independent Business |
| Richard Westlake |
President/CEO, Independence, LLC |
| Lorna Ricci |
Executive Director, Ocean State Center for Independent Living |
| Tony Lucca |
Operations Manager, Providence/Cranston Workforce Development Board |
| Jim Glover |
RETB Manager, Providence/Cranston Workforce Development Office |
| Ken Renaud |
Employment Information Network Coordinator, PAL
|
| Christine Grieco |
Chief, Employer Service Unit, Department of Labor & Training |
| Vicki Ferrara |
Employment Coordinator, Paul V. Sherlock Center on Disabilities (formerly UAP), RI College |
| Lynette Lopes |
Anne LeClerc, Program Managers, RI Public Transit Authority |
| Elaina Goldstein |
Interim Director of URI Center for Public Policy, Grant Director Rhode to Independence |
| Diane Cook |
Policy Specialist, Department of Human Services, Grant Co-Director, Work on the Rhode to Independence |
| Susan Shapiro |
Supervisor, Office of Rehabilitation Services, Grant Director Benefits Planning on the Rhode to Independence |
Thanks are given to the above individuals who generously shared their expertise and time to provide the substance and sense of this report. Additional thanks are given to the Ocean State Center for Independent Living and to the Central Rhode Island Chamber of Commerce for hosting meetings of the Employer Workgroup.
Employer Workgroup � Rhodes to Independence Steering Committee
Purpose
In October, 2000 Rhode Island received several grants, collectively known as the Rhodes to Independence, designed to make system changes to facilitate the competitive employment of people with disabilities. These grants were made by the Social Security Administration (SSA) and by the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Labor (DOL), in partial fulfillment of mandates within the 1999 Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act (TWWIIA). In its grant applications, Rhode Island identified multiple barriers to employment for its citizens with disabilities and potential system improvements and won all grants available. Directors of the RI Departments of Human Services and Labor & Training and the grant managers chose to proceed collaboratively and created a joint oversight committee known as the Steering Committee for the Rhodes to Independence.
The Steering Committee has served as the sounding board and processor of information about barriers and solutions. Workgroups were created to conduct a more in-depth analysis and system re-design. The Employer Workgroup was created to identify, from the perspective of employers, the primary barriers to hiring and retaining workers with disabilities, to review the current workforce development system in Rhode Island, and to identify strategies to reduce or eliminate barriers and system gaps.
Rhode Island's rate of employment for its citizens with disabilities is comparable to the national average (37% versus 34%) . The national average has hardly changed over many years, despite the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, the work incentives offered by SSA to recipients of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI), or employer hiring incentives such as the Work Opportunity Tax Credit and On-the-Job training funds . In an effort to support more Americans with disabilities to choose work over public subsidy, Congress passed the Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act, and therein created new incentives for SSDI and SSI recipients to work, created a mechanism for rehabilitation and employment organizations (beyond the public Vocational Rehabilitation program) to be reimbursed by SSA when they help recipients work fully, and created the grant opportunities referenced above.
In light of the modest progress made in integrating people with disabilities into the competitive labor force, the challenge for the Employer Workgroup was to articulate which changes in Rhode Island's current workforce development system could significantly improve the employment rate for people with disabilities in the future.
Employer Workgroup � Rhodes to Independence Steering Committee
Summary of Meetings
The Employer Workgroup met nine times between March and September 2002 to accomplish its work. Meetings were chaired by private sector members, principally by Steve Kitchin, Chairman of the Board of the Workforce Partnership of Greater Rhode Island. The co-director for the Work on the Rhode to Independence grant served as staff to the Workgroup. An initial statement of goals guided the process.
Methods
The Employer Workgroup was composed of a diverse group of private sector business people and of professionals in workforce development. Several members, including the Chairman, were also business representatives from the Workforce Partnership of Greater Rhode Island (one of RI's two local workforce investment boards). Other private sector participants were members of the Steering Committee or recruited by members of the Steering Committee. Expertise ranged from human resources to economic development to rehabilitation. Recommendations flowed from extensive discussion and debate, supplemented by supportive data and descriptions of the responsibilities of components of the workforce development system in Rhode Island. All recommendations were achieved by consensus.
Findings
In aggregate, small employers (defined as less than 500 employees) in Rhode Island employ the majority of workers (57.9%) but tend to have limited resources for Human Resource (HR) functions. As they are challenged in a competitive economy to find the most talented, versatile and productive workers they can find, yet have limited time or resources for the search, they appreciate reliable suppliers of qualified candidates.
Therein lies the opportunity for the workforce development system.
When employers, both large and small, are asked to consider hiring and retaining workers with disabilities, a host of concerns are raised, all of which relate to the bottom line of any business. Some of the questions are:
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What are the capabilities of an employee with a disability?
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What additional liability accompanies hiring a person with a disability? Is special insurance coverage needed?
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Is the training of an employee with a disability different?
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Is the disciplinary process different?
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Will accommodations be needed? If so, how much will they cost?
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Do employees with disabilities have different expectations of the company?
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Will pay issues cause problems if the disability affects output and compensation is pegged to output?
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What if the employee with a disability doesn't work out? Is the termination process the same?
Addressing these concerns is the challenge of the workforce development system.
What business people want from any workforce development system is a single or lead point of contact, quick turnaround in response to questions or identified needs, and easy access to consistent and accurate information. Their bottom line is nearly identical to that of the job seeker: they simply want superior customer service from the workforce development system.
The workforce development system, however, has internal, structural challenges in addition to the unique considerations associated with supporting the employment and retention of workers with disabilities.
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There is no complete, current, easily accessible list of workforce resources.
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There is no centralized database of job ready workers with or without disabilities.
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Existing resources, both pubic and private, that support business and workers with disabilities are unknown to most employers. As a corollary, most employers know little about the abilities of people with disabilities.
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Among workforce resources are Employment Specialists who work for government or for private community based organizations - these employment specialists possess variable levels of skill and knowledge both with regard to people with disabilities and with regard to the needs of business, and service delivery is uncoordinated.
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There is no single agency responsible and accountable for quality employer services, although the Office of Rehabilitation Services, Department of Human Services, is regarded as the primary public workforce development agency for Rhode Islanders with disabilities.
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The Rhode Island Human Resource Investment Council (HRIC), also acting as the State Workforce Investment Board (SWIB) under the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (WIA), is mandated to coordinate workforce development efforts in the state, but policy direction and implementation strategies, particularly vis-�-vis the coordination of resources across State departments, have not yet been fully articulated.
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The Local Workforce Investment Boards (LWIBs) face a similar challenge for their regions.
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netWORKri, as the state's One Stop system, has made major strides in developing its capacity to serve customers with disabilities, but it has yet to take full advantage of its potential to coordinate and target the pooled resources of its partners, most of which are the major State departments involved in workforce development.
Recommendations
To meet the needs of business and job seeker alike, the "system" must self-improve while it strives to provide excellent service to all customers. In light of the above system gaps, the Employer Workgroup makes the following series of recommendations:
Structural Changes
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The workforce development system, as a whole, should build itself around netWORKri, Rhode Island's One Stop system. It is the logical, existing nucleus with most of the major State partners already invested, including the Department of Labor & Training, the State entity with which business most often interacts on labor issues.
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The workforce development system should identify, within netWORKri, a single partner responsible for the accuracy of information held by all members of the system relative to workers with disabilities and the workforce, such agency also being a resource to sister agencies and to the business community for specialized employer services, e.g. worksite evaluation, rehabilitation engineering consultation, and retention intervention for workers with disabilities at risk.
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All State departments that conduct or fund employment services, e.g. the Departments of Human Services, Labor & Training, and Mental Health, Retardation, and Hospitals, should be affiliated in some way with netWORKri and direct their contracting agencies to do likewise, for the express purpose of coordinating, collaborating, and sharing information and resources to increase the number of Rhode Islanders with disabilities who become employed. As a corollary, all private employment service organizations in the state should be invited to affiliate in some way with netWORKri.
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The workforce development system should model itself on the Employer Service Network (ESN) at netWORKri. The ESN is a public/private partnership which is designed to provide improved customer service for both employer and job seeker and yield a return on investment for its members through leveraging resources which are limited individually but collectively powerful. It is a model of collaboration based on mutual gain.
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Public sector members of the workforce development system should be responsible for any extra costs (beyond reasonable accommodations) associated with the employment of people with disabilities. As a corollary, the State should develop a Medicaid Buy-In that will integrate with employer-based health insurance.
Information Sharing and Evaluation
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Information devoted to addressing the most frequently asked questions about people with disabilities in the workforce should be added to the Department of Labor & Training's web site, with links to other related sites, such "site" also fully staffed to provide real-time, rapid response to specific questions/needs.
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Public and private partners in the workforce development system should contribute to a centralized database, housed at netWORKri, of work-ready job seekers with disabilities, including such critical matching factors as skills, and length and type of prior work experiences.
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To enhance collaboration and standardize information among employment specialists, members of the workforce development system should create and maintain a web/print communication vehicle for reporting trends, success stories, new resources, initiatives, effective techniques, etc.
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Training on specific topics, e.g. customer service for employers, labor market information, and economic development resources, should be regularly offered as professional development opportunities to public and private members of the workforce development system.
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Similarly, members should regularly conduct cross training about each other's programs. Excellent customer service requires that account executives and employment specialists be very well informed about the range and depth of services offered to the business community by members of the economic and workforce development systems. Member summaries should be available on-line and continuously updated.
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To maintain system improvements already underway, the HRIC and local Boards should annually devote time to the topic of how well the workforce development system is serving customers with disabilities and the employers who would hire them. For continuous improvement, the local Boards should utilize a variety of feedback mechanisms, including customer satisfaction surveys and partner meetings throughout the year, to identify concerns and strategize solutions, e.g. focusing summer employment opportunities on youth with disabilities.
Marketing
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A marketing campaign is needed which should be sufficiently broad, or conducted in stages, to address multiple audiences, e.g. medical professionals who can support their patients with a return-to-work philosophy, parents and educators who can expect maximum performance from their children and students with disabilities, employers who can count on a return on investment in their workers with and without disabilities, people with disabilities themselves who can expect to be judged on their merits as workers. Marketing should include posters about employment resources strategically placed, e.g. Social Security Administration local offices, public housing, medical offices, community organizations, etc. to reach a wide audience.
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Partners in the workforce development system, or in netWORKri, should jointly develop short and long-term plans for information dissemination about people with disabilities in the workforce and jointly budget adequately for the necessary investment.
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The Employer Service Network should market itself to the business community and implement its "lead point of contact" concept, per employer demand.
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netWORKri partners and ESN members should act as ambassadors for a unified workforce development system, complementing the professional media campaign with individual marketing of the capabilities of workers with disabilities.
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Following proven success, business people should be enlisted in communicating case studies to other employers about the value of workers with disabilities, using a model such as the Business Leadership Network under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Labor and supported by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Budget Implications/Return on Investment
Improvements in the workforce development system, particularly marketing and public relations, require money, but the return on investment will compensate for initial expenditures. Some anticipated expenses, like a centralized databank of customers, have already been partly budgeted and a mechanism exists, through netWORKri, to recover additional costs from partner agencies.
Other potential expenditures, like cross training of staff, can either cost or save money. In the latter case, members of the Employer Service Network have already agreed to open up their planned staff training to other members of the Network. If executives of public and private agencies exercise leadership in this regard, a truly knowledgeable cadre of workforce development professionals can help power Rhode Island's future. In the past, employers have expressed frustration and difficulty in finding solutions to human resource problems. In the future, such business barriers can be resolved faster and less expensively simply by increasing capacity in the workforce development system through sharing of existing resources. Increased capacity through collaboration was precisely the intent of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998.
Marketing is one anticipated expense for which workforce development agencies infrequently budget, therefore, existing resources, even if shared, will cover little of the cost. However, funds for marketing currently exist in two Rhodes to Independence grants and may be augmented through additional grants and budgeted through netWORKri to sustain the campaign.
Most of all, investments toward the employment of people with disabilities are expected to have a measurable return on investment through decreased need for publicly subsidized income supports. Each new worker pays taxes and spends wages in the local economy. When people with disabilities work, everyone wins.
Conclusion
Rhode Island's workforce development system for employers should be as easy to navigate as it is for job seekers � business people also want One Stop. From the perspective of the employer, therefore, the principle of universality makes economic sense. The employer wants a pool of qualified candidates from which to choose workers, regardless of race, gender, disability or any other demographic factor. And, when workers have problems that may be related to a disabling condition, employers want to make one call to their account representative or employment specialist to at least begin to solve the problem. What happens after that one call (what happens behind the One Stop curtain) is irrelevant to the employer as long as it results in success.
To ensure the workforce development system meets the needs of its customers, customer feedback must be solicited and followed for continuous self-improvement. To assure that happens, the HRIC and local workforce investment Boards - which are empowered to coordinate workforce development efforts in Rhode Island - must have internal mechanisms to manage their vast responsibilities, hence the recommendation that each area of responsibility be given scheduled review.
There is no debate that people with disabilities are underemployed while hundreds of local jobs go unfilled every day. There is every expectation that mutual gain can be had when the systems and the people who work within them demonstrate flexibility, creativity, and attention to return on investment.
In February 2001, President George W. Bush articulated a broad policy charge known as the New Freedom Initiative . Among its many facets were the rapid implementation of Ticket to Work legislation, additional technology funding, and promoting awareness of business tax credits associated with accessibility for workers and customers with disabilities. On the 12th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, July 26, 2002, he reiterated his administration's commitment to this Initiative. "The ADA has given greater hope and dignity to countless Americans. Yet our work is not complete. Too many individuals still find it difficult to pursue an education, or own a home, or hold a job. We must continue to remove the artificial barriers to achievement that remain."
It is incumbent upon government and the community agencies they fund to create a coordinated, effective, and comprehensive workforce development system. With national leadership, State leadership, additional federal funds, and local drive and vision, an effective and comprehensive workforce development system is achievable in Rhode Island. The foundation has already been laid with netWORKri. The recommendations herein are designed to further the progress Rhode Island has made in serving all of its citizens well.
