Hoosiers with disabilities have the highest unemployment rate of any minority. However, one organization is working to change that. The Indiana Business Leadership Network is encouraging business leaders throughout the state to hire those who are disabled. Making excellent employees, the disabled have an opportunity to lead more independent lives with less reliance on state and federal subsidies if they have a job.
At a national level, the BLN is an employer-led endeavor of the Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP). Initiated in 1994, the program offers a unique medley of service, advocacy and empowerment to a population who has always suffered from persistent unemployment.
Scott Beauchamp a Yellow Cab Indy and actively involved with the BLN said a significant portion of community is made of people with disabilities and overlooking them as job candidates means an employer is overlooking a large number of potentially qualified individuals.
“Hiring people with disabilities working brings awareness and understanding to all employees that a disability doesn’t mean a person cannot be a very productive team member,” Beauchamp said.
Benefits for participating employers include access to important resources regarding disabled employees, information on disability issues and hiring, exposure to qualified disabled candidates, recognition for best disability employment practices and opportunities to interact and learn from other businesses and corporation who supervise employees with disabilities.
Currently there are 43 BLNs in 35 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. In 2000, 1,676 employers participated in BLN activities. Today, more than 2,000 employers are making an effort to hire those with disabilities.
One company with a national name is leading the country in a proactive movement to higher those with disabilities who are driven and passionate. Walgreens has formulated a model for employing the disabled like no other. Located in Anderson, South Carolina, a $175 million, 700,000 square foot distribution center has been designed to accommodate just about anyone. Specially equipped with touch screens and flexible work stations, the facility welcomes people of all ability. Not only is the building accessible, it is 20 percent more efficient than any other in the entire company. It is so efficient, that other companies are looking at the Walgreens model, like this distribution center in Windsor, Connecticut.
But the payback goes far beyond profitability.
Randy Lewis, the company vice president, knows firsthand how having a disability can impact leading a normal life. Lewis has a son with autism. Now the question of ‘what happens next?’ no longer haunts Lewis. Aside from efficiency and profit for Walgreens, employing the disabled gives them security and independence, two things taken for granted by the rest of the population.
Lewis said that having a son with autism allowed him to look past the disability and see a person. More than forty percent of the people employed at the DC are disabled and for many, this is the first opportunity they have had to bring home a paycheck.