* At Fred Meyer, “Inclusion” Includes People with Job Coaches

* Supported Employment: Using Job Coaching and Job Carving to Tap into the Talent of Employees with Developmental Disabilities

* August 22 - OBLN Employer Forum and POWER WORKSHOP

* Best Practice: Walgreens' Targeted Recruiting

* Job Accommodations: Life in a Cube

- Alisa Shaver, Store Director, Fred Meyer

"Job coaches have been a nice tool to have available with these employees – someone who can come in and have a conversation with the employee if an issue comes up. They often have more expertise in doing that than someone at store level."

- Janice Cavanaugh, Human Resources Administrator, Fred Meyer

"We represent a workforce that has a little narrower set of skills, but is well-motivated with a good desire to work... We have job coaches – staff that help with initial training, on-the-job training when job demands or duties change and evolve."

- Paul Crowther, Executive Director, OESCo

Over the years, Fred Meyer stores in Oregon have experienced a lot of success in employing the talents of people with intellectual disabilities. Typically, these people are hired and employed with the assistance of job developers (who support them through the job search process) and job coaches (who, as required, provide on-site support to the employee and employer). The Fred Meyer store in Portland’s Hollywood district is a great example of how people with intellectual disabilities have proven to play valuable roles within the Fred Meyer workplaces. In a recent conversation with us, Alisa Shaver, the Store Director, and Janice Cavanaugh, the Human Resources Administrator gave us their insights about how and why these folks are a viable part of Fred Meyers’ workforce.

OBLN: Alisa and Janice, we understand that the Hollywood West store has hired a number of people with disabilities who have been supported by job developers and job coaches. Can you give us a brief overview of that?

JANICE CAVANAUGH: We have worked with several job developers that have approached us. They have lined us up for interviews with some of the people that they are working with. We look for outgoing, friendly people… people who make our customers feel welcome and comfortable in our store. We go through the same hiring process that we would for anybody else.

ALISA SHAVER – We have about five to six employees now with job coaches. We have a couple out in Garden Center. (One of them has worked here for three or four years already and he does a great job!) We have two people in parcel positions, somebody who does some simple maintenance for us. One of these employees is employed full-time. The others are employed part-time (20 – 40 hours/week). They are all eligible for benefits.

OBLN: Janice, tell me about how you work with job developers – the people who help job seekers with disabilities to find jobs.

JANICE CAVANAUGH: The job developers work for several different community organizations. Sometimes people will come in and give me their card and say that I can contact them if I need help in recruiting people, but my feeling is that is if somebody wants a job here they need to come in and apply. Most of the time when they think they have someone who would be a good fit for one of our jobs, they will call me and we will discuss it. If their person looks like a good fit, we’ll schedule an appointment for a survey session.

As closely as possible I try to have them follow our complete process for new employees – including our pre-employment survey, drug testing, etc. Most of our jobs require the skills that would be required to complete the employee survey but on occasion I have had job coaches help people with that.

OBLN: So, job coaches – the people who support the new employee on the job… you have also found them to be helpful?

JANICE CAVANAUGH: Job coaches have been a nice tool to have available with these employees – someone who can come in and have a conversation with the employee if an issue comes up. They often have more expertise in doing that than someone at store level.

The most recent person that we hired was a young man that we hired as a greeter. (We have greeters who stand at the door and greet customers as they come into the store.) He had a very hard time staying on task. He would wander off sometimes. It just wasn’t the right job for him. We sat down and talked about it and moved him into a parcel position – bringing in shopping carts, carrying out groceries, cleaning the check stands, etc. and that proved to be a better position for him. He is doing well on that job and it ended up being a better fit for him.

OBLN: How are these employees accepted within your broader workplace?

JANICE CAVANAUGH: It varies – just like any other employee. Everybody has different personality types that they work well with. We have over 300 employees here and, like any other world of experience, every employee has people that they get along with and people that they don’t.

ALISA SHAVER – Some of these employees have been overly aggressive in making friendships in the store – more so than the average employee. So, we’ve had conversations with them and their job coaches about sitting back a bit and not being so assertive on the relationships.

OBLN – You folks have a lengthy track record of hiring this type of employee – over ten years now. Why do you feel this works for you? How is it valuable to you?

ALISA SHAVER – I think any retail business is smart to have a diverse group of people working in their store because you have a diverse group of people coming in to the store. Different people (customers) are comfortable with different types of people. Customers like to see people from all walks of life as employees in the store – the same mix of people that they encounter in the rest of the community.

We’ve been very lucky too. Here, most of the employees that have disabilities - employees with job coaches, have been very good workers.

OBLN: Janice, some people believe that employing people with disabilities can be burdensome or complicate the jobs of other employees. As an HR person, has working with this group of employees changed your workload significantly?

JANICE CAVANAUGH: I wouldn’t say that it has to any extreme. I do, on occasion, have job developers that have been overly assertive about having us hire individuals that I don’t feel are right for the business. But, of course, if it isn’t right for the business, I can’t do it.

OBLN: Alicia, has this group of employees caused any difficulties for their immediate supervisors?

ALISA SHAVER: Just occasionally, I’ve had to remind a department manager that, generally, these people work best within a routine and that, until they become familiar with it, they can be flustered with changes, any changes that are introduced. But, actually, some of the regular employees can be much harder to deal with than the ones with disabilities.

OBLN: From your comments, it seems that most of these employees with job coaches are probably people with some kind of mental handicap or developmental disability and that most of the accommodations that they need are around supervisory issues. Would that be a correct assumption?

JANICE CAVANAUGH: In this particular store, that is true.

OBLN: Do you have any idea what the retention rate is for these employees?

JANICE CAVANAUGH: We don’t have any figures on that but for the most part I would say that we have less turnover with these employees than average.

OBLN: From what you have said, it seems that Fred Meyer has become very comfortable with employing people with intellectual disabilities and in interacting with their job developers and job coaches. Yet, many companies still seem to be hesitant about employing these people. Do you have any idea why it has worked so well for you?

ALISA SHAVER: At Fred Meyer, we really believe in practicing diversity, inclusion, not stereotyping people when they walk through the door – giving applicants a real chance by sitting and talking with them and getting to know them. If the person has a job coach, we organize the time to sit and talk with them too - to really get to know this person that is applying for work at our store.

It is important that employers take the time to get to really know people that are applying for work - no matter what color they are, how they walk, what they look like, how they talk – any of those things. At Fred Meyer we are working very hard to ensure that we aren’t stereotyping and we are taking the time to get to know the individual people that want to have jobs with us.

Five or six of our employees with disabilities have probably been here for four to five years now and there are customers that will ask only for them to carry their groceries to their cars. A couple of them are particularly big assets to our store. The Senior Vice President of our company has even recognized one of them as being among the best employees that we have. Luckily, four or five years ago, someone here gave this man a chance to work for us and he has worked out to be a great employee.
 

“Supported Employment” is the term used to describe the services of organizations that use job coaches to provide ongoing on-the-job support to people with disabilities and their employers. To gain a better understanding of how these services work, we approached Paul Crowther, Executive Director of Oregon Employment Services Corporation (OESCo). OESCo has been providing supported employment services within Portland’s business community for over twenty years.

OBLN: Paul, in brief, what does OESCo do?

PAUL CROWTHER: We have about ten staff and we help people with developmental disabilities to find and keep competitive employment in the community. We currently support about 80 individuals at jobs throughout the Portland area.

People with developmental disabilities have some degree of intellectual disability that may or may not be combined with a physical disability of some kind. Mental Retardation, Cerebral Palsy, Traumatic Brain Injury, Downs Syndrome are some of the more common disabilities included in this group.

OBLN: Can you tell us a little about the workforce that you represent and the kind of work they are looking for?

PAUL CROWTHER: We represent a workforce that has a little narrower set of skills, but is well-motivated with a good desire to work. To help bridge the gap between the individual and the company, we offer some support. We have job coaches – staff that help with initial training, on-the-job training when job demands or duties change and evolve. Our job is to be there over time… because things change and issues come up. We don’t want more responsibility to fall on the employer than they are willing or able to take on. The public funds that we receive are used to provided that kind of extra support.

We look for real work for our people – work that takes care of a real employment need that a company has. We are looking for expectations to be put on people that are realistic, given both the needs of the company and the skill level of the people that we are working with.

OBLN: The concept of “job coaching” is an interesting one. Can you give us an illustration of how that might work?

PAUL CROWTHER: Sure, let’s take one of the jobs that we secured at Fred Meyer as an example… Once the Store Manager and the hiring folks at the store had interviewed and hired the individual that we recommended for the job, one of our staff was at the store for the first five to ten days with the new employee – helping orient the individual to their job. In this case the job was retrieving shopping carts in the parking lot. We helped the individual to develop a routine where they checked certain cart storage areas in a sequence. We also coached them on how to interact appropriately with customers. Over time, we withdrew our support as the employee became more able to do the job on their own.

In all placements, as we start to see competence develop and a greater familiarity with the work, we fade into the background more and more. It may be that after a week, instead of being at the person’s side, our job coach might be over at the store entrance observing from a distance – fading our presence but not leaving the person hanging without any support. We keep data that lets us judge whether or not someone is mastering the job. As their competence develops, we may reduce our presence to only 15 minutes each day – or even just twice a week. On an ongoing basis we will routinely check in with the employee and their supervisor to make sure that things are going well. If there are any issues that arise, we will be there to help work them out.

OBLN: Are there any particular kinds of companies or jobs that you focus on?

PAUL CROWTHER: We look primarily at companies that can offer longer-term, more secure employment for our people. A lot of our resources go into developing each job opportunity and then providing the training to get somebody up and running. Because of this investment, we do our best to secure jobs that have a good prospect of lasting. Fred Meyer and Kaiser Permanente have both repeatedly hired people through us and are both good examples of this.

OBLN: I understand that you sometimes work with companies to actually create new positions that are tailored to the skills of your people.

PAUL CROWTHER: The term that is used is “job carving”. To be honest, we don’t very often just happen upon a job that is advertised in the paper and then have an individual that has the ability to do all of the duties outlined in the job description. More commonly, we will work with companies that show a willingness to look at some specific duties that they can pull out of other people’s jobs, or identify certain tasks that just aren’t getting done. We will then pull together a set of responsibilities and a schedule that will match what this employment need with a person that is able to do that work.

For instance, there is a large health care organization locally that employs one of our people for three hours every Friday. Each Friday this company mails out four or five hundred packets of information to recruiters – packets that contain all of their current job openings. All of those envelopes need to be labeled, stuffed and sealed. Prior to hiring our person, the HR department used to scramble every Friday afternoon to pull three or four of their (fairly highly-paid) staff to sit around and stuff envelopes for an hour. Hiring our person has taken away the weekly scramble and the weekly waste of resources. She does a great job and they get their work done in a cost-effective manner. It works out well for all of us.

OBLN: Would I be correct in assuming that many of the jobs created in this way are part-time?

PAUL CROWTHER: Part-time work works well for many of our folks. Because they already receive some income and health benefits through public support, they don’t necessarily have a financial need for full-time employment. The jobs that we typically secure for people tend to be 8 to 20 hours/week at minimum wage or slightly higher. Our average person works about 12 hours a week and several have more than one part-time job.

Incidentally, some of our people also do a little volunteer work. Like any body else, they are willing to volunteer for an organization that they care about. Every day a crew of our people helps out the American Red Cross with the assembly of the blood bags for their large blood drives.

OBLN: As you have described it, OESCo and other supported employment programs offer employers a customized way to tap into the talents of workers with developmental disabilities. As you see them, what are the key selling points that would entice employers to consider a supported employment placement?

PAUL CROWTHER: In its job matching procedures, OESCo focuses on company resource priorities to offer a tailored match between job and employee as a solution to an operational problem which the employer is experiencing:

• We have willing workers with great supports to achieve the maximum "contribution" possible to the employer's "bottom line."

• Supported Employees offer minimal tardiness and absenteeism, very flexible schedules (hours, days) which allow employers to tailor the hire to meet special and particular resource needs.

• OESCo offers individualized supports to both the new employee and to coworkers to ensure a successful and lasting hire. These supports are free and available at all times.

• Supported Employees have better retention rates than employees without disabilities. Good retention means reduced recruitment, hiring, and training costs, overall, for the employer.

When a business hires a Supported Employee, the result, more often than not, is an employee who shows up and brings his or her very best to work every day!

The Oregon Business Leadership Network is pleased to announce that it will be holding a special Employer Forum on August 22, 2006 from 7:45 AM to 11:15 AM . Included in the program will be an informative Power Workshop conducted by the NWADA & IT Center. The POWER WORKSHOP will be an educational overview of disability etiquette, job accommodation issues, and assistive technology. The OBLN Employer Forum will include an employer panel where companies from various business sectors will share their successes in including employees with disabilities in their workforces.

OBLN forums and POWER WORKSHOPS are specially designed for employers seeking to enhance their workforce diversity by hiring or retaining more people with disabilities and to be welcoming for customers with disabilities. Small business owners, corporate hiring managers, recruiters, diversity staff, and customer service staff have given the Power Workshop high marks at many Oregon locations. By attending, you will improve your knowledge and be better prepared to tap into the talents and customer business of people with disabilities.

Join us on August 22!

Walgreens, the nation's largest drugstore chain, has launched an innovative initiative to hire people with disabilities at its new distribution center in Anderson, S.C. and is recruiting through a new, specially-designed Web site. Their goal is to have at least one-third of the workforce consist of employees with a variety of disabilities.

Recruiting is being done through an innovatively-designed website that incorporates audio messages, photos, video and a large-print text option to depict jobs and work life at Anderson. The site also is designed to be accessible to blind and low vision individuals who use screen reader technology. Under the jobs section, videos show employees performing various jobs, and the text describes what the workers are doing. Prospective employees unsure if they can perform the essential job functions can take a self-quiz to get an idea of the tasks involved.

For potential employees considering relocating to Anderson, the site also has information about Walgreens partnership with 13 local disability agencies. Knowing the difficult challenges faced by people with disabilities who want to work, Walgreens designed the Web site to address concerns such as transportation, housing and the impact of gainful employment on Medicaid, SSI or SSDI benefits.

The “cube” is now the predominant work environment for modern office workers. As a work environment, it has a unique set of characteristics – several of which can actually cause problems for employees with certain kinds of disabilities. In this article, The Job Accommodation Network has outlined some of the difficulties that some people with disabilities might encounter with “cube” environments – and offers suggestions on how to address these issues and help maintain a productive environment.

Now available in our store!!

Flying in the face of all-too-common misinformation and attitudinal barriers that prevent people with disabilities from fair opportunities in the job market, this little video is a refreshing and convincing portrait of many real individuals, with a wide range of disabilities, who are productive and enthusiastic participants in the workforce. It presents a fast-paced series of portraits and interviews with dozens of people with disabilities who describe how they found their paths to successful careers, how they have worked with their employers to meet any accommodation needs, and why they love their jobs.

This video accomplishes an amazing amount in 9 minutes. Its compact length makes it ideal for HR Managers who only have a limited time to capture the attention of hiring managers, recruiters, or other key employees in their company.