Doing What is Right: Giving People With Disabilities the Chance to Prove Themselves in the Workplace

In Salem, First Impressions Last, LLC has earned a well-deserved reputation as a small janitorial business that that doesn’t hesitate to hire people with disabilities.

“We are very proud at First Impressions Last, LLC to have been a 2003 recipient of a government grant for our commitment to putting Americans with Disabilities back into the work force. These employees continue to be proud, self-reliant and productive members of society. Whether they need specialized training, equipment, or just a management that cares, we make every effort to provide our staff with everything they need in order to provide you with quality service.” This statement is prominently featured in the “Our Company” page of First Impressions Last, LLC and its sister company ABC Window Cleaners.

We were anxious to learn what makes First Impressions Last, LLC stand out from other small businesses – why it is that they have been so successful at hiring and retaining employees with disabilities. To answer this question, we recently arranged an interview with the company’s owner, Todd Londin. 

OBLN: Todd, we’ve learned that your company has a strong history in employing people with disabilities. Can you give us a little background on this?

Todd Londin: My father had a massive stroke when I was thirteen years old. He was totally paralyzed on the right hand side. So disability has been a part of my personal life since then. My father was still very able – he could even still drive, but I knew that people looked at my father very differently and treated him differently because he had an obvious disability.

Well, when I started this business, I needed help. I needed employees. I quickly learned that a lot of the job seekers that are out there don’t want to clean restrooms. They don’t want to clean buildings. They want to do something more grandiose. My first employee was a senior citizen who had pretty severe arthritis that made it very difficult for him to walk. He was my first employee and my first employee with a disability. After all these years, he is still with me – although on a part-time basis now.

After hiring him, I started working with AARP to recruit other seniors and with Dominick Spedale from Employment Opportunities Inc. who helps people with disabilities find jobs.

I look it as just another avenue to find quality employees. Most of the twenty-seven people who work for me now, in some way, have some kind of a disability.

OBLN: What makes employing people with disabilities different than employing anyone else?

Todd Londin: Many people with disabilities have very unique capabilities that can really help your business. For example the gentleman that I mentioned earlier, who has difficulty walking, has been here for five years now. He now works part-time. He’s a guy who is here all the time. He keeps our place spotlessly clean. He takes care of my shop. He makes sure everything is locked up tight. He looks after me and my company almost as much as I do.

In every group of people that you work with, there are people who will stay with you forever and those that will last only a few months. I know when I hire someone with a disability that they may only last a few months as an employee, but that is no different than hiring someone with normal physical capabilities – they also may or may not work out in the long term.

All people want is a chance. This isn’t a handout, it’s a “hand up”. It’s a chance. We are saying, “Here is a job. Now that you have this job, it’s up to you to make it work. It is not going to be my fault if you lose it because you don’t show up to work on time.”

OBLN: When asked about employing people with disabilities, “accommodations” seems to be an issue that many companies are concerned about. You have hired people with a wide range of disabilities. What has your experience been?

Todd Londin: I’m dyslexic. Apparently that’s considered a disability. I have a woman that works for me who is just as dyslexic as me. It’s funny because when we write something we can both understand what we wrote while everybody else says “What is that?” She is a supervisor here. When she writes something down and the letters are kind of weird to everyone else, I just translate it for them!

My employees make accommodations for each other all the time. For example, for my employee who can’t write, the other crew members fill out his forms for him. Everybody works together here and that is part of what makes us a little bit of a success. I have got my employees to understand that everybody needs a chance. They see it in the overall business structure that I’ve created. Everybody needs a chance.

OBLN: Can you tell us about some of the other people with disabilities that work for you?

Todd Londin: We’ve hired a deaf person… we hired a person who had experienced a severe brain trauma… we have an employee who had lost most of the fingers on one hand in an accident. This gentleman does everything I need him to do and he does it really well. He wanted to work but, because of his hand, no one else would give him a chance to. He was so keen to work and do a good job that, within a week of starting the job, I could confidently send him out to jobs on his own without any supervision.

I have another employee who is illiterate. He can’t read. For him to get a job was incredibly hard, because other employers thought he needed to be able to read. Well, if his fellow employees or his crew members read things to him, he is fully capable. He has no other limitations, he just can’t read. Other employers passed him by, but I have a great worker. He comes to work any time we need him. If someone else is sick, I just have to call him and he’ll be here to help out.

We just hired a gentleman who had a minor stroke about a year and a half ago. He is married with kids and just wants to get back to work. He is still weak from the stroke. I hired him and paired him with another employee to be joint team supervisors of a crew. They are working well together to supervise and motivate their team.

OBLN: I’m hearing you say that the way you run your company is to both make “right decisions” as a businessperson and “right decisions” as a person.

Todd Londin: If you were in my office right now, right across from me you’d see a sign at the top of my daily board that says “Do What Is Right”. I see that every day. I show it to my employees every day.

OBLN: Earlier you mentioned that Dominick Spedale from Employment Opportunities Inc. helps you recruit employees with disabilities. Can you tell us how that works?

Todd Londin: Dominick knows my business. He knows what kind of employees I need. He always has contact with a variety of job seekers. Sometimes he will come across someone who he thinks has the skills I need – and he will give me a call. Sometimes I will have an opening and I’ll call him and he’ll let me know if he has anyone to refer at that time.

The nice thing about working with Dominick is that there are often tax credits or other financial incentives that are available when you hire someone with a disability or someone through a welfare-to-work program. That can be a real bonus sometimes. Some of these programs pay their wages for the first month so you can give this person a work experience and to try them out. They can allow you to give someone a chance without taking as much of a risk yourself.

OBLN: Based on your experience, do you have any “words of wisdom” to share with other small businesses?

Todd Londin: People without disabilities, seem to be afraid of people with disabilities. I don’t know why that is. Business owners are no different.

Business owners have to change their way of thinking. They are afraid of all of the “rules” around hiring someone with a disability. The biggest stumbling block for most employers is that they think that if they hire someone with a disability, they are going to get a whole new set of problems to deal with. Actually, you don’t get any more problems than you already have. The only thing you might have to do is to make reasonable accommodations for them on the job. The only accommodation that was purchased was a special glove for the man who has the disfigured hand.

Business owners can be afraid of “Maybe it’s not going to work out.” Well it might not work out with that non-disabled college graduate with all the background experience either. Find the people that will work for you, whether or not they have a disability, and find a job that they can do for you within any limitations they have. If you are looking for good workers, you just can’t ignore that part of the workforce represented by people with disabilities.

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