James Emmett was born without a hand, but that certainly didn’t hold him back. An incredible support network of family and friends surrounded and treated him like everyone else. As a matter of fact, he was a high school star football player in his small hometown in Wisconsin. In his late teens, he started working in a sheltered workshop for people with disabilities. From that point forward, Emmett knew that was what he really wanted to do – give back and work.
Now, Emmett is a corporate disability consultant, works with Indiana Vocational Rehabilitation (also referred to as voc rehab) and with the Association of People Supporting EmploymentFirst (APSE). When he is not working, he keeps busy fathering 5 kids with his wife of 16 years.
During an interview last fall, Emmett discussed Vocational Rehabilitation Services (VRS), shared a few case studies on recruitment programs and dispelled common myths about hiring people with disabilities.
Nancy: Tell me a little about your education background and getting into the field.
James: When I was 18 I started working in a sheltered workshop for people with disabilities, just kind of supporting the workshop attendees by being a job coach. I decided that’s what I’d really like to do is give back and work. So I’ve been doing that ever since. This is my 25th year of working with people with disabilities unemployment issues.
I went to the University of Wisconsin, got my bachelor’s degree in psychology, then I came to Chicago and got my master’s degree in rehabilitation counseling. About 10 years ago I began working more on the business side of things, helping corporations develop strategies to hire people with disabilities. I realized the change wasn’t on the social service side or on the voc rehab side, it was the change that I could make with the private companies like the ones at the DirectEmployers conference.
My largest gig was working with Walgreens corporation. From 2004 to 2006 I was their National Disability Program Manager. I helped set up their national program and worked with a guy named Randy Lewis who is a celebrity now in the disability community. Walgreens has become the national standard in terms of recruiting people with disabilities. They’ve hired almost 1,000 people with disabilities in their distribution centers across the country – just an amazing company.
After that experience I started working with other companies like Best Buy, TIAA-CREF, Office Max, and many others to help them do more than just comply with regulations, but to figure out how to aggressively recruit people with disabilities.
Nancy: What are some of the myths out there that may have caused companies in the past to steer clear of people with disabilities?
James: A lot of people in the disability community would say that a lot of times it’s businesses who have stigmatized the disability community, but I kind of take a different view on that. I think that a lot of times the folks in the disability community have stigmatized businesses. For a long time, and I’m not blaming any one individual or set of individuals, but a whole system in vocational rehab has gone to businesses and done what we call the beg, place and pray model – which is more like approaching the business world from a charity standpoint. The business world thinks hiring people with disabilities is charity because that’s how we present it to them from the very beginning. So there’s a new school of thought that talks about the return on investment and how hiring people with disabilities has a positive impact on your bottom line. And that’s really what’s changing a lot of this and driving a lot of the change like Walgreens, like Lowe’s Corporation, like some of the great companies out there, that this isn’t just the nice thing to do, this is absolutely the bottom line right thing to do in terms of saving money, cutting cost and creating new revenue.
Nancy: What are some things that can greatly benefit a company from recognizing and embracing people with disabilities?
James: One of the things I’ve heard from the Lowe’s Corporation, who has been one of the leaders in aggressively recruiting people with disabilities, is that they have learned through recruiting people with disabilities that if you individualize your training, sometimes you help people overcome a barrier too. One of the things the disability community brings to a business culture is more of the attitude of overcoming barriers, that we’re not going to stop with one or two lack of successes, we’re going to keep moving, keep pushing, keep striving. I think that what research and practice is showing is that for companies that aggressively hire people with disabilities, they’re seeing their turnover go down and their morale go up. And that’s not just in their folks with disabilities they hire but, the general workforce sees what other individuals with disabilities are doing in terms of overcoming barriers and it becomes a part of the culture and a part of the diversity for that company.
Nancy: For those who don’t know, can you explain what voc rehab is and what your role is there?
James: The state federal vocational rehab program, in each of the 50 states, there is a vocational rehab unit that is under the Rehab Services Administration that’s guided by the Rehab Act of 1973 and the primary focus of vocational rehabilitation in each state is to help people with disabilities find jobs. Every state’s vocational rehab unit looks a little different, rests under different types of departments within a state, but in every state, an individual with disabilities should have access to go into their local vocational rehab office, meet with a counselor and develop an employment plan. Part of that plan is finding the resources for the support you need to get that job and to keep that job. So the federal voc rehab is designed to help people with disabilities across the country, and is the primary funder of job placement services for people with disabilities. Again, it’s different in every state, one of the challenges that companies have is to set up a national program, you kind of have to do it state by state right now, but it’s definitely a great resource for people with disabilities to receive help on their job path.
Nancy: So we have these people who are very skilled and they really have the desire to work, and we have these companies that want to hire these people, how do these people come together? How can we get these people together?
James: I think it’s education and organizations like DirectEmployers. I really believe working with the team at DirectEmployers. Your mission is really to drive change as a group. So we’ve seen the Walgreens of the world, we’ve seen Best Buy, Office Max and Lowe’s and some other companies really begin to aggressively develop strategies to recruit people with disabilities. But I think change is going to be driven by when the 200 companies at your conference begin look at those strategies as a group. The workers with disabilities are out there. It’s about developing strategies within your company to outreach, to recruit, to go to the disability community, and then develop those modifications within the systems going along the path. Every company that’s taken that journey in developing systems, to better recruit people with disabilities has seen dramatic positive benefit both on the cost side and on the diversity side.
A special thanks to James for participating in this interview. Check out his advice for job seekers with a disability:
Advice For Job Seekers With Disabilities – It’s All About Your Top Skills from DirectEmployers Association.
