Each year, the Disability Equality Index (DEI) helps capture best practices from top-scoring companies that receive the recognition Best Places to Work for Disability Inclusion™. These best practices enable a culture of inclusion that promotes increased self-identification, employees feeling truly welcomed to be their authentic selves, and innovation sparked by disability inclusion being built into participating companies’ products and services. Employment Practices, one of six categories in the DEI, covers the critical areas of Benefits, Recruitment, Employment, Education, Retention and Advancement, and Accommodations. This Disability Inclusion Employment Best Practices Report provides employer best practices and initiatives, showcasing the companies that are DEI top-scorers who are prioritizing key employment practices.
BENEFITS:
Connect and Support Employees and their Allies
When considering best practices for benefits, an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) being available for both full-time and part-time employees is a critical component for success. Further, offering both short-term disability and long-term disability coverage for full-time employees will ensure designation of a top-scoring company in this employment practice subcategory. All three are key strategies to both attract and retain talent with disabilities. Below are a variety of benefits best practices from top-scoring companies.
Anthem’s Employee Assistance Program
Anthem’s EAP offers six free confidential counseling sessions for an employee or their household members with personal issues like marital or family distress, grief counseling, substance abuse and mental illness. These services are open to the associate or members of their household, regardless of medical benefit enrollment.
Cargill’s Be Mindful Mental Health Awareness Program
Cargill’s EAP promotes a “Be Mindful” Mental Health Awareness Program, an initiative to skill employees to recognize mental distress in their colleagues and refer them to the EAP. A modified version of the program was rolled out to the Cargill dairy farm customer community using FarmAid as the referral source.
Cisco’s Financial Coaching
Cisco provides free access for 90 days to a certified money coach in the United States which helps to address financial pressures, budgeting and understanding income sources that may be due to loss of work due to a disability or chronic illness.
Comcast NBCUniversal’s Suite of Health Resources
Comcast NBCUniversal offers numerous programs to help employees manage their physical and emotional health, including Doctor on Demand, a program that offers virtual doctors’ visits; meQuilibrium for stress management; ComPsych EAP; YoFi, Sleepio and follow-up resources and referrals for disability engagement and special needs law.
DTE Energy’s Autism Health Coverage
DTE Energy was one of the first businesses in Michigan to provide health coverage for autism-related diagnosis and therapies. One executive worked closely on the initiative with the state of Michigan to have the benefits available to everyone, even those on state-regulated insurance plans and Medicaid patients.
RECRUITMENT:
Inclusive Talent Acquisition Practices
To be successful in sourcing and acquiring talent with disabilities, it is important to successfully prepare your recruiters and future employees. Companies participating in the DEI indicated that by working with talent sourcing partners and others—often people with disabilities—and taking the time to learn, they find better matches for the company and more meaningful job opportunities for candidates. Below are examples from DEI top-scoring companies in outreach and recruitment best practices.
3M’s Veteran Volunteers
3M’s Veteran Volunteers make the company more accessible in the community particularly knowing that job hunting can be isolating and frustrating for veterans. 3M’s Veteran Volunteers help to coach and mentor transitioning service members (about 15 to 20 per week) in weekly one-on-one conversations.
Accenture North America Recruiting Learning Call
Accenture is committed to disability inclusion and has created the North America Recruiting Learning Call to provide their recruiters with the information, tools, and resources necessary to confidently and enthusiastically identify, source, engage, and accommodate candidates with disabilities. Recruiters on the call also learned where and how to get help, interviewing techniques and alternative assessments.
Microsoft’s Recruitment Strategies and Job Seeker Website
Microsoft has a dedicated website for job seekers with disabilities to learn about Microsoft’s approach to hiring, accommodations, onboarding, community, and how to apply for open roles at Microsoft. They partner with multiple vendors to help them recruit people with disabilities.
UPS Transitional Learning Center
The UPS Transitional Learning Center (TLC) is a cooperative effort between UPS and the Coalition for Workforce Diversity (via Options Unlimited, Inc.) to allow people with disabilities – who are sourced through the Coalition – to experience UPS jobs through hands-on-training. Recognized as the 2016 “Large Employer of the Year” by the Association of People Supporting Employment First, UPS Worldport and its TLC are playing an important role in advancing innovative solutions for connecting people with disabilities to meaningful employment. The TLC offers a two-week, pre-employment training program that is staffed and operated by UPS training supervisors as well as Options Unlimited job coaches. The program uses both classroom training and a simulated work environment to teach participants about job responsibilities, safety procedures and soft skills. The program includes a full simulation of the Worldport package handling facility, providing participants with invaluable hands-on practice. Through the TLC, UPS has developed the “secret sauce” for sustainable success in hiring, retaining and supporting employees with disabilities. The recipe consists of four ingredients: culture, collaboration, curriculum and company ROI.
RETENTION & ADVANCEMENT:
Offer Professional Growth and Mentoring
In order to retain talent, many companies are turning inward to develop, reskill, retrain and/or mentor. For DEI top-scoring companies, they are developing talent and created customized programs focused on employees with disabilities.
Bank of America Retention and Advancement Practices
Bank of America has a Support Services Team that employs 300 people with cognitive and developmental disabilities. Their high retention rate is a product of Bank of America creating meaningful work in the IT environment in which employees can realize their full potential every day.
Bank of America’s Disability Advocacy Network (DAN) has grown by 70% over the last three years and now has more than 7,000 global members. DAN members educate the company on issues for those affected by disabilities by holding events focused on special needs planning, resources for children with learning disabilities, Alzheimer’s and eldercare, diabetes and disability etiquette and services available at the bank. Importantly, DAN supports employees with disabilities by connecting them to opportunities for professional growth and development, holding informational forums and providing opportunities for community involvement and advancement.
Booz Allen Hamilton Degreed Online Educational Platform
Booz Allen Hamilton uses Degreed, an online educational platform and one-stop-shop for employees interested in accessing leading educational content and acquiring relevant skills. Degreed is accessible to employees anywhere, anytime, on any device and allows employees to share their learning with colleagues, thereby building connections and thought leadership.
Chevron’s ENABLED Mentoring Program
Chevron’s ENABLED employee resource group offers a mentoring program that matches mentors to mentees twice a year. Any employee who is a member of an employee network is eligible to participate. Employees can identify as being part of the ENABLED network and may list a preference for an ENABLED network mentor.
EY Neurodiversity@Work Programs
EY’s “Neurodiversity@Work” expands opportunities for autistic candidates and employers. The program provides guidance on communicating effectively with autistic colleagues and sharing internal and community tools, resources and supports for EY families impacted by autism. EY also has 80 neurodiverse professionals working in five U.S. Centers and has held nearly a dozen Neurodiversity@Work and @Home events, including one in Manhattan where their global chairman shared his personal story. These events are expanding across the US in 2019-2020 and are helpful in retention and advancement.
Southwest Airlines’ Retention Strategies
At Southwest Airlines, two retention programs help boost retention of employees with disabilities. First, when an employee can no longer perform the essential functions of their job based on a disability, they are placed into the Career Transitions Program. As a result of this process, they can be reassigned to another position. Second, the learning function of Southwest Airlines, SWA University, offers personal and business development classes for employees to reskill.
ACCOMMODATIONS:
Help Employees Be Productive
A reasonable accommodation is a modification or adjustment to a job, the work environment or the way things are usually done during the hiring process. These modifications enable an individual with a disability to have an equal opportunity to not only get a job, but successfully perform their job tasks. DEI top-scoring companies are establishing policies and implementing programs to provide accommodations, or productivity tools, to help their employees access technology and information, in order to successfully perform their essential job functions. Examples from top-scoring companies are listed below.
Workplace Ergonomic Assessments at Cisco
Cisco provides ergonomic assessments in the workplace that provide adaptive technology and accommodation adjustments if needed.
Southwest Airlines White Glove Support
Southwest Airlines’ White Glove Support is a dedicated technology service for employees who are blind and low vision. It includes real-time technology assistance including a dedicated phone line that connects them directly to help desk support and informational support on software and applications. Additionally, employees now have a dedicated technology manager to call when needed. They also have access to the articles, which include troubleshooting workflows and solutions to minimize or eliminate downtime.
United Technologies Corporation (now Raytheon Technologies)
United Technologies Corporation (now Raytheon Technologies) contracts with Cornell University to use their just-in-time disability toolkit. This partnership delivers content on accommodations and other disability inclusion topics to managers of employees with disabilities and the internal HR community.
Tufts Health Plan Privacy Strategies
Tufts Health Plan employees who require an accommodation due to disability are referred to a third-party administrator to ensure that employees are not required to divulge health information to their managers. Interactive dialogue and decisions on accommodations are made with a team, including human resources, which works closely with management and the employee to discuss requirements and options.
U.S. Cellular Privacy Efforts
U.S. Cellular uses a confidential third-party service provider to collect and review medical information so that their associates are not forced to give their leaders any medical information.
Communication Access Education and Training
ZVRS and Purple Communications offer clients education and training on available technology solutions for communication access. Their mission is to lower the 70% unemployment and underemployment rate for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. They share recommended technology solutions that offer Deaf and Hard of Hearing individuals the ability to perform their responsibilities with success.
