Hiring Those w Differing Abilities Is Good Business

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right now

there are 10

million

unfilled jobs

in the united states

we are in the midst of a growing labor

shortage

employers have gone from saying that

they cannot find enough good workers

to bemoaning they just cannot find any

workers

and to make matters worse

we have witnessed mass resignations on a

scale not seen before

call it the big quit or the great

resignation

more than 8 million people quit their

jobs in august and september alone

while that’s going on

we have a

population looking for work that cannot

find work

people with a disability

though i prefer the term differing

ability

face an unemployment rate

double the general population

and that

only begins to tell the story

according to the bureau of labor

statistics

fewer than one in five

people

with a disability are employed

this situation is awful

because so many people

want to work and yet are denied

employment

but i do not want you to focus on the

tragedy of people denied the right to

work

i want you to see

that part of the solution to our labor

crisis is right in front of us

it means hiring people with a differing

ability

and what i want you to know is that

hiring people with a differing ability

is not

altruism

it is good business

and those businesses that hire people

with a different ability find themselves

at a competitive advantage

and that advantage will only grow

as the labor shortage worsens

so why is it good business to hire

people with different abilities let me

give you four basic reasons

one

it enables employers to fill jobs that

would otherwise remain vacant

two

it improves productivity

three

it improves retention

an increasingly important concern at the

time of the big quit

and four

it helps recruit new employees

let me show you some examples

i’m going to start

with the business i run

together with my son john whom you will

meet later i lead a business called

john’s crazy socks

we have a social enterprise with a

mission to spread happiness

as the name suggests

we sell socks

and we sell them online

now anyone who sells online has to

fulfill orders you pick them pack them

and ship them out

many outsource this function we do our

own fulfillment

we’re located on long island outside new

york city

and the labor shortage here is severe

hear from other businesses that they

cannot find enough workers to keep up

with demand

newsday long island’s largest newspaper

ran an investigatory article

on how employers couldn’t find enough

workers for the holiday seasons

but guess what

when we needed to add people we had no

trouble filling every job

in fact we had a surplus of candidates

what was our magic formula

more than half our colleagues have a

differing ability

because we tap into that labor pool of

people with differing abilities

and therefore we have no trouble filling

our openings

i want to be clear

hiring people with differing abilities

does not mean paying less than you would

pay other workers

our starting wage is 15 dollars per hour

and it does not mean settling for less

in our warehouse every one of our

pickers we call them sock wranglers

has passed a test to earn his or her job

that’s part of the dignity we offer our

colleagues know they earned their jobs

there’s no charity

every day they work hard and they

produce they help us fulfill our promise

of same-day delivery

okay you say that’s nice but what about

other businesses

so i can tell you about rising tide car

wash in florida or ventures atl in

georgia or spectrum design here in new

york

growing businesses that have no trouble

filling every opening because they hire

people with differing abilities

you say but those are small businesses

hiring unskilled or low-skilled workers

you want to know about big businesses

hiring people with more advanced skills

okay

well you may have heard of a software

company based in redmond washington that

happens to be called microsoft

they are in fierce competition to hire

programmers and other people with

great technical skills

as they compete for workers they looked

out and said how come we’re not hiring

people with differing abilities

particularly people with autism many of

whom have a superior technical skill

microsoft learned that the problem was

many could not get past the traditional

job interview

maybe the candidate would not look you

in the eye or avoided handshakes

microsoft realized this was their

problem not the problem of the job

seeker

so microsoft changed their hiring

process and now hires many people with

differing abilities

that gives microsoft a competitive

advantage that’s good business

let’s consider another business that

hires highly skilled employees

ibm

they also needed to hire more people

with technical skills

they wanted to tap into

that labor pool of people with differing

abilities so they started a

neurodiversity program

well that initiative has worked so well

that ibm now operates their

neurodiversity program in 11 different

countries

yes you can fill jobs all across the

labor market

by tapping into people with differing

abilities

let’s talk productivity

at john’s crazy socks we saw a sudden

surge in orders in late 2017

and we turned to temp agencies and

general laborers to meet our hiring

needs

it was a mistake

and we soon had a mess on our hands

when we expanded our hiring of people

with differing abilities we saw an

immediate jump in productivity

why

because our new hires

were reliable

they were focused they wanted to be on

the job they came to the job with great

enthusiasm

and commitment

and that made everything better

we are not alone

take the technology firm ultranauts

they provide software and data quality

engineering to technology firms

more than three-quarters of their

employees have a differing ability the

majority have autism

ultranauts has been a rousing success

growing at a pace of 50 percent a year

and when their work is benchmarked

against other firms

they are documented to high to provide

higher quality work

the organization disability in has

created the neurodiversity at work

roundtable used to be called the autism

at work roundtable and it’s made up of

companies like spectrum design and hours

as well as large businesses like ibm

microsoft warner brothers and dell

that promote hiring people with autism

and share best practices

jp morgan came in to evaluate the

performance of people hired through

these initiatives

they found that the employees with

autism worked 48 faster and were 92 more

productive than neurotypical employees

so yes

hiring people with differing abilities

means improving productivity

and then there’s retention

as i told you with john’s crazy socks we

run a warehouse operation

well according to the bureau of labor

statistics warehouses have among the top

four turnover rates among all industries

in the united states

yet we have almost no turnover

people come and stay

while other firms in the field struggle

to find workers and struggle to keep

them because we hire people with

differing abilities we have a steady and

stable workforce

let’s go to the other end of the hiring

spectrum

let’s look at a large firm ey they used

to be called ernst young

they have 250 000 employees worldwide

and they experience a 20

annual turnover rate

imagine that to stay even they need to

hire 50 000 new people a year

but let’s take a visit to their office

in dublin ireland where they set up a

program with trinity college to hire

people with autism

the results

once they added with people people with

autism to their workforce

they saw their retention rates skyrocket

why

because the benefits of hiring people

with differing abilities does not only

accrue to those people with differing

abilities

everybody benefits morale is uh

productivity is up retention is up

and when morale is up

you have the fourth benefit of hiring

people with differing abilities you are

better able to recruit new employees

you have a workplace with more energy

more vitality more cohesiveness

and that makes your workplace more

attractive to new new workers

so who are these employees with

differing abilities

let me introduce you to dylan raphael

who was hired by ibm to do quality

testing

once hired ibm dispatched him to a

client worksite

dylan was hyper focused on the testing

process

he hated seeing people wasting their

time

he saw ways that could improve the

process efficient paths that no one had

seen before

dylan began creating new tools doing the

quality testing that dramatically

improve productivity

as a result dylan has been promoted

multiple times has earned patents and

awards

all because

he took a different point of view

and it all happened because ibm was

willing to hire dylan and other people

with differing abilities

let me tell you about matthew brennan

who was hired as a quality analyst at

comcast

just like dylan

matthew started unearthing news stories

the data was telling that nobody else

saw

within two years

he’s received multiple promotions and

earned an award as employee of the year

do you think comcast is glad they added

matthew brennan

and now i want to introduce you to my

partner and youngest son john

cronin john you have down syndrome right

i do

and what do you say about down syndrome

i have done this room

donate firm never hurt me back no it

does not so john let’s share some of the

story leading to your successful

business we’ll go back to the beginning

in the fall of 2016.

and where were you

i was in

huddington high school i could be my

last of school

like everyone else john was trying to

figure out what would he do when he was

done with school and what were you

looking at

i look at a job program in school i

don’t have to i don’t like unfortunately

that is the reality for so many people

with a different ability

like john they may be ready willing and

able to work

but there is not much available for them

but john here you’re a natural

entrepreneur yes i am if you could not

find a job would you say i said

i i don’t create one i want to make one

and would you tell me i said

i want to go into business with my dad

and nice father’s daughter together

and whose idea was it to sell socks this

my this is my idea i to a website look

like i got my name of course you came up

with the name that’s why it’s named

after you right right right so

um and when did we open john’s crazy

socks we will be on friday

december 9th

2016 which makes us five years old what

are some of the things you do in the

business uh i do uh videos

i design socks

and i i hope picking orders

and grabbing

uh

you do an awful lot

and so let’s talk about some of what

john has accomplished

we’ve created 31 jobs and 22 of those

are held by people with different

abilities and how many different socks

do we have we have

a say

500 jericho socks that makes john the

owner of the world’s largest sock store

a few other notes

shipped over 360 000 packages to 88

different countries and our giving back

program has raised over 450 000 for our

charity partners

john here has testified twice before the

u.s congress spoken at the united

nations and won the ey entrepreneur of

the year

pretty good john

i’m really happy right so let’s bring

this home to our basic premise

what business would not want

dylan matthew and john in their employ

and there are thousands of people like

them just waiting for a chance

waiting for the chance to show what they

can do waiting to demonstrate how hiring

people with differing abilities will

lead to better productivity better

retention better morale and will help

you recruit

so let’s hire people with differing

abilities

and when you go to hire i want you to

think of people like dylan and matthew

and john

think of michael chelsea massoum diego

and so many other people who work with

us and do a tremendous job

yes

you should hire people with differing

abilities

don’t do it simply because it makes you

feel good

which it will

and don’t do it

because it is the right thing to do

which it is

do it because it is good business

when hiring focus on what people can do

not what they cannot do

in the end

do not be blinded by a person’s

limitations

be awed

by their possibilities

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