Hiring Those w Differing Abilities Is Good Business
[Music]
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
[Music]
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