[Nfbf-l] Building Capacity the Wrong Way

[Alan Dicey]

Building Capacity the Wrong Way


by Mark Wafer

Posted March 20, 2013


As i travel across the country speaking with corporations , especially HR 
specialists , i have began to see a pattern with some companies with Federal 
contracts who are legislated by the employment equity act to report certain 
criteria to the federal gov't, one being the number of employees with 
disabilities.

This is pretty simple. Hire PWD's in meaningful and competitively paid 
positions and report this to the Feds...but...there's a wrong way and some 
companies are guilty of this.


The chronic unemployment rate for PWD's is an economic problem, i think 
everyone gets that by now so the only way to solve this is to get PWD's off 
of benefits and create new taxpayers but here is what i have discovered from 
some corporations.


Surveys are completed with current employees to determine a base line of how 
many employees have a disability. The survey has the employees name on it.

Of course after the survey is returned, the corporations submission to the 
Federal Gov't is inadequate so they do the survey again, this time 
anonymously and receive a higher number in return. Again the submission is 
inadequate so for the third year the survey has a different definition of 
disability and this time the corporation meets or exceeds the numbers 
expected by the federal gov't.


High fives all around..except not a single PWD was hired.


There is only one way to build capacity and benefit from employing PWD's..just 
do it.


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