Effective Practices

Many employers, governments and others have developed innovative initiatives to address the employment needs of people with disabilities. A review of these effective practices reveals key themes that can be useful in developing future initiatives.

A strong role for employers

Boeing Canada
Boeing has been hiring members of the deaf community since shortly after its composite manufacturing plant opened in Winnipeg in 1971, and today employs 25 deaf workers who are making a significant and positive impact on Boeing's corporate culture.

In 1999, the company created a Deaf Issues Committee to improve communication among deaf and hearing people and raise awareness among Winnipeg Division employees at all levels in the company about the needs of deaf and hard-of-hearing employees. Boeing Winnipeg also cooperates with other agencies to promote the hiring of persons with disabilities.

"The key to a company's competitive advantage is its people," says Boeing Canada Technology President Jim Sawyer. "I believe that a diverse workforce gives us the depth, the skills, the knowledge and the advantage needed to excel in a global community. Our deaf employees have added to the richness of our diversity for many years."

Royal Bank Financial Group
An 'Employees with Disabilities Advisory Council' was first conceived by the Royal Bank Financial Group in recognition of the fact that employees could provide the greatest expertise and first-hand experience in strengthening the company's ability to employ and provide services to persons with disabilities.

The Council has researched how the Royal Bank Financial Group could become an employer of choice for people with disabilities, and a number of their recommendations already have been implemented. For example, to help overcome the myth that workplace accommodation for people with disabilities is costly, the company established the 'I Make it Barrier Free' program. This program authorizes managers and employees to spend up to $3,000 per person to conduct workplace assessments and purchase whatever is needed to accommodate an employee's disability.

The Council also looked at ways of assisting the Royal Bank Financial Group to strengthen its ability to provide services to customers with disabilities. "We've been held up by other financial institutions as having developed a best practice," reports Christine Suski, Manager of Strategic Initiatives. "Several other Canadian financial institutions and businesses have followed our lead and established their own councils."

Palliser and its partners
Palliser, a Winnipeg-based international furniture manufacturer, has demonstrated a longstanding commitment to hiring individuals with developmental disabilities and to working in partnership with local non-profit employment agencies, Work and Social Opportunities and more recently, Sturgeon Creek Enterprises LifeWorks.

Currently, there are seventy-seven participants from Work and Social Opportunities' Vocational Services and Employment Services Programs working in six Palliser divisions in Winnipeg, and LifeWorks provides employees with developmental disabilities with job coaching, modification of the work environment, work training, and employment development, placement and follow up supports and services.

Ron Koslowsky, Palliser's Director of Human Resources, says, "Palliser recognized that it is a challenge for disabled people to get into the workforce but through the expertise of organizations like Work and Social Opportunities and LifeWorks, we have been able to see a number of these people become a vibrant and valued part of Palliser's community."

Building public-private partnerships

Team Work Cooperative
Established in 1997, Team Work Cooperative Ltd. is a collective of 20 shareholder organizations, such as the Nova Scotia Community College and the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, working together to ensure persons with disabilities have full access to the Nova Scotia labour market. It achieves this goal by facilitating cooperation and collaboration between employment service providers that work with persons with disabilities. Team Work's cooperative structure allows members to profit from others' knowledge of available programs and by pooling resources, including staff, office space, equipment and knowledge. Both provincial and federal governments support Team Work Cooperative's work.

Team Work is also taking action to improve the portability of supports for people with disabilities making the transition to work. Executive Director Veronica McNeil says, "Employers were initially attracted because the program provided them with an efficient way of meeting their own employment equity policies. We're finding that the experience can be so positive that employers start looking to hire people with disabilities through their regular employment stream. They come to see that employment barriers were in their own minds."

Skills Training Partnership
The Canadian Council on Rehabilitation and Work developed the Skills Training Partnership in 1991. It is based on partnerships among community, government and business sectors and focuses on providing training to people facing barriers to employment and making sure that employers can find individuals with disabilities who have the required skills or experience.

Training is customized to meet the specific needs of the individual and the employer. Employer partners commit themselves by signing a contract before hiring project graduates into permanent positions. The managing agency works to make sure appropriate job accommodation is made and stays involved during the transition from training to employment, delivering expert assistance to help the employer and the worker adapt to their new situation.

Senior executives act as champions for the partnership and send strong messages to all employees. Evelyn Gold, national Skills Training Partnership coordinator, says, "It's important that all parties understand that the program takes a holistic approach to employment and that it demands time and resources. But the bottom line is that 85 per cent of our program graduates are retained by their host employers."

Comité d'adaptation de la main-d'œuvre (CAMO)
CAMO is a unique partnership made up of Quebec employers, the labour movement, governments, service providers and the disability community. It empowers the disability community through a decision-making partnership with the labour market community. CAMO focuses on sharing knowledge and improving awareness among employers and service providers about the needs of persons with disabilities.

This partnership applies a disability lens to employment issues by ensuring that employment related initiatives in all sectors respect the specific needs of persons with disabilities. The partnership also promotes a strong regional and local role in the implementation of the Politique active du marché du travail (Active Labour Market Policy) in a way that is inclusive of persons with disabilities, proactive and far-reaching. CAMO pursues long-term solutions such as training, improved access and awareness.

Ensuring equal access to employment opportunities

Nunavut Future of Work Conference
The Future of Work conference, held in Iqaluit in 1998, built the principle of full inclusion of persons with disabilities into its design and its content. The conference was not about disability, but by being fully accessible, and providing a range of disability supports, it demonstrated that people with disabilities could be full participants in the conference — and the workplace. For example, in focusing on opportunities for a universally accessible communication network, the conference provided a showcase for people to develop awareness of how technology can be used to serve everyone.

The leaders of Nunavut were able to send a clear message to people in communities that all people are valued and will have opportunities to contribute to the future of Nunavut.

New Brunswick's Equal Employment Opportunities Program
The Equal Employment Opportunities program was established in 1982, to provide Aboriginal persons, persons with disabilities and visible minority persons with equal access to employment, training and advancement opportunities in the New Brunswick Public Service.

The Equal Employment Opportunities program's primary objective is to provide a more balanced representation of qualified target group persons in the Civil Service. This goal is achieved by placing individuals into term positions of up to two years, twenty-week job experience opportunities or 10-week student summer employment. All three components of the program are designed to provide career-related work experience.

Visible Abilities Registry
The New Brunswick Department of Training and Employment Development operates the Visible Abilities Registry, an electronic registry of individuals with disabilities who are trained and ready to work. The program serves as a direct employment screening and referral service for employers, and once a prospective worker and employer are matched, an on-the-job training subsidy can be negotiated.

While the program began with a focus on private sector jobs, it has since been expanded to cover recruitment for federal government jobs under an agreement with the federal government.

The department's Employment Services for Persons with Disabilities program is also working with Human Resources Development Canada and the Canadian National Institute for the Blind to establish a specialized Client Resource Centre to assist persons with visual and learning disabilities to conduct job searches and get access to related services.

Conference Board of Canada Partnership Project
In 1999, the Conference Board of Canada, in partnership with the Ontario Ministry of Citizenship, Culture and Recreation, launched a project to gain an understanding of the policies, practices and needs of employers in the recruitment and retention of a diverse workforce. While diversity overall is the project theme, there is a strong emphasis focusing on employers' needs vis-à-vis recruiting and retaining people with disabilities.

This two-year multi-phased project will provide useful information and learning resources to assist employers and employment-related disability organizations to increase employment opportunities for persons with disabilities.

Effective practices by and for Aboriginal people

Heightening Awareness Leading to Opportunity (HALO) Project
This project, sponsored by the British Columbia Aboriginal Network on Disability Society, provides pre-employment, pre-vocational and work-related programs and services to Aboriginal persons with disabilities in three pilot sites, both rural and urban. Partners include three tribal councils and three community colleges, which are supported by the federal government.

The HALO project has hired Aboriginal people with disabilities to manage the program, and serve as mentors and role models. The partnerships help to build capacity on disability issues at the Aboriginal community level, while also ensuring the appropriate cultural environments for learning, support, and eventual employment.

Aboriginal Development Network Enhancement Recruitment Business
A business started by a Métis entrepreneur (who has a disability), operating in Alberta has filled an identified gap by Métis people, by building intervention capacity for Aboriginal persons living with a disability. The Aboriginal Development Network Enhancement Recruitment Business designs and develops enhancements for program and services specifically supporting Aboriginal persons with disabilities. Programming builds self-awareness through Aboriginal spiritual development and adds appropriate Aboriginal content.

The Aboriginal Development Network Enhancement Recruitment Business will also take existing programs or services already operating and assess if they are sensitive and accessible for Aboriginal persons with disabilities. In addition to the program development work, it provides one-on-one peer counselling and advocacy for individuals and organizations serving Aboriginal persons with disabilities.

Aboriginal People with Disabilities Program
The Aboriginal Disabled Self Help Group was founded in August 1996, "to advocate, support, and strive for quality services to be provided for Aboriginal persons with disabilities in the city of Winnipeg." Working in partnership with the Centre for Aboriginal Human Resources Development, and with funding from Human Resources Development Canada, the group has developed a culturally appropriate employment counselling/placement program to serve the needs of Aboriginal people with disabilities. By working together, the two organizations are able to support Aboriginal persons with disabilities to participate fully as members of the Aboriginal community. Not only do they make connections with each other, with prospective employers and training opportunities, and other disability organizations, they also continue to encourage more Aboriginal-specific services for Aboriginal persons with disabilities.

Grand River Employment and Training and Special Services for Special People Partnership
Grand River Employment and Training is a community agency that was created after Aboriginal communities and Human Resources Development Canada came together to develop Aboriginal-specific training and employment programs. Since its inception in 1993, the agency has worked to provide employment for the Onkwehon:we of the Grand River Territory.

Grand River Employment and Training delivers employment and training programs to Six Nations community members both on and off reserve, and also recognizes and supports the strong cultural and traditional beliefs of the community, which are reflected in its programs and services. It recognized that the development of programming for Aboriginal people with a disability would be a unique opportunity for culturally appropriate programming for the integration of all community members into the labour market. The agency has developed and integrated a labour market program specifically for the developmentally challenged adults of the community through a relationship with the Special Services for Special People program, which has been in existence since 1980. The ultimate goal of the partnership is to provide a holistic and supportive environment that empowers and supports developmentally challenged individuals in their efforts to contribute and participate in daily and community life.

The Grand River Employment and Training — Special Services for Special People partnership is a prime example of the effectiveness of programming for Aboriginal people with disabilities, which has been developed and delivered to the community by Aboriginal people.

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