6 Valuable Disability Recruiting and Hiring Resources

By Jessica Miller-Merrell

Companies have continued to struggle to recruit those with disabilities and are lost when it comes to whom they can reach out to when they are considering hiring someone with a disability. These workers are a talent pool that in my experience are some of the most productive. Putting them to work benefits you as well as them. Providing them a work opportunity at your company can be life changing. Resources exist for employers on hiring those with disabilities beyond the tax breaks. It’s more than just good business. It’s about providing hope, resources and opportunities for all members of your community. .

I’ve come up with the top six disability recruiting and hiring resources that will help jumpstart a business owners quest for knowledge on the topic. With these six resources you’ll be able to obtain information on how to recruit, hire, and retain a workforce of disabled workers.

Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) Employers are able to find out information on how to recruit, hire, and retain employees with disabilities. Job seekers with disabilities are also able to find information to develop their skills and find support they need to get a job. The ODEP puts out guides for employers that help boost their overall recruiting efforts when it comes to disabled candidates.

Visit their website to learn more about the resources available to companies who are struggling to find qualified candidates with disabilities.

Employer Assistance Referral Network (EARN)
The employer assistance referral network is a program designed and sponsored by ODEP that helps employers find qualified applicants with disabilities. You’re able to contact this agencies by visiting their website.

Internal Revenue Service
Looking for resources on how hiring candidates with disabilities will help your business financially? The Internal Revenue Service has set guidelines that give companies tax breaks and credits for maintaining a certain level of employees who are disabled. For a complete list of breaks visit their website.

Disability Employment 101
This is a resource made available from the U.S. Department of Education that gives employers a comprehensive analysis of hiring employees with disabilities that includes information about how to find qualified workers with disabilities as well as research behind how to integrate individuals with disabilities in the workforce.

Visit their website to download the copious amounts of information they have that helps employers.

State Governors’ Committees on Employment of People with Disabilities
Each state generally has a state governor’s committee who helps employers with specific resources that help them recruit and retain qualified individuals with disabilities. Visit the contact information on the Department of Labor’s website and find out how to contact your state-specific office.

Disability Employment Initiative
Our last piece of information on disability recruiting and hiring resources is the disability employment initiative which aims to improve education, training, and employement opportunities and outcomes for youth and adults who are unemployed, underemployed, and those who are receiving social security disability benefits. This is a joint effort between several different governmental entities. Visit their website and download their fact sheet as well as other official resources.

Make sure to also check out our other posts on TalentCircles that focuses on knowing the rules when it comes to hiring disabled workers and the rules and regulations you must follow to prevent being sued, etc.

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in social media. She’s is the Chief Blogger & Founder of Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter @jmillermerrell. 

4 Keys to Recruiting The Passive Job Seeker to Join Your Talent Community

By Jessica Miller-Merrell  

It’s simply no longer enough to publish and post your job posting to the masses or to tweet out that single job. Candidates have choices and by publishing a job posting for 30 days during which time you are hiring, you are limiting yourself to a community of active not passive candidates. You are also missing out reaching those passive candidates the remaining 435 days of the year when you don’t have an active job posting. 

Passive candidates are more likely those purple squirrels or productivity unicorns who careful dip their toes into the job search waters extremely careful of the job, company and role they select. They don’t publicly promote their interest in exploring their options. They keep their search extremely private.

These passive purple squirrels are extremely rare and its likely hard for you to identify them by simply viewing a job application, resume or LinkedIn profile alone.  This, in my mind is one of the most attractive reasons to building a talent community versus the old way of spray and pray recruiting.

We build a talent community to not just recruit those purple squirrels, but establish a brand and build a long-term relationship. Regardless of your role at an organization whether its senior leadership, hiring manager, HR or recruiter, turnover should be something you all own and be concerned with. Each of us is involved in one aspect or another of the employee life cycle. They are all intertwined in some capacity.

This talent community is one that is important as the global war for talent is becoming more competitive by the day. Engaging passive talent becomes more important as the competition and noise increases. It’s hard for good candidates to search among the cluttered and overwhelming job market today.

·      Relevant & Engaging Conversations. The focus is on them. Solving a solution to a problem with the future goal of having that purple squirrel apply and interview for a job opening at your company. (Great idea: create an online open house.

·      Relevant & Engaging Content. Great content starts with understand the needs of your target audience. What answers do you have at your disposal to the questions they seek. (Great idea: Offer a Silicon Valley Salary Negotiation Guide.)

·      Trust. A community where job seekers feel like they are getting access to the people, information and resources. Candidates regardless of their skill and experience are treated with respect and are valued. We live in the Yelp economy now. (Great idea: TalentCircles platform allows recruiters to leave extensive notes in the system regardless of which recruiter is engaging the candidate.)

·      Respect. Of a candidate’s time contribution and the potential resoures and information they bring. It can be a simple follow up and thank via email. (Great idea: simple workflow document or inforgraphic that provides the job seeker the hiring process and expectations.)

It’s the little things that really capture the attention of any job seeker but especially those passive purple squirrel ones. By focusing on going the extra mile now, you can really set yourself apart from the competition for your best and most qualified passive candidate and future employee. 

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in social media. She’s is the Chief Blogger & Founder of Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter @jmillermerrell.   

The Future of Your Business Begins and Ends with Your Human Capital Strategy

By Jessica Miller-Merrell  

Recruitment, development and retention. These are three most important aspects in how business is shaped, developed and executed and it starts with your supply and demand of your most precious business resource, talent and your employee.

Companies often refer to your employee population as human capital. According to Deliotte, the concept of human capital recognizes that not all labor is equal and that the quality of employees can be improved by investing in them. The education, experience and abilities of an employee have an economic value for employers and for the economy as a whole. 

I’ve said before that they (human capital) are your most important and largest business expense. Like any asset in business, investments must be made in order to retain the value and top productivity. If you don’t continually promote and engage with your investment they basically be come devalued (i.e. unengaged) over time becoming more harm then good to your company.

Recruitment, development, and retention are essential for you to grow or at minimum maintain your business. Competition for your human capital is growing at a staggering rate because the labor pool is shrinking while the demand is growing.

Recruitment. The initial touch point that a recruiter has with a potential candidate is in the recruitment phase. With recruitment a candidate is instantly able to gauge how a company conducts themselves and what type of work environment they can expect if they apply and get the job. A recruiter’s job is important because they set the tone for the entire process. 

Development. Once a candidate has become an employee it’s important that the company keeps investing and building up their employee. A company is only as successful as their most important investments, which in this case (and most cases) is the workforce that they employ. Setting up boundaries and mentor programs are easy and cost-effective ways to make sure your employees are constantly being developed and pushed to their full potential. It also helps in the areas of employee engagement and retention.

Retention. One of the greatest challenges a company faces is employee retention. Retention is directly tied to how an employee is developed. If your employees don’t feel like they’re growing within your company it’s likely they’ll move onto another company who takes employee development more seriously. Retention plays into several factors that ultimately come down to your company culture and how much your willing to invest in your company.

Having a strong recruitment strategy is the first step in the mix. Once you’re able to brand yourself accordingly a dominoes effect is set in motion. You hire the best, develop them to be better and invest in their future, which turns into higher retention rates. When companies invest in their employees their business is more successful. 

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in social media. She’s is the Chief Blogger & Founder of Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter @jmillermerrell.   

The Reality of Global Human Capital Demand’s Growth in 2020

By Jessica Miller-Merrell  

As it stands, organizations must begin engaging and establishing relationships with quality candidates now regardless of their location geographically especially when you read how the BLS estimates that the average employee tenure is 4.6 years in 2012 with a single company. Depending on where you have engaged employees within their lifespan of retention within an organization, it is imperative that you begin establishing an employment branding relationship with targeted talent pools and candidates communities.

When looking at the global competition for talent over the next 6-10 years, I was most surprised by some talent surpluses and shortages you might not have considered when building your global recruitment and even employment branding strategy.

·      Canada’s labor surplus of between 700,000 and 1.1 million people in 2020 will become a deficit of up to 2.3 million by 2030. 

·      China’s surplus of 55.2 million to 75.3 million workers in 2020 could reverse sharply, turning into a shortage of up to 24.5 million people by 2030. 

·      Germany will see a shortage of up to 2.4 million workers by 2020 and 10 million by 2030

The data you see above is from the UN’s Divisional Labor Database. Graphically represented below, it definitely provides food for thought as you leadership team discusses human capital topics like business expansion, the virtual workforce and how future competition for labor geographically will increase between now and 2020 or 2030.

Most companies are opting out of expanding to a remote workforce because they have decent enough talent pools available where they’re geographically located, but as you can tell these numbers are going to start shifting in the next five to ten years. It’s important to pay attention to the trends in the employment industry and begin being proactive with the results of these studies. Although these studies don’t show a shortage for US workers, it does show that the workforce will be cut in half.

The global risk for these shortages is estimated to be 10 trillion dollars. While most companies can’t offer long-term solutions right away it’s important to start doing a few things to prepare for them what might ultimately be a downfall in their industry if they’re not prepared for a loss of workers in the next five to ten years.

·      Work on changing policies that allow for telecommuting. Right now there isn’t much of a need (especially in the US) for telecommuting except for the added workplace perk. Start the conversation about working towards a virtual workplace division. There are several perks implementing a system – one of them is being ready for a mass shortage of workers.

·      Start developing your employer brand. If you haven’t created a strong employer brand (and by strong I’m talking about the Southwest Airlines of the world) it’s important to put a greater focus on employer branding. Shortages aside, this will help you recruit and attract better talent amongst several other benefits.

·      Build a pipeline of eligible workers. Using a talent community, like TalentCircles, companies will be able to have their own reserve of employees who are already invested into their brand and want to work for the company. Use these communities to your advantage when your search has come up empty for candidates.

It’s going to happen. There will be a mass shortage of workers in the coming years and being prepared for it will be smart. I don’t suggest create a “end of the world” strategy, but be smart about how you’re marketing and attracting candidates. Don’t think of it as one job at a time, but more of a continuous relationship. Learn more about global labor supply by viewing the infographic below or clicking this link.

 

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in social media. She’s is the Chief Blogger & Founder of Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter @jmillermerrell.  

Diversity series: Conversation with Joanna Clark of Wells Fargo: From diversity to inclusiveness

By Marylene Delbourg-Delphis

First and foremost, congratulations to Joanna Clark of Wells Fargo for joining the prestigious gay and lesbian Center Board! The Center is a shortcut for the San Diego LGBT Community Center, an organization started in 1971 in a closet (literally) when Jess Jessop opened a help line to assist the LGBT community. The "Center" was officially incorporated as a 501c3 in 1973, the year when the American Psychiatric Association declassified homosexuality as a mental disorder.  Today, the Center is the nation’s second oldest (LA being the first) and third largest LGBT Community Center. The Center has made a huge difference in the lives of tens of thousands of people. Its 800 volunteers, its staff (40 full-time employees) and its 20 board members provide more than 50,000 service hours each year to a very diverse community.

Joanna embodies diversity four-fold

The daughter of a Mexican mother, she is a proud woman, a proud Latina, a proud self-identified lesbian, and the proud second mother of her partner's daughter. To top it all, she is a very successful professional. After a 15-year career at AT&T in various roles within its Talent Acquisition organization, she joined Wells Fargo in 2011 where she is currently VP, Recruiting Leader for Community Bank's Western Mountain Region and Shared Services. 

Attending a Diverse Leaders Program

Some companies only pay lip service to diversity. It's clearly not the case of Wells Fargo who nominated Joanna to attend the Diverse Leaders Program very shortly after she joined.  At the time, she wrote a beautiful post on my blog on the reasons why she was selected: "I was not selected as a woman who has been climbing the proverbial ladder in a heavily female recruiting profession led predominantly by men, nor because my mother, who was born in Mexico, immigrated here as a child in search for the American Dream for her family.  I was selected for neither of these reasons although they would both be true.  I was selected instead as a self-identified lesbian and a high potential leader to be given additional training to improve my skills as a manager and leader for the betterment of myself, my team members, my customers and our local communities.  I admit, upon learning about my selection, I could not imagine what my 'gayness' could possibly have to do with my leadership skills, but I intended to find out."

From diversity to inclusion

Joanna found out that the purpose of companies with serious diversity programs is to not to simply be diverse or add diversity as a legal or marketing check box.  It's more specifically to foster a feeling of real inclusiveness in the hearts and minds of the "diverse" people whom you hire. Joanna's experience in this Diverse Leaders Program held in a room full of accomplished bankers, activists, community leaders was a real eye opener for her.  "We had openly talked about how we all felt driven to succeed so no one could say that if we failed it was because of our 'gayness'… Yet in preparing my last word was when I finally found the answer to my question, 'what does my gayness have to do with my leadership style?'  The answer was ultimately 'nothing'…  My 'gayness' was not the point when dealing with who I am as a leader, manager or team member at Wells Fargo.  Instead, what I found was that this program was something entirely different.  Instead it was about inclusion, real inclusion." 

Bottom line

Joanna admits that until then she thought that the word "inclusion" was part of the corporate jargon.  "I had never really never understood it," she says.  "I have always understood why having a mix of different people in a workforce would be good to mirror the communities we worked in but to be truly included, I mean every part of me being included by a company, for the first time, was something I did not expect nor could I anticipate the impact."

Joanna, what advice would you give to recruiters?

"As recruiters we are the foundation builders of diversity for our companies.  We have the ability to impact diversity by building relationships and looking for the best talent with the knowledge that diversity of thought and background builds the strongest team.”