Disability inclusion garners focus at workshop

Shannon Porter: The average accommodation for a person with a disability costs around $300 for employers.

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A Branson area nonprofit – started late last year aimed to improve lives of individuals with disabilities through employment services – is starting to make inroads, officials said at a June 7 event organized for area employers.

Tim Connell, founder of Imagine Technical Institute, said over a dozen high school students with disabilities are participating for six weeks in the nonprofit’s first summer work experience program. The internship-type program, which started June 10, is initially targeting juniors and seniors, he said, adding CoxHealth, SRC Holdings Corp. and Big Cedar Lodge are among employers on board. For most, if not all, teen participants, Connell said it will serve as their first experience in the workforce.

“No one’s ever told them that they have options to work in these really nice companies,” he said, noting ITI is providing six job coaches to offer on-site support to the students as they adapt to the work environments. “I didn’t plan on the large ones I’m getting, but it just worked out.”

ITI is a vocational training and employment services provider for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities in southwest Missouri. The organization is a satellite location of St. Joseph-based Boone Center Inc., another nonprofit that serves adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. ITI’s services are modeled after those offered by BCI, which began in 1959 and provides organizational, competitive and vocational training programs, according to past Springfield Business Journal reporting.

BCI officials were among those present at the June 7 workshop, held at SRC Electrical. The event included a panel discussion focused on disability inclusion in the workforce. Joining Connell on the panel was Krisi Schell, SRC Holdings Corp. executive vice president of human resources; Ken Talley, project manager with commercial refrigeration manufacturer True Manufacturing Co. Inc. in O’Fallon; and Kevin Thompson, leadership coach with Chesterfield-based manufacturer Cambridge Air Solutions.

Both Talley and Thompson said their companies connected with BCI in the St. Louis area several years ago, which led to employing dozens of people with disabilities. True Manufacturing, which operates three facilities in the state, employs around 30 people with disabilities, according to officials. Talley said the company contacts BCI roughly once a quarter when in hiring mode to recruit new employees.

“BCI kind of vets them and thinks they’re going to be a good fit for our manufacturing. They know what we like to do,” Talley said. “We send our plant managers and team leaders out, and they do interviews with these potential employees.”

Darcell Freeman, BCI’s director of vocational training, said at the event that there are plenty of people with disabilities wanting to work. It’s a segment of the workforce that those making hiring decisions should be keeping in mind more often.

“Those of you in the (human resources) world, how many of you set up 10 interviews hoping one of them will show up? I hear that from HR departments all over the state,” she said, noting consideration of people with a disability could be a solution to improve interview turnouts.

Last year, 22.5% of people with a disability were employed, up 1.2% from the prior year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. It’s the highest recorded percentage since comparable data were first collected in 2008. Over the same span, the employment for those without a disability was at 65.8%, a 0.4% increase. The unemployment rate for people with a disability dropped to 7.2% in 2023. The 2022 jobless rate was 7.6%.

Open options
With a workforce of roughly 2,000, including 1,750 local manufacturing employees, Schell said SRC is interested in keeping its options open for hiring decisions.

“We all live this every day, trying to find the right people to come into our workforce,” she said, adding SRC has recently experienced more stability in worker recruitment and retention. “But if you look long-term, it’s a numbers game. We know that with the number of baby boomers that are leaving the workforce every day that by the time we get to 2030, there’s not enough people in the workforce currently to fill those jobs.”

Combining that with the company’s plan to add at least 400 jobs over the next five years based on current growth projections is a reason she said SRC is looking closer at disability inclusion in its workforce. The manufacturer in 2021 announced a $100 million investment initiative over a 10-year period.

“We are exploring a lot of different talent pipelines to be able to find the people to come in and help us meet the orders and meet those customer commitments,” she said, adding company officials met with ITI officials a few months ago and visited the BCI Skills Center, a vocational training facility in St. Peters, as well as True Manufacturing and Cambridge Air Solutions. “We had the chance to meet with Tim [Connell] and talk about what he was doing and what he was wanting to get started. For us, this is a population that we want to bring in and include in our culture. We see a lot of benefits in that.”

Although SRC is one of the employers participating in ITI’s summer work experience program, Schell said the company is in the “exploratory phase” for making hires as it establishes what inclusion training will look like at SRC.

“We want our supervisors to embrace this idea and make sure that we are setting it all up, whether they need a job coach or do they need just the consistency, whatever that is,” Schell said of properly communicating job responsibilities to those with disabilities. “And be sure that we are identifying the right roles and jobs where people can be successful, and they feel good about what they’ve accomplished.”

Being accommodating
Empower: Abilities is among organizations that aim to help people with disabilities connect with employment opportunities. The nonprofit service agency, founded in 1985, began as an independent employment service in 2022. April Parker is program coordinator for its Empowered2Work program, which offers resume and interview preparation, job lead assistance and advocacy and accommodation help once employment is obtained. Parker’s caseload is roughly 30 clients – a fluctuating number, said nonprofit CEO Shannon Porter.

“Once they kind of feel confident in their new employment, then that case gets closed,” Porter said. “We are still here to help them, but the relationship shifts to more of we’re here if you need us.”

Parker said she’s had a few employers reach out specifically to hire her clients. Those include Christian radio station KADI-FM and Rides 4 Abilities Inc., which offers nonemergency transportation for individuals with disabilities. The latter company was seeking drivers and those who can schedule rides over the phone.

Porter said some companies might hesitate to hire people with disabilities due to perceived costs of accommodating them in the workplace.

“To help businesses navigate it might seem a little scary, but it’s really not,” she said. “The average accommodation for a person with a disability is around $300, and not everybody needs accommodation. It really depends on that person, what their disability looks like and how that translates to their ability to perform the essential functions of that job.”