Chicago Tribune
UNTAPPED WORKFORCE
PLACEMENT FIRM EXPANDS COMPANIES' DIVERSITY
By Maudlyne Ihejirika
Special to the Tribune
August 27, 2000
When Lori Akers lost the majority of her vision from complications of
diabetes, the Denver company she was working for did not quite know
what to do with her. It was the early 1990s, and the Americans With
Disabilities Act was relatively new. The company knew it could not
fire 39-year-old Akers from her clerical job, but it also was not
interested in special accommodation for an employee suddenly visually
impaired.
"Basically, what they did was try to get me to quit by literally
giving me nothing to do," said Akers, of Denver. Akers recently found
a new and better job through a job placement agency called
HirePotential. Headquartered in Denver and recently established in
Chicago, this national consulting and staffing firm helps corporations
recruit, accommodate and retain employees from the untapped workforce,
including the disabled, mature workers, veterans and welfare
recipients.
HirePotential numbers this untapped workforce at 27 million
nationally. There are 4.5 million unfilled job openings nationally,
according to the firm. When Baby Boomers, who make up the bulk of the
workforce, begin to be eligible for retirement in the next five years,
corporations will have to learn to recruit, accommodate and retain
skilled individuals from a vastly different marketplace,
HirePotential's founders say.
"We saw no one filling this niche," said Vice President Sara Poticha,
who runs the new Northbrook office. "What we really do is expand a
company's diversity program," she said. "Traditionally, you might
think of diversity as gender and ethnicity. You don't necessarily
think of it as people with disabilities and these other specialty
groups. It's not that corporations haven't been recruiting from this
segment. But what we found is that corporations didn't necessarily
know how to integrate and really accommodate the untapped workforce."
HirePotential (www.hirepotential.com) plans to work with Chicago-area
companies to develop strategy, solutions and staffing to maximize
employment opportunities for this segment of the workforce.
In working with a company, HirePotential first assesses the corporate
environment, analyzing the type of business, employment needs,
technology processes and the potential for assistive and adaptive
technology devices to meet the needs of those seeking employment. The
firm next presents solutions--from the aforementioned devices to
education and training on accomodation. Finally, HirePotential places
skilled employees into the corporate environment.
"We found them on (the Internet)," said Tina Scott Polsky, director of
diversity for Pitney Bowes Mailing Systems in Stamford, Conn., which
has worked with HirePotential on an employment diversity program since
April. "Here at Pitney Bowes, we recognized that in order to remain
competitive, we needed to focus in on a population that comprises 20
percent of American people with disabilities," Polsky said. "We just
saw it as something that we needed to do to widen the diversity net we
had already cast in many different directions."
HirePotential, founded a year ago and funded by venture capitalists
Brinson Partners of Chicago, has quickly become a resource and
referral for government and non-profit agencies working with the
disabled, veterans and welfare recipients. The majority of its job
placements have been in information technology, customer service and
administration. Offering direct placement, project-based employment or
employment on a project-to-hire basis, HirePotential has a database of
some 3,000 registered and available employees.
Potachi is quick to stress, however, that HirePotential employees must
be skilled and job ready.
"We don't take on training of employees" she said. "We focus on the
skills of the individual and the jobs that we have to fill, and on
ensuring there's a successful transition within the client's
environment, regardless of what population the worker comes from," she
said.
Even so, the firm goes above and beyond, said one worker who recently
switched careers because of a disability.
Olivia Hernandez, 23, of Dallas, worked at a day-care center before
severely injuring her back. With the help of the Texas Rehab
Commission, an agency akin to the Illinois Department of
Rehabilitation, Hernandez received computer training and then a
referral to HirePotential.
"I felt really comfortable with them. They didn't treat me like other
agencies, where they act like they don't believe you when you say
you're disabled and can't do certain kinds of work," Hernandez said.
"When I went on the interview, my HirePotential manager went with me .
. . It's the different way they do things.
VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
To join or leave the list, send a message to
[log in to unmask] In the body of the message, simply type
"subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations.
VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/vicug-l.html
|