Steffany Stevens: Welcome to TACE Region IV webinar, Employer Needs Analysis and Job Development Strategies for Customized Employment. Today is Wednesday, January 13, 2010. The webinar will begin in just a moment at 1:00 p.m., thank you.
Good afternoon and morning. Welcome to the TACE Region IV webinar - Employer Needs Analysis and Job Development Strategies for Customized Employment. Today is January 13, 2010. This webinar will be hosted today by Michael Callahan. My name is Steffany Stevens, and I'm a member of the Southeast DBTAC Region IV. I want to welcome back many of you who have participated in many of our previous sessions. A big hearty welcome to those of you joining us for the first time. As most of you already know the mission of the Southeast DBTAC Region IV center along with our other 9 counterparts across the country is to work together and work together to improve the quality and effectiveness of vocational rehabilitation services. The primary purpose is to enhance employment outcomes for individuals with disabilities. Our TACE works in eight southeastern states and we have the largest region to serve and we are very proud of that. We're working with great people. As you know, we serve Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Our TACE is a collaboration with the DBTAC and the Southeast ADA Center both the TACE and Southeast DBTAC are managed by the Burton Blatt Institute. We are hosting quite a few webinars this year in 2010. As many of you know, and have already signed up for topics that are of interest to you, that is great. Please feel free to visit our site to sign up for topics that interest you.
Just a quick note about the webinar system. We use a system that is fully accessible to everyone regardless of their disability and or assistive technology that might be used with a computer. This system makes it possible for us to conduct workshops over the internet from just about any computer with an internet connection and web browser. Please note that sometimes long distance charges may apply. Unfortunately, there are many computer issues that you have reported to us that are inherent to your systems beyond our control. That's why it's important to check your computers prior to the session. We're unable to trouble shoot issues right before the webinar is scheduled to begin. As in the past, during today's session as a way to communicate with each other with the chat room where you can post your questions and the speaker Mike Callahan will address them during the webinar or after the webinar but we want to make sure that your questions get answered. For those of you joining on the telephone line, who cannot see what is in the chat room, all of this will be voiced and it will be captured in the captioning.
At this point we're ready to begin. We're privileged to be joined by our speaker, Michael Callahan. Mike is a native Mississippian and he has consulted throughout the United States, Canada and Europe in the area of employment and transition for the past 28 years. He has worked with Marc Gold & Associates for 30 years and has served as the president of the organization since 1982. Marc Gold & Associates is a network of consultants that provide technical assistance to systems, agencies, and families interested in insuring the complete community participation of persons with significant disabilities. In 2000 Mike and three others started a non-profit organization, Employment For All, which is dedicated to insuring full access to the employment for all persons with disabilities. He is coauthor of two how-to books on employment for persons with significant disabilities, getting employed, staying employed, and keys to the workplace. He has written numerous articles, chapters, manuals pertaining to employment. His current work focuses on customized employment as an extension on the concept of employment with persons of significant life complexities. I would now like to turn it over to you, Mike, thank you, you may begin.
Good afternoon this is Steffany. If you could break with us, we are having microphone problems. Hold the line. I do apologize for any inconvenience, thank you. -- if you could bear with us, we are having microphone problems. Hold the line. I do apologize for any inconvenience, thank you.
Test, test, Steffany, it looks like I've got microphone. I think everyone is hearing. All we'll need is the PowerPoint queued up, and I would be ready to go. Here we go. Folks, thanks for hanging in there during this glitch. I think everyone is with us now. Whoever did whatever they did, thank you so much. Everybody, I apologize for the start. We'll see if we can have a little smoother webinar after that start we just had. My name is Michael Callahan, I live on the coast of Mississippi. We've been whining quite a bit about the cold temperatures lately. For those of you that are equally shivering, including those in Florida, I share your pain.
Folks, today we're at the end of our customized process. We are going to cover two related concepts today of conducting an employer needs analysis. Then I will shift to a brief overview on the job development strategies that are necessary to arrange an opportunity to make a presentation to an employer for purposes of customized employment.
Before I get into the slides one of the things that I would like to make a distinction about early on are two terms that may seem synonymous, but are different. I would like to just start with that. Many of you as counselors and rehabilitation professionals will have heard the term "job analysis." I'm introducing the term called an employer needs analysis. There may be an inclination to think these are the same thing. They serve very different purposes from my perspective. I will cover that and then get into the information in our PowerPoint slides for today.
The traditional job analysis, at least in the training and conceptual way I've understood occurs with an employer and in an employment location after a job has been obtained. That job could either be an off the shelf, open job in a fully competitive way, or in a customized negotiated manner, of which we've been speaking during the series of webinars that we have held on customized employment. That job analysis looks at the culture of the workplace and the demands of the job as the employer has defined the job. We're still on the title page, slide 1 of 44, okay.
The employer needs analysis occurs during the negotiation with an employer. At this point an employer has not said yes. For those of you who have had the pleasure of developing a grant proposal, it's somewhat like gathering the research material to make a proposal to an employer. The needs analysis is distinguished from a job analysis in that the needs analysis, or during the needs analysis, you are gathering the information you need to make a proposal to an employer so the employer can consider customizing relationship. With job analysis you are examining the culture of the workplace and demands of the workplace in relation to an already negotiated job. I recommend doing both to employment providers. But just want you to know that today we're talking about within the employer needs analysis, we're talking about this unique previous to employment analysis that allows us to present a proposal. With that in mind I will move forward to slide 2.
Slide two: During the needs analysis we're going to focus. One of the things I want to start with is what we're looking at. One of the primary things to look at during needs analysis is unmet workplace needs. The distinguishing characteristic for me between customized employment and traditional demand side employment is that within traditional demand employment an employer presumes that workplace needs will be met by opening up jobs and job descriptions and job postings, and then hiring for those in a competitive manner. What customized employment takes advantage of is the set of things that go undone. That host of things that a workplaces strives to accomplish but often does not accomplish in a 100 percent way. Another way of saying it is every workplace has unmet needs. It provides us a different avenue to approach an employer because, It's particularly important for people with more significant impactive disabilities, in that many people struggle in the area of meeting the arbitrary demand set by employers. When something goes undone it has a unique characteristic that by then doing something that the employer needs to have done that was not getting done, the very fact that it gets done in a quality way oftentimes takes the existing productivity demands of the table, or at least to be made negotiable. So, one of the things that we are looking at is unmet workplace needs. Now, I am going on to slide number 3.
Slide three: An additional aspect that can be examined during a needs analysis, and we're learning this from the experiences that many of you may have heard about that are organized under the concept of project search. Project search is occurring in many of the states. I know particularly here in the southeast region the state of Georgia has invested heavily in project research and there are multiple sites in that state. My bet is the project would also be in other states in the Southeast DBTAC region. One of the things that we have learned from them is that within any business a job description for highly skilled jobs, jobs that require oftentimes the level of credentials and workplace experience that make it difficult for some people with significant disabilities to effectively compete, those jobs descriptions often contain tasks that could better be performed by another worker at a lower pay grade. Thus, saving the employer money. Many employers are willing to begin to examine their existing job descriptions to see if there might be tasks that people routinely do. Let me give you an example, earlier, I have to adjust because it's now 2010, but last year in April I was negotiating with a human resource manager for a large health conglomerate in Louisville, Kentucky. This woman was the head of HR for this very, very large health system. Upon hearing this concept she reflected, and said before the meeting I was having with her, she would spend about 30 minutes compiling and mailing a letter that was -- I apologize for blocking on the term -- a certified letter. She said I bet you have some people who could do the certified letter for me. My time would be better spent in doing the things that I'm highly paid to do. One of the things I can say to you is employers, particularly in larger companies, really get this. Many of the job descriptions contain tasks that could be reassigned to someone else and save money for the company in having your highly paid people focusing on tasks they're prepared for. I am going to move on to slide 4.
Slide four: A third area we will look at within the employer needs analysis relates to two sides of the employment equation. It really needs to start on this side of looking at the job seeker side first. Many of us recognize that we have job seekers who have component competency at a very high level, but might not have what we refer to as the "whole package," you know, the wide array of skills and productivities and competencies that the employer is looking for, but they have specific competencies that we have found out through our discovery process. If we can find then on the employer side specific needs related to either productivity or quality that could be offered, or could be augmented by the job seeker who has that to offer, then the areas of productivity of high quality demand can be matched effectively. We have here three areas to focus on in the needs analysis. In review, those three areas are unmet employer needs, things that need to get done but are not getting done. Another aspect are tasks better performed by others at a lower pay grade. That involves Unbundling tasks by highly paid employees and giving them to someone at a lower pay grade, thus allowing meaningful tasks for people with more complex needs as far as employment. And then thirdly, when job seekers have specific competencies in the area of productivity or quality, to be able to match those with employers who have those needs. Those are the three areas we will look at. I will be moving to slide 5.
Slide five: One of the reasons for doing this is I want to recognize two things. One, everything that I'm talking about today stands on the shoulders of the previous aspects of the process. If we've done discovery well, if we have come to terms what we've learned through a written document that looks at the best of who people are, and we begin to think about who people are through the lens that I have just given you. Now at this point in the process we can look back and say during discovery we want to think about what we're seeing in people from the perspective of meeting unmet needs, tasks better performed by others, and specific competencies. And then when we have our customized employment planning meeting we're really focusing on employers that from a task and interest perspective of the job seeker really make sense. You've also had information on representational portfolios. Here we are in job development and in needs analysis, now with that information behind us, we're ready to take the next step and use all of that in a way that really begins to come together. Followed oftentimes by the last part of the process here, the workplace analysis and accommodations, and job site support, which is the traditional role of supported employment. Here I think the customized process of the up-front steps blends with those steps that are traditional to supported employment, which involves the accommodation supports and job coaching. I think before I leave this slide another thing to think about is that as counselors I would be encouraging employment providers to help employers see the investment we've made in customized as value added to the employer. When employers think that way and understand that we've undertaken a significant aspect of their recruitment responsibility. We've used public dollars to do that through the rehabilitation and employment services funds that we use, we're adding value to employers. The case has to be made. I don't think it's necessarily intuitive to employers that they would see what we've done as value added to meeting their needs. I'm seeing a note in the chat room that I may be lost again. Could someone give me a note that I'm still being heard? Great, good. Thank you. I appreciate that.
Let me stop here for a second. I saw a question about how would customized employment gain acceptance in companies that lay off workers, and they would hire back first? When companies lay off, they are almost always hiring back within a circumstance of the position that was left, or another position. By approaching employers from the perspective of unmet needs you are taking a different way of coming to an employer. When you do it an employer may say, well, I've got these people laid off, what about them. I could say what I'm about to say to you with full honesty. I would say to the employer, one of the things I would encourage you to do is offer any of the laid off employees the opportunity to meet some individual needs of yours. I'm not trying to put our position over theirs. I'm trying to say that here is an idea, whether you hire a person that I'm representing that has a disability, or a laid off worker who might want to come back under a customized relationship, I think that we've gotten the employer to begin to think this way. The fact is this, I think many of you will recognize this, most laid off workers are not interested in having a customized relationship. They want their old job back. They want to have everything they had back. They will often wait until that happens. I say to the employer; If you've got needs created by people that you have laid off, think about customizing as a way to meet needs. We stand ready to have job seekers that want to work under a customized relationship right now. We need to make sure that statement is true throughout our entire process. That's the response I would have. I hope that helps.
Slide six, Let me go ahead now and look at the employer needs analysis. I've got some clip art here. I went into Microsoft clip art and tried to find examples of workplace needs. If you've got a situation where a clip art artist has taken the time to stereotype workplace needs these things must really exist. Employers have issues with employees having unmet needs. They can be stereo typical, like these cartoons characterize, like the guy in the lower right is working as hard as he can, and still the stack is getting bigger. Maybe someone has been laid off in that office, those are unmet needs that can be targeted. This remains an economic decision for an employer to make, but they continue to do that.
Slide seven, One of the things that is very necessary is when we're engaging employers in this I'm not trying to go in and work with human resource and production people to improve their workplace as it currently exists. I want to take advantage of the fact that unmet needs exist naturally in every workplace. I would encourage and challenge anyone on the call today to take a look at your own workplace in terms of things that routinely go undone. If you start recognizing that you can begin to find a way to then help an employer see unmet needs as tasks that can be performed. When you get it to this, when you get these unmet needs into tasks, employers can begin to consider in a business way, would it be in my business interests to have someone come in and perform some of these needs for me? One of the things I want to admit is that any employer is free to do this with existing employees. But the fact is no one is really doing this. You don't hear it in the workforce system. You don't hear it on the self-help shows that encourage people to get back to work. We've got this concept almost as a monopoly. It's probably a good time for us to take advantage of the fact that we have and idea that has relevance in tough economic times. So, let’s go to slide 8.
Slide eight, One of the things that is necessary about this is an explanation and an opportunity to see the unmet needs. A part of job development that I'm going to talk about after this is engaging employers in an effort to identify the unmet needs. It's actually a negotiation. The employer would need to agree to have this done within their workplace. The answer can be no, obviously. Some would say I'm not interested. If we can encourage our employment providers to make a presentation, you actually begin to see employers responding well to this idea. I am going to go to slide 9 now.
Slide nine: This slide is very important to this particular discussion in that it lists the three ways in which a needs analysis can be conducted. In one way, kind of the most general way, we can go to a company and use what we call an informational, and actually in sales they call it a discovery interview. It is a discovery of a market segment. What we're doing in this general thing, I have used it when I feel like I need more depth of a particular market segment. I will give you a visual in a few minutes to make it clear. In that way I'm asking the employer almost as a community responsibility to allow me to look in their workplace and learn about their market segment. Employers are quite amenable to these discovery interviews. I don't use these, some do, but I don't recommend using this as a bait and switch strategy. It's okay for me if the employer brings up hiring someone, but I don't do that. I try to learn about their market segment, thank them, and then use that information in other places. The primary way that we do needs analysis is part of the job development negotiation for each individual following a tour of the workplace. We do this one employer at a time. You will have employers that will agree to a needs analysis who will then say I see what you are offering, I see I have these needs, I just don't see it in my interests. On the other hand, if you have an employer that allows a needs analysis, you are that much closer to negotiating a customized job. The third way it can be done is that we begin to as rehabilitation professionals, as employment service providers, we begin to see the community in all of the ways we generally interact in the community. In our general activity in our communities. One of my favorite places to visit is my local Lowe's. I look for unmet needs every time I'm there. I don't need permission, because I have a right to be there as a member of the public. I can look around and begin to try to identify, both as a practice and as a possible direction in referral source, to look at unmet needs in the community. Of course, we can't go into places that we're not allowed to go into without having an appointment. But you really begin to hone your skills doing these general needs analysis. I find I have a hard time turning it off anymore, looking for unmet needs. I am going to move ahead now to slide 10.
Slide ten, If you are going to do an informational interview here's a set of five steps to do it in. The employer needs to know that you are trying to meet a need within the community. I'm trying to help unemployed people become employed and it would help me to learn about your market segment. You discuss the role of the needs analysis and how it meets the unmet needs for customized employment. You talk to the employer about their business in general. Employers say they love to talk about their business. We tour the business to get an idea of the general culture, and then try to arrange time to observe various work areas. This is your thing you would do with your needs analysis.
Slide eleven, Here is an example of this: This is a young woman on the Gulf Coast in a school district, who was interested in a job in the radio industry. One of the things that occurred to us in our employment project -- Art, I see your question. Part of it we'll answer here. She wanted to work in a radio station. None of us had -- none of the people helping her had any experience in working in a radio station. So an interview was done in another town, and then went to, and asked a radio station, the reason for going to another town is so you don't use up the local stations, and looked at their needs. We found needs in the area of reception, the DJ's sound booth area, they will have station, advertising managers. We were able to go into her community and negotiate a 10-hour week job, since she's a student. In that sense the businesses needs were identified based on the individual, in her case as a student. If I'm doing an informational interview just wanting to get to know my community I might do it at random. My preference is to try to connect whenever you can the informational interview to a job seeker who is challenging you in a certain direction. I hope that really helps. I am going to slide 12.
Slide twelve, It's most common that needs analysis is a part of each employer contact that an employment provider would make during job development. Now, one of the things I want to think back, those of you that were on the call that described the customized employment plan, it's very important the last aspect of the plan was identifying specific employers. And because we now have a known universe of employers based on our plan, it makes a lot of sense that most of our needs analysis will reflect those employers, keep that in mind. As you are doing this uou are making -- during your negotiated needs analysis -- it's often one of the first follow-up aspects of the employer negotiation that occurs on a different day. It can take from 1-3 hours. A large place could possibly require more time. But just as a general rule of thumb a provider may be asking for 2-3 hours of time to do a needs analysis. Counselors should feel welcome, but I am not in any way implying this is the counselor's responsibility. But the counselor needs to know about this, so you are directing your employment providers to do this activity. You should feel welcome if you want to attend a needs analysis just for your own information and professional development. I am going to slide 13.
Slide thirteen, One of the things I'm careful to do during the negotiation of a needs analysis is -- I'm seeing another question, I'll get to that question when I get done with this. To give the employer options of how the needs analysis may be performed. One of the first options is to offer to perform or conduct the needs analysis at no charge to the employer. You are saying we're not going to charge you anything. Folks, I'm really careful on a semantic distinction here. I always say at no charge. It does cost the employer to stop what they're doing and have us in their business. I don't want to have a term like "no cost" and then have them call me naive. If I say "no charge" it really reflects that the employer will not be charged for this activity. Another option, my favorite, number two, to negotiate the analysis as a partnership to look at areas. If you want to know where in a business you look you look in an area that relates to the tasks that you identified during the customized employment plan. You are seeing a meshing of the aspects of the process. Finally, if an employer is saying I like the idea but, and the "but" is I'm just too busy, I don't have time. I apologize, that's really the rationale for number one. It is possible that employers will say or imply I'm reluctant to have you in my business. Therefore, I would like to do the needs analysis myself. I found about maybe as many as 20% of employers prefer to do this themselves. Now, it gives you less opportunity to bring our perspective to the table, but still many employers, or some number, will insist. This is three options. To do it for the employer at no charge, to do it with the employer as a partnership, or to have the employer do it. Robin asked a question, what job did the young woman perform at the radio station? She had a customized job description based on the unmet needs of the different perspectives. The duties do change during the course of the week. The receptionist often had things that needed to get done, the station manager had things that needed to get done, the DJs had things for her, and data entry for the advertiser. What often happens with a customized job is it's task-related, the tasks can be consistent over time, or often they shift with day-to-day and week to week things that need to get done. I am going to go to slide 14.
Slide fourteen, When I go in and do a needs analysis, I will give you three major ways to focus in how I think about doing it, with some examples. I will really take a chance to look at questions before we move on. One of the first things I look at is employees doing their jobs. I target employees doing job tasks. One of the ways to help me identify which employees and what part of the workplace is the customized plan. The customized plan is such an essential linkage between the individual and what we learned in discovery and what we're doing now in the employer's workplace. Again, if I'm just going around to workplaces seeing unmet needs that do not relate to the job seeker, in a way I'm disqualifying that job seeker from that job, either based on their interest or the tasks that they have to offer. That can happen, but at least I want to use the plan as a way of helping the employer target where to look, and help me help the employer target where to look. One of the first things I look is for any episodic duty of any employee. An episodic duty is something that occurs irregularly, a time delay exists between the times we do these duties. They often take employees off of their central job. They can be areas where we can really assist employers to better get a job done. I will give you some examples of that. In this area you might see some tasks that highly paid people are doing in a way that the individual that we're representing can offer to do it at a lower pay grade. You might also see tasks needing additional production assistance. I look at backups or bottle necks and see if I can see based on what I know about the job seeker, a way for the job seeker to help meet that need. Material and tool supply is another of my favorite areas to look for. If I'm seeing workers wasting time moving from their primary work area to a supply area that's an opportunity for a task. If the person is being interrupted could the subject of the interruption, could that be performed by the individual? In another way, if the interruption is necessary would it be helpful for useful for the employer to have my job seeker step in and perform the task during the interruption? It can work either way. The thing you want to take from this slide is that the first thing I look at when I do a needs analysis is I look at employees doing their jobs in areas that match the interests and the tasks of the job seeker as identified in the customized plan for employment. That plan is very, very important. We are now going to slide 15.
Slide fifteen, Let me just give an example. This is an episodic task. This is Tony in Fort Worth, Texas. Tony had interest in being around music. Music stores in the area were targeted. This is the downtown old music store. During the needs analysis we noticed an interesting thing, a grunge band of all things come in and they want to buy a drum kit. The salesperson is very, very enthusiastic about this. They're looking at expensive kits. They try several out in the store and decide on a drum kit. Everything is wonderful, no unmet needs at this point. We're just looking. As we're doing that, as the needs analysis is occurring, the salesperson realizes he's made a sale. He says you are in luck, I've got these drums in stock ready to put in your van. The drummer says I want these drums right here, the ones I just played. Now the salesperson is less enthusiastic. We didn't know why since he had made the sale. But what turned out was that because the sale involved the floor model, which often was the case with drum kits, the sale person's job was to set up the new kit. It could take upwards of two hours. The salesperson then has to do that because he's made the sale, but doesn't want to do it because he risks losing another sale while setting all of this up. It turned out to be one of the things that Tony could do very well, he loved to do, his skills are not in sales but he does have the ability to set up a drum kit. Art has asked another question in reference to the lower pay grade. Is that negotiated? The answer is yes. One of the things that the Department of Labor has set up in defining customized employment, DOL has accepted above minimum wage and ideally at least entry wage for whatever that business is as a starting point for negotiation. But the negotiation often takes place between the higher pay grade and in most businesses would hover around entry wage, if that makes sense. Whatever the company would pay a typical worker would have to be negotiated. Now part of that has to do with the conditions from the employment plan to make sure that you are meshing the monetary needs of the job seeker with what the employer is offering. It's possible, though it rarely happens, a job seeker could turn down an employer's hourly wage offer because they wanted to make more. Oftentimes people are just fine with entry wage based on the tasks that need to be done. I hope that helps, Art.
Slide sixteen, Here's another. This relates to slower components. This is a gentleman in a group home in New Orleans that wanted to do floral design. He had interest in flowers. He took care of them at his group home in the city of New Orleans. It was discovered through a needs analysis of this floral shop that his job included preparing the background greenery for the production of floral displays that are so common in weddings and funerals and other big events. In the course of his doing this was also allowed to begin to do floral design. This picture was taken because this was his first design that he had done, and was sold by the florist in New Orleans. Just to give you an idea, that could be a slower component of a job.
Slide seventeen, Material supply. Here's an example of a gentleman. Among any number of tasks in this retail store James makes sure that all of the cash islands in this mall Sears store are fully stocked. He has multiple tasks but this was one of them. This was usually assigned to cashiers, they would often wait before they ran out before they would restock, often when customers were waiting. That's just an example of material supply.
Slide eighteen, Here's another wasted motion material supply example. A man on the left in Pittsburgh with autism, began his customized job by providing tool supply assistance to the master cabinet maker, the guy on the right. The interesting thing that happened is his production skills became so necessary and valuable to the cabinet maker that by the time the job had gotten about six months in, both men needed material supply assistance because the customized employee was beginning to do production. Again, it was of great value to the cabinet maker who was spending most of his time walking back and forth from a tool supply cabinet within this rather open business incubator in an old steel mill in Pittsburgh. It's just another example. I am now going to slide 19.
Slide nineteen, The next thing I focus on in my needs analysis is the environment. I look at employees working, next I look at the work setting it self. The work setting often gives you many clues for potential unmet needs. The bullet list of unattended materials and documents, frankly, I just look for boxes and begin to ask questions. What is in the box? Are they waiting for attention by an employee? That's a great way to begin to start a needs analysis. I look for waste and scrap that may be needs to be picked up, maybe in a manufacturing setting. I look at things that have been set aside because an error has been made on them. Then I think about, could the task that created -- could the employee action that created the error, might that be something that the job seeker that I represent could help deal with? The error was created by a worker, but you see the error often in workplaces, things don't get thrown away immediately. You will see a huge bin of copy mistakes, or in a manufacturing area you will see a scrap bin of all of the errors. Do I see goods in a retail setting misplaced, out of sync with where they should be? Are there things that are dusty, broken or dirty? Do I just see some missed opportunities that may be had not occurred to the employer? Finally, I will look at anything that might be unsafe or just down right unsightly. Think about going to the employer to see if this could help. I think my first example – I am going to slide 20 now.
Slide twenty, It's is very interesting story here of an unsafe condition. We didn't know that the factory had unsafe conditions. We knew that our job seeker, Kurt, was interested in sweeping. He was refusing to leave the workshop because he loved sweeping so much. In a meeting with Kurt and his mother, she said being his voice, my son loves to sweep. And you want to get him out in front of a computer or some other job that he would be miserable at, that is why we are not leaving the workshop, because he loves to sweep. In discovery we affirmed that Kurt gave sweeping a dignity that you just can't give it. Kurt liked it. That's very, very important part of discovery. You can talk to employers about any spot sweeping needs. He doesn't want to do huge production sweeping, but spot sweeping. Could a business need that? It turned out that a factory in New Jersey, we have a furniture industry in northwest New Jersey, two knew. This one company doing this was having a heck of a problem with slip and falls. The milling process was -- this was a company specializing in laminate cabinets, the milling process created dust which the dust control system picked up well, but it also created a byproduct of small laminate chips that sat on the floor under the feet of the workers. These workers were falling and having significant slip and fall injuries of sprained wrists, cracked tailbones, and broken elbows. So workman's comp is going out of the roof. Employees are not in the best of health. Yet, they don't police their own area because production workers don't do it. Kurt starts spot sweeping and ends up saving the company the equivalent of his first six months of salary in the reduction of workman's comp payments. That’s a business deal for an employer. The savings go away over time as the premiums reach a level they won't go beyond. But health and well-being of employees is very important. Okay.
Slide twenty-two, I'll get to the questions in a minute. I'm on slide 21, I will go to 22 and come back. I missed place this and I will come back to 21. I'm going to 22. My next focus is on customers. First focus is on employees, second on the setting, third is customers. I look at things like customers waiting, customers who are confused, customers who need specific information in a workplace, customers who are angry or with complaints. You have to be careful, some of these needs are likely to not be a good fit with our job seekers. We have to be make sure that we know our job seeker well enough. Customers that need general assistance. That was slide 22, I am going to go back to 21.
Slide twenty-one, Oops. Let's see. See if I can get this. There we go. That should be 21. I apologize for messing that up. This was an interesting way this job was developed. Our job developer went to an imaging center for a mammogram. She had a mammogram. In the office she was asked to wait. About 20 or 30 minutes after the mammogram the nurse came back and said we have to do your mammogram again, your imagery was exposed and did not take. That created a frustrated and somewhat angry customer, who turned out to be a job developer. Instead of getting angry she asked the nurse what happened. And knew that she was representing a job seeker who has a physical disability and who is totally blind, who was very interested in medical work. In helping the employer think through unmet needs, in this case customers waiting because of errors, the job seeker was offered a customized job of developing the medical imagery. She is blind, she was able to work in complete darkness. They were having problems with people entering the developing room when they should not be. She was able to do these tasks in addition to other tasks. Another accommodation the employer gave her was a break twice as long as other employees got for the time she was in the developing room, it allowed her access to interactions with other workers. She was able to lock the door and unlock it when she needed to keep others out of the room when she was developing. Sorry that was out of order.
Let's look at Art's question. Let’s say you locate a job that appears to be a good match but you’re uncertain as to the individual’s ability to meet the physical demands, have you ever recommended a functional capacity evaluation? One of the things I try to do, if I'm uncertain about that during discovery that is a good example of the kind of evaluation I would do. If I'm uncertain about the person's physical capacity and the person wants to do something that requires a certain physical capacity, then I might do an evaluation of the sort that you recommend, or address. And yet it's not -- it's based on giving me the specific information I need. It's not a general thing. I still use discovery for the general information, and only the targeted evaluation, and we covered this during our discovery training as part of doing that. I hope that helps.
Slide twenty-three, We're just about done with needs analysis. Remember, just a refresher, we're looking at unmet needs, things that need to get done but aren’t getting done, tasks better performed by others at a lower pay grade, and tasks that need specific productivity or quality assistance. Just kind of a potpourri of things. Unmet needs. A company that needed faxes delivered to cubicals in realtime because the clerk was overtaxed with responsibilities.
Slide twenty-four Here's another unmet need in a sheriff's office, where arrest reports had piled up in boxes due to renovation of the sheriff’s department. A man with autism who had the filing skills to meet the needs. Just a couple of examples.
Slide twenty-five, It's very important as we're in the community to keep our eyes open. We can look at all businesses from the outside of the company. But in retail settings and other businesses that have common public areas we can actually go inside. Another thing I like to do, just keeping my antenna open, is to think about when I'm receiving services at home. I remember a couple of months ago I had a clogged toilet and called out Roto Router. I saw a guy go back and forth to his van about five times. I saw an unmet need while I was receiving service. I do that now at my doctor's office, or dentist. I always look because I am behind the scenes and I can just think about that. While just traveling around in the general community think about all of these things.
Slide twenty-six I'm about to shift to job development for the remainder of the presentation and give just a quick job development overview. I would like to see -- I don't see any questions at this moment. Has anybody been thinking about a question that you would like to type in? I will stop and answer them after I set up job development. If there's questions about needs analysis take this time, and I'm about to get into job development. I am on slide 27 now.
Slide twenty-seven, The segue here is that all of this -- needs analysis, the idea of customized employment, the difference between this and regular employment, all of this is set up on a set of interactions that involve getting to the employers, getting to the right employers. Traditionally in our field employer contact has been the soul purview of the job developer, well beyond the rehab counselor, certainly well beyond the job seeker. The job developer would simply have relationships in the community and you would take advantage of those relationships in a positive way, hoping that employers would offer you open jobs, or a shot at what the employer feels might be appropriate. The difference here is we're talking now about a negotiation. We're looking at a situation where we're going to ask the employer to look differently at how their needs are met. In doing that we need to have an unique focus on job development. I want to set that up. That's going to be the first thing I am going talk about. I'm going to slide 28, but I want to come down to the questions. I see Jenny has written a question, and a couple of others. So, let’s do these questions and then I’ll do the segue to job development.
With episodic jobs, how consistent of a job is this? Can a small employer employ someone for several hours, or only spotty needs? It depends. Let me tell you the parameters that I have seen. Many of the customized jobs, that are episodic job tasks, often coagulate together. Most customized job descriptions have anywhere from five to ten tasks that were routinely not done, or done by others, or it would really help the employer to have someone do it. The consistency varies. But I think you get a core consistency of maybe three to five tasks, and then you get those small spotty needs that if employers learn to take advantage of the customized employee, many things come up and go away and come up and go away. When a job seeker is offered a job by an employer -- let's say the need is below the threshold of what the job seeker wants for a job. Let's say an employer has hour and a half or two of work a day. That’s not going to make a job that would help. We either go to another employer. Or some people have done multiple relationships. I tend to do that. I tend to recommend multiple relationships at around two hours a day. You might be able to piece it together. That can work out.
Question: Cynthia asks – people with comprehension issues but work well with physical labor and who need to be reminded, how do you find a job they fit into? You are getting into now a job support issue. You really hope that your supported employment folks have training skills to maximize getting good information to the person. And we're taking advantage of the reminder systems out there. One of things that I'm looking at is the issue of technology around personal digital assistants. There’s a company in Colorado Springs that specializing in a digital assistant that helps people move from task to task and stay reminded. I'm working with some families up in Wisconsin who are actually -- one family has three teenagers with autism. The father programs their PDA each day with reminders, it's really working well. I think some technology, and the nature of an episodic task is also that it's more amenable to natural supports, coworkers and managers are more willing to give reminder support if it's an episodic task, than if it was a task done over and over and over again. Those are some suggestions.
Can you use supported with customized, but not at the same one, is employment the other on the job support? The distinction I make is that customized is a set of pre-employment services that end up defining the employment relationship. Supported employment is a set of post-employment supports that give support to whatever the employment relationship is. I think it's a perfect fit. Mike is saying I use SE with customized jobs all of the time. So do I, that's great.
Slide twenty-eight, I'm going to shift now to the job development focus. You've had page 28 up for a while. I hope you have looked at it. I see job development as a set of five distinct actions. I will disclose to you that my undergraduate degree from the University of Southern Mississippi, go Eagles, is in business, sales, and sales management. I have finally found a use for that otherwise useless degree. I decided along the way that selling washers and ranges wasn't my destiny. I have now found a way to use that information. Counselors, I realize in some states you are encouraged to do job development. In most states counselors will work with community rehab providers, so I'm saying this just in the way of helping you give feedback to job developers who will be using job development, and who will often come to the counselor and say it's not working. Employers are saying no, there's no jobs open, I’m not getting any jobs, and if counselors have some idea of job development, you can better guide your community rehabilitation providers to successful outcomes. Folks, of all things I can say, job developers, having been one, I'm projecting, are notorious for figuring out ways not to do job development. If people did job development, more people would have jobs. It is that simple. We've got to get people doing it. Many, many providers will find multiple reasons to not do job development. Take anything I say and throw it out the window, just get people out there talking to employers, people will get jobs. However, in customized it's a good idea to do it in a certain way. Let me talk about that. I see the question about customized employment for civil service. I will tell you it's the hardest nut to crack. You probably know that already. We've had better success with unions than with civil service. Right now we're working with the federal government in an effort to deal with that federal civil service in a way we maybe can learn from. Of course we're having difficulty with the feds, too, but the jury is still out on that.
Question: Misty, one of the first things I want to say to you in starting job development, is go through the process. Do discovery. Hold a customized planning meeting. And develop some of the materials we've talked about. But then the most important thing in that planning meeting is your list of employers is your universe. Don't just go out and drive down Main Street and looks for jobs open. In fact, in customized, do anything you can to find employers who are not hiring. If they happen to be, they are. But when an employer is hiring they already know what they want. Therefore, it's best to follow that list from the plan and start with the first step, which is prospecting. Then think about the way you make a contact. You will make a contact to get in the door to make a presentation. Your third effort is the initial meeting, it's a pitch. You are an entrepreneur in a way, explaining to an employer a new idea that may help them. Then you have to talk about it. Don't expect a yes or no on the first meeting. You expect the process to continue. If it's looking like the employer is interested you have to be bold and close the deal. Those are the steps of job development. You can look in a job development manual from a college or a company. It's all the same. Now I am on slide 29.
Slide twenty-nine, There are some interesting issues here that you may want to think about. Negotiables relate to what are you offering to an employer? What is the employer hearing from you that you are offering? One of the problems we have in the disability field is that we tend to put everything we've got to entice an employer on the table, and negotiators tell us when we do that we're negotiating from a point of weakness. In determining your negotiables, I'm really saying what is essential to what you are offering? I offer things like discovery for the job seeker to make sure they're in the right business. I offer the needs analysis at no charge. I offer, if I’ve got it available, I offer job site support to the employer and the job seeker. But I don't put everything on the table. I really hold stuff back so that during the negotiation you have additional stuff to put on the table. Research is probably the most important thing you can do. Because you have a known universe, because you know the employers from the customized plan for employment, I will take about five employers and start doing some research. I will try to get enough information that I can be informed. I might even do what I told you earlier, I might even do an informational interview if I need that issue.
How do we get past the hurdle that most employers think that we're talking about developmentally delayed or challenged people? That's one of the reasons that I do job development with a specific job seeker in mind. I have asked permission to disclose positively not their diagnosis but the impact of their disability on employment. That way the employer knows that I'm not talking about a group of people, I'm talking about "an" individual. This positive disclosure is a very important aspect of this.
Misty, you will need more about the opposite of what. I will try to answer that question without guessing.
In prospecting also look at linkages. Linkages are any connection with a lot of employers. A lot of job developers just go out and make a call. Folks, I would like to go into a community rehabilitation provider and see a banner out front that said "job development is job one." And I don’t just meant the job developers officer, I mean the receptionist, the board of directors, the family, all of the connects that we have available to us need to be brought to bear. We need to make it easier to get in and talk to employers, not some sort of test of were you able to talk to the employer into giving you some precious time. I want to make it easier.
Why do I feel like job developers are avoiding job development? It's real simple. It is dealing with rejection. To me I think we feel like employers say no, employees with disabilities cannot or should not work. I want to shift it to unmet needs. I want to go to an employer and say if you are willing to talk about your needs I have somebody who can meet your needs. I don't care about their disability. If this person can meet your needs you have now a new conversation. So often we've been told no when we go out and make job development. We get down. That's my easiest answer to that. I am going to go on to slide 30.
Slide thirty, we also need to use referrals from people who have the stature to talk to employers. Other employers and people of importance like school principals, program executive directors, governmental leaders in the community, try to get referrals to workplaces. Also we need to have a systematic approach to making our employer contacts. Where we're intentional about doing it. The last thing on prospecting is just so important, we need to start cleansing our vocabulary of any human service rehab jargon. Many states, like here in Mississippi we refer to our agency as DVR. An employer looks at you and thinks, what does that mean? It feels like being in a doctor’s office when they use a jargon term and we don’t understand. It's disrespectful and it’s disempowering. If we start saying I'm going to refer to our state agency that funds employment services for people with disabilities as DVR, you need to know that stands for Department of Vocational Rehabilitation Services. Every state is different, I am just using Mississippi as an example here. Really think through all of the jargon language that we have, and beyond that, when doing the needs analysis and job analysis start thinking about business vocabulary that really fits. Like meeting unmet needs, that's business jargon. Tanya describes an issue of employers not having the money to hire. That can be real. The way I respond to that is let's look at your unmet needs. I respect that you don't have money, it's tough. But if you get them to admit unmet needs, when things change positively then you might able to go back to them. There are some employers who have the money to work right now, by the way. It's an interesting thing. They may not have the money to hire a position, but they may have money to meet an unmet need. If my heater breaks during this cold spell I'll figure out how to get it fixed even though I could never hire a heating specialist on my staff. Customized employment takes advantage of a different concept. I am going to go on to the next slide, slide 31.
Slide thirty-one, I Want to talk to you about getting in the front door. I want to go back to -- I apologize for not remembering who made the point about just being new in this. But this is really important. We want to be very strategic about getting into an employer. There's about four ways to do that effectively. One way that we tend not to think about is having someone do it for us. There are people who are willing to get us into a business who would never want to make the presentation. But it's getting the appointment. We can often use third parties. We have this old friend of mine, I will use his name because he won't mind, Mike Montgomery. He knows everybody in Jackson County Mississippi, especially every business person. He is an ideal person to get an appointment for you. Back to the question that was asked, a lot of times you don't want to be told no at the get go, job developers will stop because they're worried about being told no at the beginning. If we can increase the chances that's really good. Let me say something about getting an appointment. Some of you will remember "Star Trek," the latest movie was the best of all, just an aside recommendation. They had the prime directive, do no harm to any civilization. Business has a prime directive: Make no presentation without establishing the availability of the employer and the willingness to hear a presentation. In other words, I never, and by-the-way I always separate making an appointment and making the presentation, employers respect that so much. If we always make an appointment, then make a presentation, we're going to be safer, we're not going to screw it up. Many of us, since we're in the south, it's the essence of southernness to do things informally. Too often job developers miss the informal context as the opportunity to get an appointment. It would never be appropriate to make a presentation at a political gathering, or at a town fair, or a rotary club to a specific employer. But it would be appropriate to get an appointment. Use informal contact when promote. Drop in visits are powerful, but problematic. They're powerful because you are face to face, but they don't know that you are coming. There are two conditions for a drop in. First, the business has to be in the public eye. You have to be able to be there without an appointment. For those of you who work in offices, a job developer should not be able to have free run on your office. Second, you have to able to establish the person is available. I love drop in visits in grocery stores, retail settings and other publicly available places where I can be without permission to be there and determine that the person that I want to talk to is available. There's no quicker way to get told no than to interrupt an employer in the middle of an important issue when they didn't know they you were coming. They said no when at another time they probably would have said yes. That means that a lot of times we will be need to call on the phone, probably the least favorite of our actions, but the most likely. I won't make a phone contact without a referral. Because it's sometimes hard to get referrals I will send myself a letter of self-referral. A letter of self-referral. If I am going to call on a law firm I will write a letter, a very brief letter, introducing myself and saying I'm going to call. That's going to help me get in. It will increase my status. There's a great deal of respect associated with doing that, okay. Now I am going to slide 32.
Slide thirty-two, What I will do is just outline the initial presentation. I want to presume an employer has now said yes. You are allowed time. I typically ask for 25 minutes. 25 minutes is a compromise. I would like 30. If you go over 30 you are decreasing the chance that an employer will say yes. If you go under 30 too much you don't have enough time to say what you need to say. 25 minutes is ideal. You can go to any store and find a thousand things for $9.99 and you can’t find anything for $10.00. I will go a little bit below 30 minutes. That's enough time. The presentation has a number of parts. Start with introduction and breaking the ice, but be careful with this. Some of you are very chatty. What that says is anytime you spend in talking about the Saints playing this weekend, it's just time that you lose. That breaking the ice has a cost to it. I tend to get going because the time is precious. If I have a business card, I sure hope I do, I will put that out. Also I might present any kind of brochure or facts sheet. Why am I here? I'm making the case more customized employment. That will take the lion's share of the presentation time, about 15 minutes out of the 25 minutes, to establish what customized employment is. I am going now to slide 33.
Slide thirty-three, There's some how what we do, you have to introduce a tour, the needs analysis, and supported employment. Employers need to understand all of that. When you feel that you have made enough of a presentation so the employer can understand then I go right to the applicant. I don't have questions there. I will say something like -- that kind of wraps up supported employment. Let me tell what you brought me here today. I would like to introduce you to the job seeker I'm representing today. Her name is Mary Jones, she is interested in working in your company. Let me tell you some information about Mary. At this point, for those of you on the portfolio calls, we use a portfolio as a visual resume to get the kind of information about the job seeker to the employer in a visual context, representing the best of who they are. In doing that another five minutes or so on the employee, then I ask the employer for questions. I try to close the initial presentation with an effort to do a tour and needs analysis. I will have the employer think about that. That's the initial presentation.
Slide thrity-four, I just covered slide 34. That's what I just said on the close. You don't ask the employer if they are interested in doing this. I ask if they're interested in continuing the discussion. I don’t want you to make a decision yet, I say, but I would like the chance to come back and look at your company, to offer you a needs analysis, and then in doing that I'm saying you will have the information that you need to determine if a customized job description would benefit your company. I'm keeping this focused on employer needs, I'm having the job seeker be a needs meeter for the employer. That's really different than a competitor for an open job. At that point as an employer I'm thinking about all of these job seekers that I have lined up, or laid off workers. I’ve got the employer thinking just a little bit differently. I’m going to slide 35.
Slide thirty-five, Almost all customized job development includes the time for follow-up negotiations. On average it will take about two and a half follow-up negotiations in order to make a deal. Employers just need that kind of opportunity. Dana, I see your question, I will respond to that. So, realize that during the follow-up negotiations it includes a tour, it includes a needs analysis, and all of the in depth questions that need to be asked. These negotiations have two to three days between them to about a week. I try to not have more than a week between any subsequent meeting with an employer because they can just forget about you. If it's a Monday I might try to come back on Thursday or Friday. If it's Thursday I might try to come back the next Tuesday. Don't let too much time pass if you can help it. Here you are negotiating and coming to terms with the deal. During the follow-up negotiations, folks, nobody has asked about this, is the first time the employer meets and interviews the job seeker. I don't recommend in customized employment taking the job seeker on the initial presentation. Why? Because the employer's focus is going to be on the job seeker and not on what you have to say. If you can get past that opening meeting, the employer may still hold back, it might be the second or third meeting, but I almost never take the job seeker on the first meeting if the job seeker will allow that. That's cutting the deal. Let me do one more thing. I'm just about done. I will get to all of these questions in the 12 minutes or so.
Slide thirty-six, The the final aspect of job development is it's incumbent on the job developer to close the deal. If you wait on the employer we could be waiting forever. As soon as the job developer feels the employer has enough information to make a decision to ask the question. What closing the deal means is you are saying do you think this will work for you? Something like -- do you see anything else that needs to be done before you can make a decision? Is there anything standing in our way? What can I offer you to make this work? What additional information do you need to make this work? That's taking a positive approach and employers respect that and expect it. It's been quick. We covered a lot of information during this time. I am going to put my contact information up.
Question: I will go back, I see Dana's question. I'm on the gulf coast, we have casinos. It's a Gateway, employers use that to screen. One of the things we had to determine is we had to do enough research to figure out how to get to an employer by ways other than personnel and HR. That's where those online barriers are. You have to get to a decision maker. We were having to take the time to get to casino managers, they don't talk about personnel issues. If you take the time you can figure out how to do it. I'm just using our local example of casinos. I know that will vary. My point is when you have these personnel procedures that force people into online applications you will never end customized anyway. Those are designed to cull people. You have to get to a decision maker. Even though it's very difficult, there’s no other way to do it.
Question: Billy is, sorry, the screen is moving -- I ask for HR reps or management reps for initial meeting. Billy, I have done a lot of work with HR, and I don’t mind going there, but I think your management rep is a better approach. A decision maker for the work that needs to be done. Personnel almost never knows that.
Question: Robin asked, I would be interested in the letter of self-referral. If you are interested let me know, I will send you a copy. Or we can post it.
Question: Art, after one of my clients filed an online application, I followed up with a visit and was well received. Great! First my bet is your client was pretty competent, had some ways to handle that. Some of work with people that really struggle with online applications. Also, I think it probably then slots your client into their personnel system. I try to avoid it. But good for you that it worked.
We still have a few minutes. Looking for any more questions. I may have missed a few as they came up.
Question: Would you recommend a non-paid internship? Good question. There's two ways it might happen. One, if you've got a job seeker that during the employment plan really felt that a non-paid internship would be better for them that's what I would try to negotiate. Two, if the employer takes me there. If the employer said “would your job seeker be willing to do a brief non-paid internship?”, I would find out the parameters of what the employer had in mind, I would get fairly specific about my negotiation. I would say to the employer, let's look at what you expect the person to do during this internship. Look at what you are looking at. If we meet those are you saying you would then go ahead with a job offer if that is satisfactory? You've got it pretty clear, rather than open-ended. Hope that helps.
Question: Margaret, know that the letter is very, very brief. Don't oversell. Don't give the employer enough information to say I have read over the brochure, we're not interested.
Question: Mark asks a question that could comprise an entire call. I will try to give it a go. Do you ever deal with ADA issues as a job developer? My answer is, when I'm negotiating the job I'm not -- I try not to raise the ADA. It's a compliance concept. As a job developer, during the negotiation of a job, my preference is to keep it off of the table. If the employer brings it up, “how does all this fit with the ADA?”, I will try to answer that. I will say very up-front to an employer, no employment law including the ADA requires you to customized, that is true.
First I question do you want to do the OJT? I would try to get the job first. I know that's sometimes difficult. I want to use the OJT as one of my negotiables. I want to hold it back to make the deal. I don't put it on the table at first. I want to still start with unmet need if I'm customizing, and I need to be doing this with a decision maker and not a personnel person. I hope that helps.
I would like to see the job coaches, placement specialists and other professionals have these -- I can't agree more with you. Most of you are counselors, most of you will not be doing this. Realize you might want ask TACE to provide this for service providers in your area. They need this now that you've got it. I couldn't agree more. Just keep that in mind.
Seeing a lot of thanks. People are beginning to sign off. Steffany, I have about five minutes left in the total time. I'm not seeing any other questions at the moment.
Question: Transition VR counselor -- oops -- every time the new information comes in I lose the thought. Work permit -- gosh, we may have to research this question. I have been working in this area also. I have not found this issue yet. We may have to research this one. Hopefully we can hold on to this to see if we can find some information. It looks like the employer paying for each permit or certificate. And the counselor no longer provides this form. If I were a job coach I would offer to do that. That's my first feeling. Maybe we can work with a little more research on this. I see a number of people who would like the letter of self-referral. I will work with the TACE folks to post it. They'll somehow let you know, or get it to you. Any of you are free to contact me, I would send it to you. Steffany, I want to turn this over to you. I will release the mic and let you wrap-up.
Steffany: Yes, thank you so much, Mike. Great information today. Great questions from our participants. We appreciate the time you've taken to present to our audience. I want to remind participants that a transcript of the session along with all of the information Mike has provided will be posted on our TACE website within approximately two weeks after the session. You can find that information at TACEsoutheast.org. We will get the information that Mike talked about posted. CEU and CRC credits are pending for this session. If you do want to get those credits, you do have to score 80% or better. The posttest will be available within 30 minutes to an hour after this session. If you have any questions or anything that comes up and you want to send us an email or contact us please feel free to give me a call at 1-866-518-7850. That information is on the screen here. Or send us an email. I would like to go ahead and bring their session to a close and thank you for your participation. Be sure to fill out your evaluation form for this webinar. Yes, there's an evaluation. It will be located on the website. Please feel free to fill that out. We love to get the information. Thank you, and have a great day.
[Event Concluded January 13, 2010]