Gain Strong Agency Performance Through a Diverse Workforce
Hiring people from diverse backgrounds, including people with disabilities, is not just beneficial in meeting EEOC reporting requirements; it also helps your agency perform its overall mission by having the skills and talents that diverse teams bring. Research shows that women and minorities exhibit flexible thinking in their approaches to problem solving and are more responsive in adjusting their behaviors to fit different situations.1
According to a 2005 Government Accounting Office (GAO) report on diversity management (PDF):2
A high-performance organization relies on a dynamic workforce with the requisite talents, multidisciplinary knowledge, and up-to-date skills to ensure that it is equipped to accomplish its mission and achieve its goals. Such organizations typically (1) foster a work environment in which people are enabled and motivated to contribute to mission accomplishment and (2) provide both accountability and fairness for all employees. To accomplish these objectives, high-performance organizations are inclusive, drawing on the strengths of employees at all levels and of all backgrounds—an approach consistent with diversity management.
SSA Incorporates Diversity into Overall Recruitment Plan
People with disabilities have become an invaluable resource to federal agencies and federal agencies are beginning to recognize this more in their recruiting priorities. One such example is the Social Security Administration (SSA). SSA has made great strides in hiring people with disabilities. According to the Annual Report of the Federal Workforce 2006,3 over 2% of SSA’s workforce has a targeted disability, second only to Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in percentage of all federal agencies over 500 employees. SSA accomplishes this by incorporating disability into their overall recruitment plan.
In 2006, EEOC highlighted SSA’s disability recruiting and invited them to give testimony concerning their relatively good success in recruiting and hiring people with disabilities. They credit their success to top level support, education of managers, use of hiring flexibilities including Schedule A, provision of a comprehensive accommodations program, and accountability where managers track and report their results. Read more about SSA’s successes.
SSA’s Center for Disability Services, a semifinalist of the Innovations in American Government Award, received a certificate award from the Ford Foundation and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University for its excellence in providing accommodations to SSA employees with disabilities, which included a percentage of employees hired via Schedule A.
According to Diana M. Miller, EO Analyst with SSA,
“SSA spends millions annually on accommodations for employees with disabilities. We consider this a small investment compared to the billions of dollars saved by reducing disability benefits the agency disburses yearly while also strengthening the posture of SSA’s programs.”
Adds Faye Seehafer, Branch Chief, Social Security Administration, about an employee:
Joseph Winns has worked on the Paperless Project since 2000 when he was hired through the Schedule A hiring authority for people with disabilities. Even though Joseph has a disability, his disability does not interfere with the outstanding job that Joseph has done for the team. I would highly recommend hiring anyone who has a disability who is capable of meeting the job requirements.
IRS Utilizes Strategic Marketing Campaign for Recruiting People with Disabilities
Another agency taking proactive steps to include disability in their diversity recruiting is the IRS. Upper management commits the necessary personnel and financial resources to its strategic marketing campaign for recruiting people with disabilities. They use ad placements in disability publications and participate in career fairs and college recruitment activities for students with disabilities. They partner with organizations and publications such as EARN, Careers and the Disabled, Ability Magazine and National Business and Disability Council to promote IRS opportunities for people with disabilities.
IRS ads highlight the professional and community contributions their employees with disabilities have made, including a recent ad featuring a revenue agent who also competes around the world as a Paralympiad. IRS disability recruitment ads feature real current IRS employees with disabilities. Each ad is unique in that it promotes the employee with a disability’s achievements both in the workplace and in their personal lives. IRS is currently producing a disability recruitment DVD that includes a former Paralympic gold medal winner and member of the Paralympic Committee, a wheelchair marathon racer and a host of other disabled employees.
The IRS found that when they went to college recruiting events, there were very few students with disabilities. As a result, they partnered with college career offices, disability coordinators and disabled vets to outreach to students with disabilities on campus. In partnership with the National Business Disability Council, they host four to five college career events each year with an average of 20 students at each event. IRS recruiters meet with students to discuss interviewing tips, give an overview of IRS and the opportunities available and then interview the students.
The IRS also has a longstanding relationship with Lions World to recruit and train people who are blind for customer service positions. Since 1967, IRS has sent staff instructors to screen and train Lions World participants in 4 month courses to prepare to be hired by IRS as customer service representatives. The program results in approximately 40 IRS hires per year.
For more information about IRS’s recruiting of people with disabilities, please contact Kevin Tyrrell at Kevin.D.Tyrrell@irs.gov.
1 Diversity in Context: How Organizational Culture Shapes Reactions to Workers with Disabilities and Others Who Are Demographically Different. Spataro, SE, Behavioral Sciences and the Law Behav. Sci. Law 23: 21–38 (2005). Published online in Wiley InterScience. DOI: 10.1002/bsl.623
2 U.S. Government Accountability Office, Diversity Management 2005: 1.
3 U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Annual Report on the Federal Workforce Fiscal Year 2006: I18-I19.
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