advancing access and equity is the theme for October as National Disability Employment Awareness Month.

>> It is a time to celebrate the contributions of America's workers with disabilities and it's also an opportunity to showcase supportive inclusive employment practices.

>> And among those agencies taking the lead in this field is Goodwill Industries local goodwill across the country help people overcome challenges to build skills, find jobs, grow their careers all through the power of work.

>> Goodwill Industries of Northeast Indiana has been serving our region since nineteen thirty seven and we'll learn more about the organization's efforts to ensure that people with disabilities are fully involved in the workplace and the community and will do that on this edition of Prime Time.

And good evening, I'm Bruce Haines.

Joining us today are two guests from Goodwill Industries of Northeast Indiana where Kevin Morris is the president and CEO and Randy Wolfe is the vice president of Mission and Program Services.

And we invite you to join our conversation.

Just call in with your questions and comments.

>> You'll see the number right there on the screen as we widen out and welcome again Kevin and Randy from Goodwill Industries in northeast Indiana.

>> Gentlemen, thank you.

Thank you for having us.

This is great.

We've had the opportunity every year for the last several to get together to talk about this month for national disability employment in the workplace and the awareness that it brings and happened to notice over the last couple of years that the percentage of those with disabilities in the workplace has actually been rising that it has and I'm wondering if you see this as a sign for advancing that notion of access and equity and if that's also rippling over into northeast Indiana?

>> You know, I think there's a lot of things that play into that.

But you know, the the shortage of workers overal is helping us coming out of covid there was kind of a change inpattitudw they approached hiring.

And also I just think that general awareness when you look at all the organizations that are pulling together to discuss this topic year round not only in October but year round and put the emphasis on it is actually paying off.

>> And as we moved into twenty twenty three from this past winter it was the Indiana Department of Workforce Development that said that there were at that time about 130000 jobs in Indiana to be filled and yet during that time of such a worker shortage, approximately 200000 talented Hoosiers with disabilities, 66 percent of them I believe it was wanting to work so the possibility of additional connections if I'm Goodwill Industries, I'm seeing that as an opportunity.

>> It's part of our mission is to make sure that we are looking at the overall picture when we talk to an employer something I've been doing for many years.

I was an employer in the past and getting that message to those individuals that do the hiring, no one explaining what it's all about.

>> Number two explaining the advantages and number three, letting those just like hiring anybody else and and that's just the basic concept.

And then an agency like Goodwill comes into play where we provide support.

>> Randy's got some of those programs talking about job coaches.

Yeah, well Goodwell as part of a system that helps individuals to prepare, find and succeed in the jobs.

>> And you were talking earlier about employers and Kevin was talking about employers needing individuals that have skills that can work and a lot of employers that are finding that the advantage of hiring individuals disabilities play into their filling those roles that they've been looking for in the workforce.

There's a lot of opportunities out there as Kevin said that there's a lot of openings and companies are realizing that there's a talent pool out there that individuals can be used to to fill those jobs.

>> And what's important to note here and things that are worth tucking away as we move through October the Goodwill Industries is the largest provider of workforce development services in the not for profit world.

>> That is one that I think when we say Goodwill Industries and we see the retail store.

Yes.

So take me behind the retail store or starting with the retail store and how they all contribute together to achieve that part of our focus this year is letting people see behind that curtain because everybody does know the Goodwill Store or at least think they know the Goodwill Store.

But there's a method to what we do there that leads to the funding that opens up all the opportunities and there's a lot of hidden things that we do behind the scenes.

So we've got the retail the retail income we call the donated goods retail all those really great donations we get in, go to our stores sorted, put on the floor to sell and that that money flows into our our our programs like Randy will handle.

We also when it comes to behind the scenes we do a lot of salvage work recycling work that people don't realize.

>> For instance, if you've got a computer sitting at home, Bruce , it's way outdated.

You know what to do with it.

Bring to us we will recycle we've got a contract with Dell the reconnect program and we at no charge will accept computers and all the accessories took to it and that becomes a revenue stream for us by giving those back to Dell to be recycled, we recycle all the old clothing that we can't sell.

That's quite the operation down that we we bail we sell it on the open market.

That price varies.

It's kind of down right now.

So we're looking at other options.

>> I was talking with us with one of your staff earlier who likes goodwill.

We have a new clearance program in our stores and it's been out there maybe for six weeks now approximately and before everybody the shops well knows that our tags have a color and it's a color of the week and they flow and when it gets to a certain point we would pull it off the floor and we would send it to be salvaged, baled and sold on the market probably at twenty cents a pound.

But instead now it gets to stay in the store longer for a clearance area where it sold for a dollar forty nine an item to generate more income there because I'll tell you the equivalent on that.

I did the math the other day for the dollar value of clades we sold so far in this short time period we would have had to have bailed almost a hundred tons of clothes to make the same amount of money and all that money feeds into programs like Randy has right.

>> And that's that's where it is really hidden in our operation between the employment services program and Prince.

>> Yeah, some of our prime programing is that we work with individuals that are looking for employment get referred to us by the state of Indiana's vocational rehab system most of our referrals and they get referred us to maybe come in to identify a job or to figure out their skill sets.

Maybe they've been injured and they have to find a new career and look for a new job so they come to us and we sit with them and we work to help them discover maybe a new career and work towards identifying those jobs that might be a good fit for them.

And so they continue on through our services through to help through job development and resume writing and practicing interviews and to eventually find a job and then once they find employment we offer services for job coaching to help them maintain their employment and I've seen that with the opportunity for extended follow along services.

I think it's called supportive employment.

Yes, is another outreach and no one goes through it alone.

You have your national partnerships at a local level as well with I believe it's Walgreens and some other retail training and so on to to get folks that much more ready should they find themselves on a path toward being involved in retail?

>> Our Goodwill's are ready provider.

It's a national thing through Goodwell there's a number of different Goodwill's across the United States that belong to this and we have a person on staff who's trained to teach all aspects of the Walgreens retail store.

It allows an individual to go there, learn every aspect of it and if they succeed and do well and and the manager at the store likes them, they can help them navigate through the application process and bypass some of the rougher things of filling out an online application and maybe not passing some of the questions that they ask.

They can walk them right on through and then they can be employed and and it works for everyone.

>> So Walgreens is a good employee.

The person gets a job in a field that they're interested in and like I also like the one training program we could all use which is called skills to pay the bills.

>> I should say that to myself.

More of it.

Yeah.

As part of getting the job money management is a big piece of that and some skills to pay the bills is a program that can help individuals learn about managing money checkbook if we write checks anymore sometime and learning how to manage that money so they can meet some of the goals of their life that you know, get in the car and get an apartment and a house and and being self-sufficient.

So really the goal of going through all of our programs is to help an individual be self-sufficient and that's where we come back to the theme and maybe the themes given in the last several years really I'll still bring about that importance of inclusion right.

Truly about that you have the hard skills, you have the soft skills and that whether you're behind your desk at work or next to a desk, you know, seated at home or in a place of rest that you're you're feeling good about where you are to it all.

>> It's a very holistic approach.

You know, the over the past several years we've been working with work to include that as an organization and or a committee based organization and was spread throughout the entire state of Indiana.

>> The governor's council put that together in twenty eighteen.

That program at the state level has gone away but locally we still run that and the sole purpose of work to include is to help educate employers on exactly what you're talking about, how that all fits together, how the partnerships work, what it means to hire somebody with a disability and what supports they're going to get and those pieces of the puzzle all come together.

And there's one other thing that that we do too.

And this is something that I experienced when I was at my past employer Greater Fort Wayne INQ I had a situation where I was notified that somebody was struggling in their job.

I knew that Goodwill had placed that person so I was able to reach out to them.

They were able to send a job coach back out there and help that person get back on track with her employment and the job that they were doing and work to include in particular, did you find that there was a period of myth busting that needed to happen?

You know, the the addressing concerns that that sometimes surface and perhaps unreasonably or understandably but they can be addressed related to hiring people with disabilities?

It's really funny.

In my career when I was a fledgling assistant manager for a major retailer and I was hiring the first person I knew that had a visible and obvious disability and I hired him, I was willing to give him a chance and then I was scared because I had to go tell my boss that I had hired this person.

I wasn't sure how he'd take it and it turned out to be a lesson for both of us because that person became one of the best employees best associates that we had working for us, came to work on time, knew the basics, got the job done, didn't try to sneak out early.

We didn't find him hiding in the manager or the yeah.

The manager's office killing time you know.

So it was it was an education for both of us and then from there my knowledge grew and now it's our job to pass that knowledge on to others.

>> And certainly Randy, from your experience you've you've heard these these stories.

>> Yeah, we have one good story that happened just recently.

A couple of interesting ones won.

We had a young man working at a woodworking facility and he had been placed there over a year ago and been doing very well on the job.

He goes into his own human resources department and said he wants to quit and there I talked to him about a little bit and the young man who has is on the autism spectrum and so they caught our job coach and he wanted to talk to our job coach and so our job coach went out to the facility and met with the human resources young man and tried to get to figure out what was going on.

But what happened was there was a person who was very skilled in every job in that facility got put into a management position and didn't have management training and a lot of places do that.

You know, you get your best work and you move into management and then they haven't had the training for management.

Well, this individual was asking a young man to do all these different jobs and just kept throwing things at him and everything.

And so it was it was making him very uncomfortable.

So so having our job coach went in, talk to the employer, talk to the supervisor, talk to the plant manager and what they ended up doing in the end was realizing that young man would do best under a supervisor who was more skilled and they moved him over there because he didn't want to lose this young man because actually he knew how to build these things better than a lot of other workers in the facility so they didn't want to lose him and so they moved him to there and he's been successful and that's within months ago now.

And and another good success story they got to keep a good employee this young man's life .

You know, he's got his goals he wants to do and he didn't want to leave that job and he got to be able to stay there.

>> So everybody won in that situation.

Absolutely.

And research as they say shows the kinds of workplace feedback that comes as employer and employee and profit who do the skill set ups work companies have a two times higher net income than peers without disability inclusion initiatives turnover half that of other employees businesses that hire are preferred by consumers who take that role positive impact on retention of existing employees.

>> It seems that that's the inclusion part of the work to include it is and it's amazing the may remember a few winters ago we had those polar vortex two winters back to back.

I was based in Kendall Bell at the time and that weather made it difficult for people to get to work and I was having people that lived across the street call off for work but the three people who had disabilities who lived all over Mobile County found a way to get to work and helped it helped us so we could have the store open that day to serve customers.

They were that dedicated to it and and they weren't going to miss work for any reason that that's incredible that they come, they work, they stay and they and they make everybody feel a lot happier to be there.

>> So what is it that you go through to encourage that meetup, if you will, between employer and prospective employee?

>> What how does that go down on individual comes into services?

We do what we call discovery which is work with the individuals to figure out what their skill sets are and look at what their past history is.

>> We've had we had attorneys come into services.

We've had people have been teachers.

The one example is the teacher came in.

She says I can't stand on the floor anymore.

She says I want to find a new job but it's been years I've never felt I've worked this job for thirty years.

I've never filled out an online application.

Hers was paper so we helped her fill out some applications.

She's got a job in the library and off she went and that's the type of situation where she needs very little support from us.

But what we gave her was to help her get just get back on track and get started.

We have other individuals that come in that we actually even sometimes go to the interview process with.

So it's a broad spectrum of individuals that come into services that have a variety of skills and disabilities and all across the board to help us work with so well and the opportunity when that does happen for those skills and you see what they have.

One of the trends I've noticed, Kevin , is that in the last couple of years it is the importance being placed on additional skills for perhaps doing the same kind of job that didn't need those skills.

You know, the original set just has to be amped up a little bit more.

>> The idea that skill requirements are increasing existing jobs require higher skills, digital skills, more things online.

>> Are you starting to notice that we are seeing that and one of the problems we're seeing with with the shortage of workers, the shortage of applicants that employers are asking them to be more of a jack of all trades no matter what they're doing and and so that's where we come and we start working with the employers.

One of the things that that I used to talk to in my last position I ran the the program that was for disability initiatives and I would talk to employers and part of my training for employers is OK, you need to break down that job description just a little bit.

OK, so you've got twenty two essential functions.

Do you really need to have twenty two essential functions and so we have to teach and train that employer that they need to pare back what the real two , three, four or five whatever to understand what they need to do to not overtax an individual and this goes for anybody that's on their staff.

You want to drive somebody away from a job, even somebody who does not have a disability is to start layering on like that.

They'll flee the scene pretty quickly.

One of the opportunities that you have within October in addition to the other eleven months of the year is there is an upcoming job fair that kind of helps tile this together and even for employers perhaps who don't feel they have an immediate need for staff, they might audit that job fair and drop by just to see what's going on.

Tell me about what's coming up on COVID 19.

>> Yep, October 19th at Fort Wayne Urban League which is on Hannah Street and I think we have up on the screen is a job fair from eleven to two and it will have a number of employers that have traditionally done a good job of knowing how to work with individual with disabilities in the workforce and know how to take advantage of that opportunity and then obviously any anybody else that wants to come and the other employers want to come visit it and see what it's like or that would be welcome to come to.

>> So we have an additional graphic that helps figure out literally where to park it does you know, when you when you go to these events right now, especially with Fort Wayne with all the construction we have going on, it can be difficult to find your location.

So the map on the screen is showing where to go to, how to get to it and then how to find the proper parking and where to enter in the building.

So we answer all those questions up front.

I also believe we're going have some signage to help direct people to that front door to get them in there.

But we just want to give this opportunity to anybody that's available to stop in and visit with the folks there and we may also have a few service providers there as well if there's other questions besides just working with employers that Thursday the 19th is also important evening after the business of the day comes the fun part at night.

What's going on?

>> It is called Eat Drink and be scary.

Now this is something that my board of directors asked me to do and so I kind of asked around when was the last time we did an event like this and we have a 30 year employee who said I never saw one.

So this is this is our first our first time we've stepped into this pool.

It's our night to get together.

Great food out of a jam is going to be providing our food for us that night is going to be themed Halloween it's a costume ball.

You want to dress up and have fun but most of all it's a night for us to talk about goodwill.

Do you really know goodwill what we're really all about?

You know, there's been a lot of bad things on social media in the past.

There's been a lot of bad press and people really don't understand how important goodwill is to our community.

This event is an opportunity to come and have some good food and listen to us talk about and there's also we're going to a magician there doing some comedic, you know, magic.

Dan Austins, our emcee sources to be a fun evening full love it.

>> This is down at the bottom there too.

You can see that glow in the dark green is the website F.W.

Goodwill.

Doug will share that toward the end of the program.

We do have an offline question for you both and this one is from Sandy Who wants to know can former employees of Goodwill be rehired after a period of time?

>> Yes, this is that simple.

>> Yes.

We we we look at ourselves first off we want to be a destination employer.

We hire people of all skills and abilities.

We look at all backgrounds and we're also a second chance employer for people with certain backgrounds or certain difficulties, even a third chance employer.

So even though you've worked for us before and left, we're willing to look at you again and see how you fit back into the organization because we believe that everybody deserves that chance to come back if they wish to.

>> Sandy , we thank you very much for being able to check in with us on that point.

So an inclusive workforce for an employer that says I think I am how would an employer know I am?

That's an interesting question actually.

And I don't recall the organization and offhand but there is an organization that will actually set up a survey program with the employer and if anybody has a question about this, they can contact me in the future.

I'll give them all the details.

But basically it gives you a chance to assess yourself as an employer.

You're you know whether you know are you correct with ADA or are you handling those things properly both for the physical plant and for the mobility issues, accessibility and they do this every year and there's a period of time where you can actually answer the question here.

You send it in, they send back the answers or you call us I'm a nationally certified ADA coordinator and I will provide a free service of coming to your organization or business and talking with you about where you're at and what you're doing and help you understand if you're doing it right.

We're moving into our final minute but I want to share a quote from Steve Preston National CEO for Goodwill who said For Goodwill we are a charity that seeks to end the need for charity in a person's life because with the right kind of support there's no looking back and to that you say yes before you know that's what it comes down to because the thought processes help a person find a decent job that fits her, you know, whether it helps to step up into that next better job and to step into that career because it's really out there for everybody and reality.

>> How about you?

Well, I yeah.

What Kevin I think is very well there is a lot to see and to explore.

One hundred and twenty years nationally eight more than eighty five locally thirty three hundred stores eight of them in northeast Indiana and more than two million served and there is room for you with your question or thoughts for yourself or for a member of your family you can be in touch f. w. good will dog and a reminder a big day in the neighborhood COVID 19 with the job fair by day and eaten can be scary by night again information for playing available online.

Kevin Morris is the president and CEO of Goodwill of Northeast Indiana.

Randy Wolfe is the vice president of Mission and Program Services.

>> Gentlemen, thank you so much.

Thank you, Bruce .

It's always a pleasure.

Thank you.

Good to have them and good to have you as well.

And for all of us with prime time, I'm Bruce Haines.

Take care and we'll see you next week right here.

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