The job mobility and human advancement aspects have prompted a critical element of absorbing people with disability in the employment opportunities available in different organizations. The Walgreens retailers have been in the front line propelling this initiative as it takes steps in establishing a second facility designed to employ particularly individuals with disabilities in Windsor, Connecticut with their first facility being in South Carolina. The Walgreens retailers has opened a new leaf in the way organizations and companies should equally consider employing people with disabilities within their workforce by making sure that a third of their slots of available jobs are reserved for this category of individuals.
Contrary to the thinking of many, the Walgreens facility at South Carolina after constituting its workforce of 400 individuals with 40% of the individuals having a cognitive or physical disability, its efficiency levels increased by 20% since it was opened. Therefore, the changing times in the way business if done in the global context encourages the different organizations to recognize, commit and invest in individuals with disabilities. This is because the demographic trends indicate that more companies and organizations should and will ultimately adopt the trend of absorbing people with disabilities in their workforce due to the decreasing growth of the traditional labor pool, the increase in disability rates and the aging workforce creating fundamental workforce implications.
Critical Thinking Question 1 –Benefits
The benefit that Walgreen receives as a result of leading the campaign towards hiring people with disabilities is building a reputable image with the community where it is based. It achieves this by creating a workforce, which gives a reflection of the diverse range of the customers it serves. This makes it have a positive brand image as the community views it to be incorporative of all individuals and give equal chances for everyone in the society to have an opportunity to engage productively (Kaletta, Binks & Robinson, 2012).
Secondly, apart from the fact that Walgreens could gain from absorbing the increasing number of high quality applicants to fill its workforce and increase the retailers’ productivity, this category of workforce come along with additional knowledge, technical know-how, and skills into the business or organization. These could include bringing along the ability to use the British Sign Language (BSL), which could save so much for the business and thus increase performance of the organization.
Critical Thinking Question 2 –Barriers for Individuals with Disabilities
There are a number of misconceptions that tend to prevent the full inclusion of individuals with disabilities in the workforce of the different businesses and organizations. These hindering factors would include:
The alarming stereotypical attitudes and assumptions of the employers about what can be done and what cannot be done by individuals with disabilities. Some of the employers think that people with disability with only do a particular set of jobs thereby exhibiting a likelihood of not being equally productive like the normally-functioning workforce.
Additionally, organizations have the perception that it is highly costly to employ a person with a disability when it comes to possible workplace adjustments.
There is a lack of confidence and awareness in creating a workplace which constitutes both the normally functioning individuals and the people with disabilities.
Some employers feel that there is a high financial impact of absorbing people with disabilities in terms of sick leave, compensation, and OH&S regulations.
Key Learnings
Scaling a greater reputable levels
When an organization embraces hiring and employing a workforce with diverse backgrounds, it builds a good rapport with the community and the general public as it shows high levels of inclusivism of every individual in the community and making them productive in their own best ways (Wehman, 2011). Moreover, people give a lot of preference to organizations which hire people with disabilities, and thus increasing business opportunities for such organizations and companies.
Creation of awareness on the plight of the disabled
The people with disabilities face a lot of challenges in the societies we live. These start from the perception problem. The “Emerging Trends” case study, therefore, pricks our minds in the manner we perceive these people with disabilities, how productive they can be engaged, the potential in terms of skills, expertise, and knowledge that have been just left idle with this group of individuals and their general place in our societies at large.
References
Wehman, P. H. (2011). Employment for persons with disabilities: Where are we now and where do we need to go?. Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation,35(3), 145.
Kaletta, J. P., Binks, D. J., & Robinson, R. (2012). Creating an inclusive workplace: Integrating employees with disabilities into a distribution center environment. Professional Safety, 57(06), 62-71.
