The Diversity Partners model of employer engagement encourages “enhanced services” to businesses as a means of building sustaining high-quality relationships with employers. This webinar will highlight a unique partnership in Pennsylvania that results in enhanced service to employers and more jobs for people with disabilities: The 21 and Able Career Transition Program.

Through the Career Transition Program, the United Way partners with employers and job coach agencies to embed a career transition professional (person with expertise in disability services/vocational rehabilitation) within a company to serve as a disability recruiter. Over 5 years, nearly 400 individuals with disabilities have gained competitive employment with 50 of Pennsylvania’s top employers. The embedded recruiter has the specialized expertise to elevate job candidates with disabilities for open positions and provide retention services to all of the company’s employees with disabilities. This professional can also act as a single point of contact with other outside agencies who support people with disabilities looking for work. This partnership improves the talent pipeline for employers, and creates a climate of inclusion for employees with disabilities.

Partnerships are essential to the success of healthy organizations. Did you ever wonder why some partnerships thrive, while others fade away? Strong relationships require ongoing attention, and they must be mutually beneficial to last. This webinar will identify some of the characteristics of effective partnerships with employers for employment service professionals. In addition, you will hear from the Mid-Missouri Business Leadership Network and the Columbia Employment Consortium, real-life examples of a successful business led-coalition and a collaborative provider group supporting community level engagement in Missouri.

Diversity Partners is an innovative, employer-driven, national initiative that offers an array of no-cost, web-based learning modules for employment service professionals looking to build stronger relationships with employers. This webinar will focus on the importance of “doing it right” when engaging with employers, and offers an introduction to our Leadership Toolbox.

The Leadership Toolbox contains resources, tools, and planning guides to help organizations create an environment that emphasizes and supports frontline personnel in their efforts to develop effective business engagement strategies. This session is for anyone interested in playing a role in creating a culture of excellence in employment. Organizational leaders and frontline employment staff welcome. Join Cornell’s Diversity Partners staff Jeffrey Tamburo and Wendy Strobel Gower for this interesting and interactive learning opportunity!

For employment service providers, building partnerships with employers is a critical step ensuring that people with disabilities can gain access to work. This webinar will provide practical approaches from proven field success for building sustainable relationships with employers and improving employment outcomes for people with disabilities. All too often, employment service professionals market their job seekers using tax incentives and compliance initiatives rather than developing a broader marketing approach highlighting the talent of individuals with disabilities and value they can bring to the workplace. Information will be provided on effective strategies of the importance in developing a personal relationship with key representatives with hiring authority while addressing disability-related concerns such as accessibility, accommodations and supervision. Business relationships are based on two critical elements: trust and credibility. By sharing business testimonials, employer service organizations with the capacity to meet business needs can address bottom line issues including how working with an employment organization saves hiring resources while enhancing business operations.

Through an injection of new funds, ApprenticeshipUSA is enabling states to partner with job-driven industries to develop innovative strategies to increase apprenticeship opportunities. This webinar will highlight how apprenticeship programs can enable employment service providers who support people with disabilities to foster collaboration with employers to create apprenticeship opportunities in local communities. These partnerships will offer a proven path to good, secure middle-class jobs for people with disabilities who are traditionally underrepresented in these opportunities. We will also discuss how employers might approach providing accommodations for apprentices who have disabilities.

As an Employment Service Professional, you are charged with meeting the needs of both employers and job seekers. Join Diversity Partners faculty Jeffrey Tamburo, to learn more about the importance of enhancing your value to employers in order to establish and sustain relationships. Then hear from Michelle Krefft, Resource Manager for Business Services for Iowa Vocational Rehabilitation Services, as she describes her real world experiences with employers, along with strategies to assess and meet the needs of businesses.

The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) has presented a new challenge to workforce development professionals: affirmatively recruit and offer services to more job seekers with disabilities. This webinar will highlight information from the Diversity Partners online modules that can help workforce development professionals achieve greater inclusion of job seekers with disabilities.

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The official National Launch of Diversity Partners!

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As an employment services professional, building relationships with employers is a critical skill to help job seekers with disabilities find work. This relationship usually begins with a conversation about employer needs, and/or the qualifications of a job seeker to meet those needs. Join Diversity Partners faculty Kathleen Lee, and Rick Laferriere, Lead Manager of Workforce Initiatives at CVS Health, for an interactive presentation on the “dos” and “don’ts” of engaging with employers on behalf of job seekers with disabilities.

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