The Buzzz January 2011

Featured Article

There's No Big Secret About Achievement Anymore - Even for Those of Us With Disabilities

By Jim Hasse

It was 1985 (five years before the ADA), and the business editor for The Milwaukee Journal had just interviewed me in my office, as vice president for corporate communication, about what it was like to be in business communications and have a significant disability (an unusual situation, to say the least).

At the editor's suggestion, I was also able to arrange a separate interview for him with my boss, CEO of the company. I assumed they were going to talk about dairy exports.

To my surprise, when the article came out on the Journal's business page a couple of days later, the profile quoted my boss as saying I was an "over-achiever."

I didn't know what that meant then and still consider it a remarkable description that needed context which all three of us couldn't probably provide then. Let me try to do that now, 25 years later.

Here's the back story.

Doctors call me "high functioning," but I've had cerebral palsy since birth, which means I walk and talk with quite some difficulty - which was on the edge of "employability" back in 1965 when I first started working for Wisconsin Dairies. Wisconsin Dairies was the predecessor to what would become Foremost Farms USA, a $3 billion business which ranked in the Fortune 500 during the early 1990s.

I started working, through the recommendation of my uncle, as a newsletter editor for Wisconsin Dairies when it had $30 million in annual sales, but it grew rapidly through merger and consolidation, and my career grew with it.

What was the key to my success?

Focused practice.

Geoff Colvin sums up the power of deliberate practice with a purpose in his book, "Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else" (Portfolio Trade, 2010). He writes:

"...The most important effect of practice in great performers is that it takes them beyond -- or, more precisely, around -- the limitations most of us think of as critical."

He pinpoints exactly why it makes good business sense to hire people with disabilities who have developed the motivation to work hard at precisely the things they need to improve so they can contribute to a company's bottom line.

Colvin cites research that indicates what we think of as "innate talent" is more accurately termed "long-term, sustained practice at what really counts" driven by a passion to reach a goal.

My goal, from about sixth grade, has always been to be able to live an independent life. Even at age 12, I knew I could not expect to have a home and a family of my own without an education and a job.

I knew what the potential alternative was: living in a state institution after my parents died and my siblings had families of their own. Remember, this was the 1950s, and even my uncles openly discussed institutionalization as a fallback possibility for me someday.

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Emergency Evacuation Planning

Unfortunately, we hear too frequently of emergencies in the workplace, and we are reminded of the need to have well thought out evacuation plans in such an event, particularly for our colleagues who happen to have disabilities. We thought this was a good time to refresh our understanding of this issue, and decided to turn to our friends Beth Loy and Linda Carter Batiste of the Job Accommodation Network and tap their expertise.

By Beth Loy, Ph.D and Linda Carter Batiste, J.D.

INTRODUCTION

Interest in emergency evacuation planning has increased dramatically since the September 11 terrorist attacks. In turn, the Job Accommodation Network (JAN) started receiving more calls from employers requesting information about their legal obligation to develop emergency evacuation plans and how to include employees with disabilities in such plans. This publication addresses these issues.

LEGAL REQUIREMENTS

Although employers are not required to have emergency evacuation plans under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), if employers covered by the ADA opt to have such plans they are required to include people with disabilities. Further, employers who do not have emergency evacuation plans may nonetheless have to address emergency evacuation for employees with disabilities as a reasonable accommodation under Title I of the ADA. In addition, employers in certain industries may have obligations to develop emergency evacuation plans under the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act) or under state and local law.

Whether mandatory or voluntary, many employers decide to develop emergency evacuation plans. The following provides steps for including employees with disabilities in those plans.

STEPS FOR INCLUDING EMPLOYEES WITH DISABILITIES IN EMERGENCY EVACUATION PLANNING

I. Plan Development

The first step for including employees with disabilities in emergency evacuation plans is plan development. Plan development begins with identifying accommodation needs. One of the best ways to identify accommodation needs is to ask employees whether they have limitations that might interfere with safe emergency evacuation. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) recently issued guidance that discusses what information employers are allowed to gather when developing an emergency evacuation plan.  

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