The power of inclusion, extending our learnings from the Supported Employment Program

Our mission at Microsoft would be to empower everyone and each organization in the world to attain more. Which includes the fir  billion individuals with disabilities all over the world. We feel that individuals with disabilities really are a strength for the company along with a talent pool that contributes not only diversity but expertise and empathy which make our products, services and culture better. Under this guiding principle, during the last many years we've launched employment programs centered on getting within the untapped talent of individuals with disabilities. Certainly one of individuals programs is our Supported Employment program operated by our Property and Facilities team. Because the program began, over 270 supplier positions happen to be filled by exterior staff with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) on Microsoft campuses globally, which number is continuously growing. The learnings happen to be immense and also have helped shape our method of exterior staffing. We're discussing these learnings with this supplier base well over 30,000 organizations all over the world.

The mission of Microsoft’s Property and Facilities Supported Employment program is straightforward: work with suppliers and native employment agencies to create a substantial improvement in the lives of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities who've in the past been overlooked within the employment market. Up to now, the Supported Employment program has led to exterior staff with disabilities across 30 unique roles within supplier companies, including receptionist, groundskeeper, bus washer, day porter, office administration, project coordinator, common area reset specialist, assistant chef and dishwasher.

Their email list of supplier companies taking part in this program is continually expanding, and includes ABM, CBRE, Compass Group, Corporate Care, Davidson-Macri Sweeping, Exela Technologies, MV Transportation, Northwest Landscape Services, SBM, Suddath and Zee Medical.

This program started in 2013 in Redmond, Washington, in the Microsoft headquarters and it has expanded to locations across The United States, Europe, the center East and Asia. In India, 15 people with disabilities happen to be hired by our suppliers in a number of Microsoft locations for various roles, including mailroom assistant and reception assistant.

People frequently inquire about the outcome on business. Employment of individuals with disabilities will work for values and great for the conclusion. There are lots of types of employees with disabilities who're more loyal, reducing the price of turnover, the price of recruitment and the price of onboarding. The figures reveal that firms that champion disability inclusion tend to be more lucrative, based on the Disability Inclusion Advantage-Dealing with Equal, October 2018. But figures are just thing about this story. Essential may be the impact that hiring may have around the existence of somebody who faces barriers to employment. By having an unemployment rate for those who have disabilities that's two times those of the nation's average, the chance is real and now is the time.

All the workers hired by our suppliers with the Supported Employment Program earn an aggressive wage and receive advantages of their employers entirely-time or part-time roles. This really is consistent with our mission and our values of inclusion. However, today in areas of the U.S. and round the globe, individuals with disabilities could be compensated under minimum wage, or “subminimum wage” - sometimes less than cents around the dollar. We don't pay under the relevant minimum wage, so we require our suppliers to complete exactly the same because we feel in fair wages for those. A week ago, additional language was put into our Supplier Code of Conduct to reconfirm the duty to pay for the relevant minimum wage to everybody.

Those who happen to be an element of the Supported Employment Program would be the most powerful proof of the need for inclusion. We encourage you to look into the tales of a few of the employees in Puget Seem using these short videos: Tanya Harris, production assistant at Suddath Austin Landon, common area reset specialist at CBRE Kyle Van Allan, crew member at Northwest Landscape Services and Leila Miles, receptionist at Exela Technologies. We're pleased to are convinced that as these videos were released, Austin Landon continues to be promoted to project coordinator at CBRE around the Supported Employment Program team in Redmond.