This article is also available in: 日本語
*** Part 3 is here ***
Before visiting Seattle, I had a chance to talk with Ms. Michelle Collyer, a senior Analyst at Starbucks, over the phone.
I had not met Michelle in person at that time, but I feel we share similar values about promoting rights for people with disabilities.
Moreover, she was very supportive and kind to organize people that I could meet at Starbucks.
I was truly impressed by her wide network, and really appreciated her strong support.
One of the people whom Michelle introduced me at Starbucks was Ms. Jessica Rafuse.
She is manager within the Equal Employment Opportunity team at Starbucks.
Jessica has muscular dystrophy and started using a wheelchair when she was a college student.
During college, she even studied abroad in Spain where was not as accessible as the US is for wheelchair user.
“That was 14 years ago, but living in Spain was a life changing experience for me.
I felt a sense of accomplishment that served as a foundation throughout my life.
We have to remove barriers that prevent people with disabilities from developing that sense of accomplishment and experiencing their own success.”
Jessica’s experiences in Spain inspired her to attend Law School.
After she finished her law degree and became an attorney, she worked as an Investigator and Administrative Judge for the Federal agency, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) which is in charge of enforcing federal non-discrimination laws in the workplace.
Through the job, she got more interested in understanding the employers’ perspective.
In 2013, she started working at Starbucks in affirmative action and non-discrimination.
In 2014, Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act was updated to include a 7% hiring goal and 7% utilization goal for people with disabilities. (*1)
Jessica and her team track Starbucks employment of minorities, women, veterans, and people with disabilities, and builds employment strategies for hiring people with disabilities.
To empower employment for people with disabilities, Jessica works with Starbucks business units to develop individualized hiring strategies.
One of the hiring strategies is the training academy within Starbuck’s supply chain.
At Starbucks manufacturing and distribution plants in Nevada and York, Starbucks offers a 6-week training academy just for people with disabilities.
The trainees learn corporate culture and how to be a manufacturing or distribution employee, including soft skills such as preparation for interviews too.
The trainees have 2 weeks of hands-on work in the plant.
Once they graduate from the program, they may be offered a job at Starbucks or use the certification as a resume-builder for employment at other manufacturing or distribution plants in the area.
Jessica said,
“We began by asking managers about their goals for hiring.
Then we noticed that everyone shared the same goal.
They wanted to hire the very best person for the job.
So we started looking at a way to show that someone with a disability might already be the very best person for the job.
We asked employees with disabilities,
“What are your strengths? What are your assets? What are you really good at?”
People shared stories about innovation, communication, and other skills that they honed because of their disabilities.
We saw that tapping into this often underutilized pool of qualified candidates was good for business too.
For example, some people with diabetes test their blood sugar every day.
They may plan ahead what meals to eat during a day, what medical supplies to pack, and what to do in case of an emergency.
Every day, they are practicing project management skills that are a huge asset to the workplace.
I would make an argument that someone with diabetes might actually be the best project manager you can hire. ”
People with and disabilities have skills and assets that they contribute to the workplace.
However, like Jessica said, some people with disabilities have developed unique skills as a result of navigating the world through the disability perspective.
It is because people with disabilities see, hear, and move differently.
Because of that, people with disabilities are unconsciously building their skills through having disabilities.
This was a new finding to me.
In Japanese employment market, one of the serious issues is that many companies have low expectations to people with disabilities.
Jessica said earlier “They want to hire the very best person for the job”.
I believe Japanese employers think exactly same way too.
However I wonder when Japanese employers think about “the very best person”, would they ever consider people with disabilities may be one of the very best person?
Unfortunately, people with disabilities are unconsciously removed from “the very best person” from the beginning, aren’t they?
By visiting Starbucks and meeting impressive people, I realized the strength of diversity and inclusion in the workplace.
I found that Starbucks is viewing talents of people and aiming to maximize their abilities at what they want to do, not what employers want them to do.
This whole concept make Starbucks stronger and more attractive to people.
Lastly I will share the message from Howard Schultz CEO.
This really mirrors Starbucks’s value.
We are not in the coffee business serving people, we are in the people business serving coffee.
– Howard Schultz CEO
The end
* New Regulations: Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act