Transcript

Interviewer: Playing on what you just said, Mike, could you go into what the key elements of a customized employment approach includes?

Michael Callahan: You want to think about this from two sides, because customized employment is basically, I'm not sure two dimensional is the correct term to use, but it certainly happens from two different perspectives. It happens from the individual that you're representing and getting to know, and it happens from the employer's side. So, you have to think about these elements from both sides of this perspective. Let's start with the individual's side.

The term that I have been using lately to describe the first element is discovery. Discovery is a concept. True customization comes from who the individual is, not an arbitrary norm, not a necessarily arbitrary need in the labor market, but who is this person? And so that's an activity that must occur as a foundation for good customization. There's probably also, since paper is the oil of any bureaucracy, there will be a need to capture that discovery in some way. There are a number of alternatives to do that. I've been associated with a concept called a vocational profile as a way of capturing the information learned during discovery. But any number of options that says to the funding source, “here's what we learned”, would be appropriate.

I think the keystone, the linchpin, for good customization is a plan that is truly customized and to do that, the plan has to be based on the information learned in discovery. It's got to be a blank sheet sort of plan to begin with, not one predetermined by services. But one that asks all members of a representative group, certainly that involves both professionals, but beyond that people not paid to be at the meeting representing the individual’s best interests and assisting the individual as that individual may need or want in articulating what's important to them. So, the customized planning process, I think, is very, very important. And also within that process is something that I don't see too often in planning. And that is, in order to truly customize, to increase the likelihood that a resulting job will feel customized to the individual, we actually need to direct job development within the plan. Not just saying to the job developer, "Okay, here's basically what I want. You go out and find the places in the community in which that might happen.” And so, we're actually bringing a piece of prospect that would have traditionally been in job development, outside the plan, into the plan so we truly have a sense that we're wrapping it as much as we can. So that's really from the individual's perspective.

Now from the employer's perspective, I think one of the main ingredients is the idea of negotiation that we're putting negotiation on the table. We're basically saying that we're looking at an arbitrary probably predetermined; employment concept, and we want to try to customize that. It has to be voluntary, as best we can tell the Americans with Disabilities Act does not require that. So the employers will be voluntarily negotiating, and we're going to need to have negotiation skills and strategies as part of that.

Another element that I feel is important is putting the issue of disability on the table, rather than keeping it off the table. This has to be a voluntary act by first the individual giving us clear authority to disclose their disability. The rationale certainly is not a charity rationale at all. It is the reason for customization, and it allows the employer to understand why someone may want to customize his or her job description on behalf of this individual's needs. I think once an employer begins to understand that, they're prepared then to accept the unique contributions that an individual might bring. And it really allows us a great deal of flexibility to get into all sorts of interesting and connected workplaces that relate back to the individual's customized job ideals. So those would be the elements, I think, in a nutshell that we would want to think about in trying to customize a job for a person.