Business to Business Interview: Ty Alexander

Vicki:  What do you believe are the major reasons for hiring individuals with disabilities?

Ty: The major business reasons for hiring individuals with disabilities are that we are a 
growing corporation and were always looking for the staffing of significant numbers of 
jobs everything from entry level to mid level up to senior level.  Our corporation over the 
next several years has a tremendous growth strategy so therefore we need skilled 
employees to work in all segments of our company.  The next reason of course is that we 
feel that it is the opportunity for us to bring individuals into the workforce organization 
who, otherwise their talents would not have been utilized and we’ve had a compelling 
social mission, as well, in our company as part of our diversity and inclusion programs.  
Our corporation has been articulated and supported by our board of directors and our 
CEO.  Our corporation has million of subscribers we are a Blue Cross/Blue Shield 
company.  We have millions of subscribers as well as our health insurance, our dental 
insurance, and vision care insurance and a number of our subscribers are individuals with 
disabilities.  So from a marketing standpoint we consider this to be a strong business 
proposition as well as in the communities which we serve and we have operations we 
equally are very involved in all aspects of the community so therefore we have a number 
of outreach efforts and initiatives that really support individuals with disabilities be it the 
Multiple Sclerosis Society, Epilepsy Foundation, and the Vocational Rehabilitation 
Services agencies through the communities where we operate.

Vicki: What have been some of the challenges in terms of addressing the employment of 
individuals with disabilities?

Ty: The biggest challenges we had in terms of addressing the employment of individuals 
with disabilities I would say are probably from our management just not knowing all of 
the aspects of what it would take to hire individuals and to train them and bring them on 
board.  So we’ve had to do a massive job in terms of training and orientation and to get 
rid of a lot of the disbelieves and myths surrounding employing people with disabilities.  
So our key has been training. 

Vicki: What advice would you give to employers who are having difficulty convincing 
their front line managers and supervisors to hire individuals with disabilities?

Ty: The advice I would give other employers who are having difficulty trying to convince 
other supervisors to hire individuals with disabilities would be; number one, education is 
key.  We have had brown bag lunches in our corporation bringing individuals from the 
various agencies to present and answer questions about their various areas of disabilities, 
we’ve had onsite visits by our managers, and we have hired intern students on co-ops in 
our corporation as well as our normal recruiting process of bringing in individuals both as 
contract employees and as full time employees with disabilities.

Vicki: How do you provide advancement opportunities for individuals with disabilities? 

Ty: The way that we provide advancement opportunities and retain individuals with 
disabilities are through really our current programs and operations that we have through 
our development programs, career planning and career placement center operations 
through Hymark, Inc.  We use our normal processes so we haven’t had to invent 
or create anything different in terms of advancement and career placement for individuals 
with disabilities.  Their in a normal performance review process, their developmental 
coaching and counseling processes, 360 degree processes and promotional opportunities 
through using the job posting process as well as self nomination for other jobs that are at 
the director or higher level.  

Vicki: How does your company recruit individuals with disabilities?

Ty: Our company recruits individuals with disabilities through many different avenues.  
One, we utilize the services of search firms that specialize in the employment of 
individuals with disabilities both bringing individuals on as contract employees and as 
full time employees.  We also work with the local school systems as part of job 
shadowing, bringing in high school students and then when they graduate we offer 
employment to them in our customer service and help desk operations.  As well as 
working with Goodwill industries, vocational rehabilitation centers, and other agencies in 
the cities where we have operations to reach out for seeking job candidates.  Plus we use 
our website working very closely through the Business Leadership Network to post our 
jobs and look for candidates and also the resumes that are posted through the Business 
Leadership Network.

Vicki: What have been some of the myths you have had to deal with in your whole effort 
of employing individuals with disabilities?

Ty: Some of the myths that we had to deal with and some of the misunderstandings in our 
whole effort to employ individuals with disabilities, for example has been they may not 
show up to work on time, we may have issues in terms of lack of performance, there 
might be issues that the individuals may not be able to handle a lot of the jobs because the 
expense that would pay for Assistive Technologies would be so exuberant that we 
wouldn’t be able to budget for that and everyone of those areas we have proven to be 
false.  The average cost for any Assitive Technology accommodation has been under five 
hundred dollars, any areas that we’ve had in terms of attendance and productivity, 
attendance has been higher, productivity and performance has exceeded the other 
employees in our organization and the dedication and loyalty has just been outstanding 
and in fact in those departments where we have individuals employed with disabilities 
their spree to core and teamwork has just gone to another level.  Because I think 
individuals are saying well what do I have to complain about in terms of getting to work 
in the morning and performing.  Individuals in my department they have far more to do to 
get to work and more challenges than I do to get there during the day.  So it’s really 
helped I think in many ways for a lot of our employees to step back and say this is a good 
thing.  It’s the right thing to do for our corporation and our employees are just really 
happy that they work for an employer that is so committed to doing a lot of things in terms 
of employing people with so many diverse backgrounds in our corporation.  We’ve gone 
beyond in terms of our diversity strategy beyond just race and gender issues, we’ve gone 
aggressively to the employment of individuals with disabilities in all of our operations.