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University of Alabama at Birmingham and the
Alabama Department of Rehabilitation Services
Model Partnership for
Recruitment and
Retention
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This is the story of a partnership in Alabama that began over 30 years
ago, based on meeting the evolving human resource needs of a state
university while simultaneously serving the clients of a state
rehabilitation agency. There are two main features to this story:
- New and qualified employees are obtained by the University, after
being pre-screened, effectively recruited by the Agency, and referred in
a coordinated manner through a single point of contact; and,
- Using an on-site trained staff member experienced and productive
employees are retained in employment when they develop health problems
or functional impairments, with technical assistance and resources. In
the big picture, this partnership maximizes tax dollars by moving people
into economic independence and saves benefit costs by retaining
productive employees through accommodation.
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Who are the Partners?
The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) employs 17,000 people and
is the largest single-site employer in Alabama. The economic impact of
UAB on the surrounding community was $2.5 billion for fiscal year 2001.
UAB hires about 240 new employees per month, with about 1200 jobs
advertised at any time and 3500 applications received each month. The
University strives to become the primary employer of choice for
employees at all levels by fostering and supporting a diverse work
environment, which attracts and retains competent employees. There are
1200 different job titles within the combined University and Hospital
operations on its urban campus, ranging from police, to facilities
personnel, to researchers, and the full spectrum of health service
occupations. UAB is self-insured with a third party administrator for
their on-the-job injury program and commercially insured for long term
disability.
The Alabama Department of Rehabilitation Services provides vocational
rehabilitation services to people with disabilities throughout the
state. With public funds, they provide services and placement assistance
to nearly 40,000 people each year, resulting in the employment of over
7,700 in 2002 alone.
The Agency has developed an employer account system involving
approximately 900 employer accounts annually to effectively coordinate
the job placement efforts of its staff with the human resource needs of
employers throughout Alabama. This system has resulted in better access
to good jobs for people with disabilities and improved service to
employers in recruiting, screening, placing and accommodating qualified
workers with disabilities.
Best Practice Context
In the late 1970's, the Alabama state vocational rehabilitation (VR)
agency first approached UAB to develop the University as an employer
account for securing employment opportunities for the people with
disabilities that it served. VR recognized UAB as a customer in the
vocational rehabilitation process, and realized that the needs of the
employer must be met as well as the needs of people with disabilities
being placed into employment.
Instead of VR staff approaching UAB on a
case-by-case basis, the employer account system allowed VR to do this in
a coordinated manner, thereby reducing the number of VR staff contacting
various HR and supervisory personnel within UAB on behalf of individual
applicants. Over time, both VR and UAB designated a staff
member to serve as a single point of contact between organizations.
Peggy Anderson, State Coordinator of Employer Development for VR,
explains that this arrangement allowed the VR staff member to function
more as an "insider"; becoming familiar with the jobs, supervisors, and
the hiring process at UAB. This system improved the pre-screening and
matching of applicants with jobs, made VR more accountable to UAB after
placements, and gave VR more timely access to hiring opportunities for
its clients.
The relationship has been supported at top management
levels through direct involvement of an assistant vice president in
Human Resources on the VR agency's governing board. In turn, the Agency
has cultivated its role as a trusted partner by providing a growing
scope of disability employment services in response to needs that are
identified by being on site.
The scope of the current partnership now includes:
- Providing well-prepared, pre-screened applicants from VR to help meet
UAB's recruitment needs.
- Providing an "account rep" from VR to serve as a liaison to UAB
overseeing services and recruiting from VR.
- Providing VR clients' opportunities to explore jobs and receive
training in the workplace prior to hire and in accordance with wage and
hour guidelines, without obligation for either party.
n Providing customized VR services for UAB employees whose job
performance is affected by disability, illness, or injury.
- Providing a jointly funded rehabilitation counselor at UAB in the
Office of Human Resource Management to coordinate all of the
above services and give VR a permanent, on-site presence.
Unique Best Practices -- Recruitment and Retention
The recruitment component of the partnership provides prescreening and
placement of new em-ployees with disabilities for employment at UAB.
When clients of VR services are developing job placement plans, UAB is
identified as a potential employer for the career goal they are seeking.
Hiring at UAB is decentralized, with over
3,500 applications received each month. Debbie Clemons, the
VR account representative for UAB, handles all of the job development
for VR candidates. She provides
additional screening and specific job development for VR applicants
based on her knowledge of UAB's jobs, HR procedures, and the working
relationships she has developed with supervisors and HR personnel. After
assessing the candidates in relation to UAB's hiring mission and
carefully matching their capabilities with the specific requirements of
the jobs they are interested in, Richard Helling, the on-site,
Rehabilitation Counselor assists the candidates with the application
process, including accommodation needs and giving support to the parties
involved.
As a result, over 250 VR candidates with a variety of disabilities have been recruited to UAB,
and successfully hired into a wide range of jobs. Agreater proportion of
VR candidates have been placed at UAB than other candidates who
self-report disability but have elected not to receive VR assistance for
their job search process. VR candidates placed at UAB obtain higher
wages and more benefits, on average, than other VR clients who obtain
employment elsewhere.
The newest component of the partnership is geared toward retention. The
RAVE program, Retaining a Valued Employee, was launched nearly two years
ago as a pilot project proposed by the VR agency to be a jointly funded
endeavor housed at the University. VR approached the University with a
proposal to create
a shared position, with half the salary from each of the partners and
reporting to dual supervisors within each organization. From VR's
perspective, the RAVE counselor would be able to provide invaluable
inside connections for VR to access the extensive array of employment
and training opportunities of this very
large and high quality employer for people with disabilities. In
addition, by assisting the employer with its internal accommodation
efforts, the RAVE program could help prevent employees from
unnecessarily moving out of employment and eventually onto public
disability benefits.
For Susan McWilliams, Vice President for Human Resources at UAB, it was
an easy sell for UAB. The benefits to the employer were to reduce
unnecessary disability costs and retain the valuable human capital of
its experienced employees through the timely provision of service
intervention, technical assistance, and accommodation when health issues
interfere with ability to perform work. " There are greater risks and
more costs to hire a new unknown than to invest in a fully proven and
productive employee who needs a reasonable accommodation," explains
McWilliams.
RAVE provides an internally coordinated disability management program.
Early intervention is provided to employees who are experiencing a
health or disability-related problem that is affecting their ability to
perform their job, and return-to-work intervention is provided to those
who have left employment due to temporary disability and are now able to
resume working. "Retention is the key", McWilliams says. "Turnover is
out!"
As partners, they have been able to respond rapidly and access technical
assistance and resources through the RAVE program to retain most of the
referred individuals in employment. Employees who have developed work
limitations related to health and disability concerns have been assisted
back to productive
employment through the application of specialized knowledge and
resources of the RAVE counselor along with the resources, training, and
other benefits available within the UAB. Those employees who have more
significant needs can also become consumers of the VR agency, making
them eligible for
additional resources and assistance.
Through the RAVE program, UAB is
protecting their investment in its employees, satisfying the
productivity
needs of supervisors, securing employment for their employees,
preventing lost work time, and reducing disability insurance costs. Also
through the RAVE program, the VR agency has achieved more rapid and
higher quality closure for cases served and is now developing other
innovative programs in cooperation with the UAB to achieve its
employment goals for more people with disabilities in the local
community
Conclusions
This win-win partnership for recruitment and retention has enabled both
partners to fulfill their missions more effectively and to achieve
greater benefits from their investments, while securing the employment
of people who have disabilities. The success of this partnership -- what
has driven its endurance, evolution and growth -- is a working
relationship based on stakeholder needs, trust, mutual benefit, and
effective business practices. By helping to meet each other's needs, the
University of Alabama at Birmingham and the Alabama Department of
Rehabilitation Services have developed a highly successful partnership,
which can be replicated in other VR agencies and employers, large and
small, nationwide.
From past participation in welfare-to-work programs, UAB had already
learned that many people seeking to become employed require a variety of
supports to make a successful transition into the work role and to stay
employed. McWilliams believes that employers will need to have the
skills of rehabilitation counselors and other human service
professionals on-site in order to effectively develop and maintain a
competitive and productive work force in today's labor market. From its
past partnerships, VR has learned that these can be modular, tailored to
address only certain aspects that are feasible in that employer's
situation. Anderson explains that partnerships with VR can start as they
did with UAB, as a pilot project where needs are identified, and build
as they go.
For information regarding this Case Study contact:
Richard Helling
HRM Employee
Relations-UAB
205-975-9973
helling@uab.edu
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