Australian Employers Network on Disability

Manpower Services, a long term Gold member of the Australian Employers' Network on Disability, is a Recruitment Services Organisation with a commitment to treating everyone as an individual and finding the right role for them.

To ensure this commitment is action and not just words, Manpower invests in the development of its people to ensure they are competent and capable of working with all diversity groups, including people with disability. One of these activities is the jointly sponsored SignOn Employment and Recruitment and Consulting Services Association (the Recruitment Industry Association) course “Bridging the Recruitment Gap.” The course focuses on developing the skills needed to facilitate the employment of people with disability. With SignOn’s specialisation in placing deaf candidates the course is designed to be interactive and hands-on learning for all involved.

Recently, while networking at the Bridging the Recruitment Gap training session, Louise Forrest, a consultant from Manpower Services and SignOn Employment consultant Donna, exchanged valuable information about available positions and available candidates.  Within days, Louise had identified a Data Entry opportunity at one of Manpower’s largest clients, IBM, which was suitable for some of Donna’s candidates.

Interviews were organised for Kaye, who is profoundly deaf and was accompanied by an interpreter that day.  In the training course Louise is learning how to be more effective in these situations, but this first real interview was quite confronting as she had never had to interview with an interpreter and was unsure where everyone should sit, etc.  However, by the end of the interview everyone had relaxed and Kaye was successful in obtaining the role, starting the next day.

SignOn Employment were able to provide an interpreter for the first week that Kaye worked with the Manpower client, ensuring that she was fully prepared for what to expect and had a solid understanding of the role.  Kaye now uses IBM's internal computer program Sametime, an instant messaging program, to communicate with her team.
 
The placement is going so well that Manpower, SignOn and IBM are working on placing a second deaf candidate.

For her action, Louise Forrest was presented with a certificate and publicly congratulated on her achievement.  However, the more important reward for all involved as been the satisfaction of helping a talented individual find a role that meets her personal needs and helping our client find solutions in the changing world of work.