Walgreen's, Jobs and People with Disabilities
Here’s an article from another blog about jobs and people with disabilities. This is a good news story so I thought I should repost it here. It also makes me happier about being a Walgreen’s customer.
The Fred's Head Companion.
Walgreens has launched an innovative initiative to hire people with
disabilities at its distribution center in Anderson, S.C. and is recruiting
through
a specially-designed Website.
Walgreensoutreach.com
describes jobs available at the Walgreens distribution center and is
designed to be accessible by people with sensory, physical and cognitive
disabilities.
The center has begun pre-hire training and will open in 2007. Initially,
Walgreens will hire more than 200 employees with plans to ramp up to more
than
600 employees. Walgreens goal is to have at least one-third of the workforce
consist of employees with a variety of disabilities working in a
fully-integrated
team. This "real work for real pay" environment will be competitive
employment in which performance standards must be maintained. Job openings
at the Anderson
distribution center include a number of management positions.
Walgreensoutreach.com
provides information to help potential employees understand what work will
be like at the distribution center. The site incorporates audio messages,
photos,
video and a large-print text option to depict jobs and worklife at Anderson.
The site also is designed to be accessible to blind and low vision
individuals
who use screen reader technology.
Knowing the difficult challenges faced by people with disabilities who want
to work, Walgreens designed the Web site to address concerns such as
transportation,
housing and the impact of gainful employment on Medicaid, SSI or SSDI
benefits.
Hopefully, this will be a start to Walgreens making their entire employment
areas accessible to people who are blind or visually impaired. There are
many
jobs that we can do if given the chance. Walgreens are everywhere and so are
blind people. I'm hoping that Walgreens will expand this site to cover all
their stores and employment opportunities in the future.
For more information, contact:
Carol Hively
Walgreens Corporate Communications
Phone: 847-914-2923
More information on Walgreens is available at
Walgreens.com
or
Walgreensespanol.com.
posted by Michael McCarty
http://fredsheadcompanion.blogspot.com/#content
posted by BlindChristian at 11:10 AM
1 Comments:
Let me first say that I'm very glad to see Walgreens taking this step. I'd be very interested in hearing how this project works as things progress.
I had some time to kill the other day, so I looked at the www.walgreensoutreach.com site in some detail. They have paid a great deal of attention to the Receiver, Detrasher, and Picker positions, but somewhat less attention has been paid to their management or computer-related positions. I hope this will be corrected as I'd hate to think they were targeting only certain positions to those with disabilities.
I also noticed that a number of positions seemed to require some usable vision for things such as reading and matching labels or identifying lighted conveyers. I wonder if accommedations could be made for those positions, and what they might be.
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