October kicks off Disability Employment Awareness Month, but one company is already recruiting workers that identify as disabled - and they have been for 16 years now.
A Walgreens distribution center in Windsor was one of the company’s first sites in the country to start an inclusive training program.
People with disabilities are three times more likely to be unemployed compared to people without disabilities, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
It’s a statistic the Hartford area Walgreens distribution center is hoping to turn around with a training program geared toward onboarding employees of all abilities.
Get Connecticut local news, weather forecasts and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC Connecticut newsletters.
“You see this tote right here. It says it needs these three items here. One, two, three. Press the button,” Matt DiLeva, a Walgreens distribution center employee, said demonstrating his job.
He is fast, efficient and he is sending products to shelves at more than 800 Walgreens stores across the Northeast.
DiLeva is six months on the job at the distribution site in Windsor.
Local
“It's been going great here, let me tell you,” he said.
The Wethersfield native has Asperger’s Syndrome, but he has not let it slow him down.
“I don't feel different from anybody. Really. I feel like I'm treated equally,” DiLeva said. “I feel very welcome, and open arms basically.”
DiLeva is one of many Walgreens employees to complete the Transitional Work Group training, known as TWG, for people who identify as disabled.
“It's always been ingrained in our culture, inclusion,” Marc Senia, Walgreens field inclusion manager, said.
Senia explains the Hartford area distribution center was one of the first company sites in the country to start the TWG training back in 2007.
“That's a 13-week training program where a person with a disability can be trained and hired into a position here for general warehouse,” Senia said.
Walgreens partners with the state’s Bureau of Rehabilitation Services to recruit. Then a partner agency conducts the training, which includes an orientation, time learning in a training room and then nine weeks of paid training on the floor.
About 75% of those who go through the program become employees, according to Walgreens.
“All it really does is level the playing field for everybody with the same expectations, the same pay, whether you have a disability or not,” Senia said.
At the Hartford distribution center, the goal is to always have one-third of the hired employees be people with disabilities.
That means the Connecticut site is employing about 200 people with disabilities. In addition, since the company rolled the model out nationwide, Walgreens employs 1,300 people who identify as disabled across the country.
“I think what this company does well is we present opportunities to people, and just give them that experience, and hope that they can flourish from there and work independently for us,” Senia said.
“Press the button, and you’re good to go. You see how it says complete?” DiLeva said while working.
DiLeva finds great reward in finishing the job.
“Just makes me feel giddy,” he said.
Each day at work, he's proving his very many abilities.
“It has been outstanding,” DiLeva said. “This is the most comfortable I've ever been in a work environment. And I love it to no end.”
