Focus group happened...

Well, the Focus Group went ahead last Thursday as planned.  We had invited a range of employers to participate in the discussion.  Those invited consisted of a mix of employers who had employed people living with a disability and some employers who had not done this.  It was awesome to have 12 employers agree to participate and share their views.  However when the day arrived, unfortunately there were some 'last minute' withdrawals so we had fewer people there than we would have liked. The good news is that Felicity (our independent facilitator and researcher from Bullzeye Marketing & Design) was satisfied that the participants present gave a range of responses and some very insightful and useful feedback.   Part of the Focus Group involved testing a couple of creative design concepts for the visual aspects of the campaign.  These had been drafted as mock ups by Bullzeye Marketing & Design to test.  It was really neat to hear from participants as they left as to how engaged they were with the process and that they did enjoy being part of the Focus Group.  

While Felicity is still analysing the discussion and will table a full report to us in a couple of weeks, she did share with me some findings in a quick fire meeting after the discussion ended.  Participants were forthright when they felt the need to challenge any industry sensitivities or instances where the sector might avoid being 'up front' and clear about someone's disability to potential employers.  An initial debrief with Felicity - before she presents her report -  indicates that the employers present felt strongly that people with a disability deserved the same opportunities as others so long as they could perform the job tasks within the boundaries of NZ legislation.  (i.e. Health & Safety Act). However, as employers they wanted to be fully informed so they could understand the challenges as well as the opportunities. Employers also felt that financial incentives were a key influencer in deciding to employ a person with a disability and these need to be overtly communicated to employers.   This is certainly in line with feedback received through previous national surveys and focus groups commissioned by the Ministry of Social Development.  In the meantime, Felicity will follow up with one of the participants who had to leave early to collect full responses from this participant.  Overall we are confident that the Focus Group will provide sound and well informed foundational data for developing our 2014 Employment Partnerships campaign.

I will 'blog' again soon and bring you more specifics from the research.  I also welcome anyone who has any questions or feedback that they would like to add to contact me at Enrich+ on 07 872 0954 or 021 280 4100. I'd love to discuss the campaign with you at this planning stage.

Martyn Parkes, Executive Leader - Employment

Focus group happening soon!

Well, we’re working hard to get a good range of employers to come to the focus group which is scheduled for next Thursday at 5.30pm. It’s not easy trying to persuade business people to give up their valuable time, even when we’re offering food and drink! It’s been an interesting exercise for the team, as the general lack of knowledge about disability can even put up barriers to people just coming to talk about it! We’re still hopeful however of getting around 10 people to come along and share their thoughts and concerns, but also provide us with some good ideas about how we can get some positive messages out into the business community.

Focus group - engaging with employers

The first step in our 'thinking differently' project is to run a focus group early next month, so the Supported Employment team are working hard to get some employers along so that we can pick their brains. We're looking for a good mix of those that we have a good relationship with now, those that we are hoping to engage with in the near future and some that we haven't approached as yet. That way we will get a range of perspectives on how they make their decisions about hiring people, what different influences can effect taking on someone with a disability, and how we can start to break down some of the barriers. We want employers to tell us how we are best communicating with them, what support and guidance they need and how we can make the process easy.

Why we are thinking differently?

Enrich+ has received some funding from the ‘Making A Difference Fund ’ (managed by the Ministry of Social Development) to help us to understand the barriers that the people we support face in getting mainstream work, and also get some positive messages out to the general public about the benefits that employing someone with a disability can provide to both the employee and the employer. 

We will be running some focus groups with employers to get a better understanding of why they may or may not be willing to take on a disabled person in their business, what influences their decision making processes and how we can support them to 'think differently'.

We will be collecting a range of stories about successful placements of our clients and turn them into articles for local newspapers, which will help to highlight all of the positives that can result from someone gaining employment. We know that some employers often hesitate to take on someone with a disability, and yet in most cases they will discover that the person is just like anyone else in that they work hard, they are reliable, they develop friendships and they add value to the workplace in many ways.

We want the articles to demonstrate that the benefits can be significant for both the employer and the employee, and we want a wider section of the public to understand that. While it would be tempting to focus on just telling the employer and the employee’s stories, we also want to hear from co-workers and customers about their positive experiences.  

By telling these great stories, we hope to change a lot of people’s attitudes towards employment for disabled people, and therefore influence the key decision makers to change their perceptions as well. We are also  keen to use some professionally produced video stories to help get the message out as we know that they can spread quite quickly and extensively through the internet, and will have a longer life than a brief article in a newspaper.

We are very excited about the fantastic exposure that this project will give to the work we do with our service users to get them into paid work, and we are hopeful that it will produce some real progress in our goal of breaking down the barriers