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Washington Workers with Disabilities

May 13th, 2007 Posted by Amelia

Washington workers with disabilities can certainly use all the help they can get. That’s the purpose of a new partnership.

Hopefully, more jobs for Washington workers with disabilities will be the result of a new partnership between the US office of Disability Employment Policy and the Society of Human Resource Managers. This partnership was announced by the US Department of Labor and is an unprecedented move. By joining a major human resource organization with an agency in the Department of Labor, Elaine Chao, US Secretary of Labor, hopes to make the agency more effective.

Washington workers with disabilities will continue to receive the benefits they currently access through the Washington Department of Labor. This new collaboration will give them access to additional opportunities and resources.

This isn’t the first step the federal government has taken to help disabled workers. Prior to 2001, the federal policy that concerned disabled workers was part of the huge US Department of Labor. In 2001, the US office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) was formed. The US Secretary of Labor, Elaine Chao, thought a separate agency would be more effective.

By pairing together, ODEP and SHRM will provide services to aid disabled workers. Some of the services they will focus on are research and fostering communication between agencies. They also hope to work across agencies by providing guidance.

The collaboration between ODEP and SHRM should help with recruiting and hiring by providing education, research, and access.

SHRM certainly has the background to help disabled workers. Started in 1948, SHRM is now an organization with over 200,000 members. The organization has 550 chapters in over 100 countries around the world. SHRM’s mission always has been to help meet the needs of professionals working in the human resource field. SHRM tries to supply its members with essential resources.