There is an IT company called Unicus in Norway that has hired several employees with Asperger’s Syndrome. This is a profitable company with a pool of unique talents working for them (the managing director says that one employee learned Japanese on his own, another can read 2000 words per minute.) These are talents that most companies wouldn’t even bring up in an interview. The owner of Unicus had calculated that he saved the Norwegian government €1,375,000 for just one of his employees, as they are now working and not on welfare.

According the the U.S. department of defense personnel and procurement statistics, tens of thousands of veterans serving in Iraq, Afghanistan, and surrounding duty stations have lost a hand or limb, been severely burned, blinded, have lost hearing, been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a traumatic brain injury (TBIs), or other service-connected disabilities.

I was very interested to learn that in a recent news conference in Washington D.C., the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) shared a new proposal requiring that persons with disabilities have at least seven percent of jobs with federal contractors and subcontractors.

In high school I worked at my mom’s resale shop. With great ease, I slipped into a part-time job at the admissions office the second week of my freshmen year of college…

This October marks the 23rd anniversary of the month-long celebration of National Disability Employment Awareness Month (NDEAM).

Most companies today have what is known as employee resource or affinity groups. ERGs can be a tremendous asset for a company as long as they are seen as a group that connects directly to business goals and objectives and not a corporate sponsored support group.