Creating successful solutions in the workplace involves many components. Two of these are a willing company and an individual who is empowered to go after the job and ask for what they need in order to be successful. Count among the ranks of "willing companies" such notables as Microsoft Corporation, Wachovia, and AT&T. These companies have made it their business to serve and employ people with disabilities. The federal government, too, has increasingly stepped up its efforts to employ people with disabilities.

Microsoft employees reflect customer base
Microsoft's philosophy, says Mylene Padolina, Senior Diversity Consultant, is to create products and services that are usable by all. In order to do this, says Padolina, it is important to Microsoft to have employees within the organization who reflect Microsoft's customer base. "For us," says Padolina, "it's a business case." Right now, says Padolina, Microsoft is looking to fill over 1000 positions requiring technical skills, and is looking to people with disabilities to fill many of them.

Kathy Martinez, Executive Director of the World Institute on Disability, says in order to create successful solutions, "We have to dispel the fears that create the misconceptions surrounding disability in the first place."

In order to do that, the individual with a disability has to take center stage in pursuing the tools and assistance they need to make the job their own. This can be difficult for some employees with disabilities; however, Jenny Lay-Flurrie isn't one of them.

Lay-Flurrie is Director of Microsoft's adCenter. Born in the United Kingdom, she lost her hearing at a young age due to measles. Today, she is responsible for 1500 customer service agents at more than eight sites. She didn't start out in the technology field, however. In fact, she is a classically trained musician, who plays the piano and clarinet. Lay-Flurrie credits her mother with much of her success, since it was her mom, she says, who taught her the importance of facial expression of emotion; her mom who sat her on speakers as a young girl so she could feel the musical vibrations.

She describes herself as "deceptively deaf" since weekly speech therapy sessions enable her to speak with the voice of a hearing person. While the ability to speak has its benefits, Lay-Flurrie acknowledges there are also drawbacks. For example, the many times she has been asked "Are you really deaf?" until someone talks to her without facing her and she doesn't respond.

Lay-Flurrie says she is one of the lucky few who can honestly say she loves her job, while acknowledging that there are several things that make her job great, such as the availability of interpreters, teleconferencing with captions, hearing aids, and a boss who helped her educate her coworkers in a session she called "Deaf Fun."

AT&T pursues diversity
Like Lay-Flurrie, Betsy Dixon is another individual with a disability who has carved a path to success for herself. Dixon currently serves as Manager, Workforce Diversity and Inclusion at AT&T, where she has been for nearly three decades. Like Lay-Flurrie, she acquired a disability at an early age. She spent her childhood at a school for children with low vision, content there until a school staff told her she'd never graduate high school. Her parents took matters in hand, transferring her to a private boarding school in Massachusetts. Dixon ultimately proved the school wrong, earning both a B.A. and an M.A. in Classical Languages and an M.A. in Archaeology.

"Because there aren't a lot of ancient Romans running around," she jokes, "I started looking for work as a teacher." Unfortunately, her early job-seeking experiences were not positive. She recounts in particular one rejection letter informing her: "we feel you're eminently qualified but we feel you'll be socially ostracized."

Unsuccessful in pursuing teaching, she returned to school to obtain a paralegal certificate in corporate law. Ultimately, after a long and arduous search, Dixon had two opportunities, one of which was with AT&T. She took the AT&T position and has now been with the company 28 years. Starting in the securities division of the company, Dixon then moved to human resources. Today, she teaches the company's courses on reasonable accommodation, and is involved in recruiting as well as working with employee resource groups, such as the disability resource group nicknamed IDEAL.

Wachovia incorporates multicultural training
Wachovia has also proven itself a company that seeks out employees with disabilities. Beth Butler, Vice President, Employee Compliance for a Wachovia Bank in Alabama is legally blind. Like Lay-Flurrie, Butler considers herself "deceptively disabled" because at first glance you can't tell she is blind. But, she says, her experience as a person with a disability, her experience with the vocational rehabilitation agency in Florida and her background in languages like Spanish are assets to Wachovia.

Butler, a licensed attorney, recognizes she is in a unique position. She was once a recipient of vocational rehabilitation services, so she understands the consumer perspective. Now, she represents a multibillion dollar corporation when they are faced with employment discrimination charges. With her assistance, says Butler, Wachovia is broadening its view of diversity and incorporating multicultural training into the mix. As Wachovia expands across the nation, says Butler, they recognize that they need to have a greater representation of people with disabilities, in particular those of Latino descent.

Within Wachovia, Butler herself has had the chance to do some educating and awareness raising thanks to the recent Leadership Award she won within the company. Because it was posted internally on the company website, Butler says it put the disability topic out there and encouraged employees with disabilities or with family members with a disability to come forward to get what they needed from the workplace.

Kathy Martinez points out that asking for things like accommodations can be difficult for Latinos with disabilities because we aren't used to asking for things outside our families. "We don't want to stick out or be a burden," she says, "but it is important for us to learn how to ask."

"The Dance"
"It is most frustrating," said Butler, "when I see a manager and a person with a disability engage in "the dance." This happens, she says, when there's an employee with a disability who clearly has a need but won't communicate it to the employer, and a manager who feels uncomfortable and won't take the proactive steps needed to solve the problem. Education and awareness raising are the keys to avoiding "the dance" says Butler, but she acknowledges that this is a scary topic for lots of employers.

Homeland Security increases percentage of disabled employees 150%
For those individuals with disabilities who don't think corporate America is the right fit for them, Carmen Walker, Deputy for Equal Employment Opportunity Programs for the Department of Homeland Security says the federal government is fully committed to increased hiring of people with disabilities. Walker says the department has increased the percentage of employees with disabilities on the payroll by over 150 percent in the last couple of years, and not just at the entry level. People with disabilities, she says, are employed as senior executives, in information technology, and emergency preparedness.

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