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Leah Burdick, PRIDE Industries Chief Growth Officer, recently spoke with Doug Thomas of the Sacramento Public File Podcast. In this interview, Leah explains PRIDE Industries’ support for Autism Awareness Month and its plans for the annual Big Day of Giving. The written interview has been edited for length and clarity.

PRIDE Industries · How Businesses Benefit from a Neurodiverse Workforce

Excerpt:

Doug Thomas: I’m Doug Thomas, and my guest this morning is Leah Burdick, Chief Growth Officer for PRIDE Industries. Good morning, Leah.

Leah Burdick: Hello, Doug. Nice to speak with you.

Doug Thomas: Leah, please share about the history of PRIDE Industries.

Leah Burdick: PRIDE Industries was founded in 1966 in Auburn, and it was started by parents whose adult children with disabilities were unemployed. The parents wanted to create meaningful employment so that they could earn paychecks and start to take care of themselves. Fast forward to today, we’re in 16 states plus Washington, D.C., with over 5,000 employees.

Doug Thomas: Wow. Quite the success story started by concerned parents. Well, Leah, April is Autism Awareness Month. So, let’s talk about the misconceptions that employers have about hiring someone with autism. First, there is unconscious bias, right?

Leah Burdick: Yes. Think about some of the tools used for hiring, even artificial intelligence tools. If you don’t have eye contact, it’ll cut you out of the process. We’ve all been taught that a firm handshake, looking the interviewer in the eye, and idle chit chat to get to know you are important, right? These are behaviors that folks on the autism spectrum can be uncomfortable with. These traits are due to differences in their brains. And that’s why the CDC reports that 85 percent of adults with autism are unemployed. Luckily, employers are now waking up to the fact that this is a great potential group of people to hire if placed in the correct roles.

The next level of understanding is how people with autism’s brains are different and how to accommodate that because the benefits can be pretty significant. Harvard Business Review has reported people with autism are considered neurodivergent, and teams that have neurodivergent professionals can be 30 percent more productive. JP Morgan Chase established its Autism at Work program to recruit and manage employees with autism and found that employees who were autistic made fewer errors and were 140 percent more productive than neurotypical peers in certain areas of the business. Companies just can’t ignore these findings, especially given the labor shortage.

Doug Thomas: Those are some amazing numbers.

Leah Burdick: Absolutely. Autism is a spectrum, and all people are different. Some need more support than others. It’s about working with the person, understanding where their strengths are, and matching those strengths to roles within a company.

Doug Thomas: You mentioned that PRIDE Industries is all over the country now. So, let’s talk about some of the global and local companies that partner with you.

Leah Burdick: One that’s really fun to highlight during Autism Awareness Months is Knee Deep Brewing up in Auburn. And they have just launched a special brew to drive awareness for autism called the Hoppy Roger.

It’s a pirate theme, and that was developed by the PRIDE Industry employees with autism who work for brewery bottling and packaging the beer. They did this last April, and it was so popular that they brought back their autism awareness special brew this month. The photo on the label features caricatures of all the PRIDE Industry employees. We’re very grateful to them for helping raise awareness.

Doug Thomas: Well, just so you know, I live in Auburn, and I’ve actually been to Knee Deep, and I’ve had one of those and they’re delicious.

Leah Burdick: Across the country, we work at military bases and at government facilities. Locally we work for the different counties in the area. We also work for VSP, SMUD, Raley’s, and Walgreens. We’re also at Thunder Valley Casino. We do all the laundry there.

We do facilities management where we’ve got everything from landscaping and cleaning through to engineering. HP is a very large supply chain customer and our manufacturing facility, it runs the gamut because we provide manufacturing services, we provide everything you’d need to run a building.

And then we do kind of individual placements in the community with companies who are looking for people for different roles.

Doug Thomas: Do you know if there are any local PRIDE Industries partners with current job openings right now?

Leah Burdick: We certainly have job openings in our manufacturing and commercial facilities businesses. People can go to our website, prideindustries.com, and look at our job board. If you have a disability and you need help even just getting on a career path and understanding what services are available to you, you can call our free I AM ABLE helpline at 844-426-2253, and a representative will point to you in the direction of the different jobs we have available.

Doug Thomas: Believe it or not, we’re already running out of time, Leah. But before we go, tell me what you’re doing for the Big Day of Giving this year.

Leah Burdick: We’re running a campaign to support our helpline, which is fully funded by donations. It’s the only resource of its kind in the country that we’re aware of that connects people with disabilities with the services that I mentioned to help them with job placement. We’re on track to help over 2000 people this year, and we continue to grow. A donation to PRIDE Industries during the Big Day of Giving will help support running and expanding this helpline.

Last year we placed over 130 people into jobs, and we helped close to 900 get connected to services to get on the path to employment.

Doug Thomas: You’re doing some amazing work, my friend. Thank you so much for joining me this morning. Leah Burdick is the Chief Growth Officer for PRIDE Industries. This has been The Public File. I’m Doug Thomas. Be good to each other and thanks for listening.

Multiple studies have found that employees with autism can add measurable economic and productivity benefits to businesses. PRIDE Industries’ Darelyn Pazdel shares in SHRM how you can become a champion for employees with autism and harness the benefits of an inclusive workplace.

Read the article

Brewery Solves Labor Shortage with Employees with Disabilities

Jerry Moore acquired Knee Deep Brewing Company in 2010, initially using a contract brewing facility in South Lake Tahoe to make beer and ship kegs to bars and restaurants just over the Nevada border in Reno. Fast-forward to 2013, when operations moved to its current home, a 37,000 square-foot, 40 BBL brewhouse with multiple 120 BBL fermenters. Unfortunately, labor shortages have been a persistent challenge.

The Challenge: A Reliable Workforce

“We had trouble finding reliable, hardworking employees to do the work.”

Like many front-line roles in the wake of the Great Resignation, the labor shortage faced by the brewering was real, and turnover was high and disruptive.

Moore came up with a novel solution. Just down the road from the Auburn, Calif., brewery was a job development center run by PRIDE Industries, training people with disabilities for real-world jobs. Moore reached out and a crew from the social enterprise started in 2020. It’s been a win-win relationship ever since.

“The first thing that surprised me was how happy they were to be here,” Moore said. “They show up on time, work hard, are a lot of fun, and have turned out to be a perfect fit.”

The Solution: Workers with Disabilities a Perfect Fit

Such a great fit that when Knee Deep launched its first special brew to call attention to Autism Awareness Month in April 2022, they named the beer Perfect Fit, complete with a PRIDE Industries logo on the cans to call attention to autism and promote the inclusion of people with disabilities in the workforce. The brewery made 10 barrels and sold out in a few weeks.

“It was an English-style IPA which people liked,” said Brewmaster Dean Roberts, “but I think people also liked the cause of autism awareness, and it gave them a reason to choose that beer.”

The PRIDE Industries team named the 2023 version of the April brew—Hoppy Roger—with a pirate-themed label that included caricatures of employees Aaron, Thomas, Zach, and Evan crewing the ship with a Knee Deep logo replacing the skull in the traditional Jolly Roger flag. This time the company made 30 barrels to satisfy demand.

Knee Deep donates a portion of proceeds to The Michael Ziegler PRIDE Industries Foundation, which provides programs to help people with disabilities, veterans, and foster youth—like the team working at the brewery–become job-ready.

“Awareness is great, but we want to do more,” Moore said. “We see the power of acceptance and inclusion and want to spread to the news.”

The Result: Contagious Enthusiasm

Should other breweries consider hiring people with autism or other disabilities? Yes, but not just brewers. “It’s not that different from hiring anyone else,” Moore said. “It’s finding the right person for the right job. This job happens to work for these individuals, and they love it.”

Take crew member Zach, for example. Ask him if he likes his job, and he answers immediately: “I love it.”

“They’re happy to be here, and that’s contagious,” said Roberts. “We’re all one team, and everyone enjoys working together. You don’t even think about the disability part anymore.”

It helps that a PRIDE Industries job coach is on hand to make sure everything runs smoothly.

“I love working with this team,” said coach Aaron Cartwright-Vasquez. “They’re great workers—I have to make sure they have what they need and take their breaks.” Cartwright-Vasquez provides transportation for those who need it and ensures everyone understands their schedules, which can vary weekly. “They’re waiting for me every morning wearing smiles.”

Untapped Labor Source

“Knee Deep Brewing has always been proud to have the best people working for it,” Moore likes to say. “Without them, we would not be where we are today. With great people comes great beer!”

More than 15 million people of working age in the U.S. identify as having a disability, an Accenture study found. The study found that companies that actively recruit and manage employees with disabilities have 28 percent higher revenue, twice the net income, and 30 percent higher profit margins. “Persons with disabilities have to be creative to adapt to the world around them,” the study said. “As such, they develop strengths such as problem-solving skills, agility, persistence, forethought, and a willingness to experiment—all of which are essential for innovation.”

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Packaging and fulfillment

“The first thing that surprised me was how happy they were to be here. They show up on time, work hard, are a lot of fun, and have turned out to be a perfect fit.”

— Knee Deep Brewing Company Owner Jerry Jones

Inclusion doesn’t end after the hire. With Autism Awareness Month in mind, PRIDE Industries’ Darelyn Pazdel writes about how to ensure employees with autism are able to deliver the value that they bring to the workplace.

Read the article

Stigmas and bias often stifle employment for people on the autism spectrum. iHeart Radio’s Joron Bourque interviews PRIDE Industries Chief Growth Officer Leah Burdick to learn how and why businesses can include people with autism in the workforce.

Listen to the interview

With all the enthusiasm about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the workplace, we need to call attention to one alarming statistic: of the 5 million adults with autism in the United States, 85 percent are unemployed. PRIDE Industries’ Darelyn Pazdel shares how to build and benefit from a neurodiverse workforce in a guest post for Staffing Industry Analysts.

Read the article