One look at Clint, Tawnya and Prya and you can tell they are not your typical
Tim Hortons employees. You may even think..token hires?
Think AGAIN. They are the unexpected boom to this business'
bottom line.
They are proof..there is a HUGE return on disability.
Mark Wafer owns seven Tim Hortons franchises in Toronto. Eighteen years ago he decided
to "do" good. And stumbled on a money making secret
that was very good for business.
MARK: When we first opened our store in 1995 I realized very quickly that my staff was
not going to keep up with the dining room. It was a large store with 65 seats and the dining
room. My staff couldn't keep up. I had a need. I had to hire somebody
That somebody was Clint Sparling. Ready to start working, like, YESTERDAY. And the
thing is, Mark GOT that. Mark himself is hearing impaired. His own disability made
him open to hiring someone no one else would.
MARK: After about two weeks Clint was ready to work and very quickly I realized that he
had become my best employee.
Clint has Down Syndrome. But here, it doesn't matter. He makes the same money as everyone
else. He's expected to do the same work as everyone else. BUT he delivers ..... You guessed
it...like no one else.
CLINT: Tim Hortons is a wonderful place to hang out.
IOANNA (off screen): The boss is listening..you can't say you hang out at work.
CLINT:It's a different way of saying I was born to work.
He works so hard, loves his job SO much..he hardly calls in sick and routinely has to
be reminded to go home at the end of his shift.
As Mark's business grew, he hired more people with disabilities. And with every store and
every hire, profits went up. Big time. Forty-one of Mark's employees, roughty a third of his
work force, has a disability. From managers to bakers. And they're not just his top performers.
More often than not.... they are his out-performers.
MARK: We have one individual who is baking in one of our busiest stores and she is profoundly
deaf and her productivity rate is 18.4 per cent higher than the person she replaced and
that person had been working at that job for nine years.
Tawnya Walsh Takes an obvious pride in raising that bar. She has autism...and a spotless
work ethic that has earned her two promotions in seven years.
TAWNYA: I work very hard and everything, that's how hard working I am. Even my coworkers say
"Tawnya, you work really hard."
And then there's Prya Premsukh.She has an intellectual delay but has no problem keeping
up with dirty tables.
A bit shy... She finds it easier doing her job than talking about it.
IOANNA: What do you like about it?
PRYA: Hmmm.
IOANNA: Tough questions huh?
PRIYA Yeah.
Not so tough to figure out? All three are loyal productive employees. And the effect
is contagious. Not only do Mark's disabled employees tend to stick around.
So do his others. In an industry where the turnover rate alone can sink you, Mark is sailing
MARK: It can cost me up to four thousand dollars to replace a front line worker at a Tim Hortons.
If my turnover is 40 per cent and my colleague down the street is 75 per cent and we are
doing just as good a job, I'm making more money.
IOANNA: How much is this about charity for you?
MARK: Zero. None.
And in New York City,a Canadian man is making a career out of proving there is no mystery
to those numbers..
Rich Donovan coined the phrase "return on disability".
RICH who has cerebral palsy, is a self-described financial geek who left behind a successful
career on Wall Street. To crunch very different numbers.
And in true entrepreneurial spirit, Rich suggested we caption his interview because his message
is so important he doesn't want you to miss a word of it.
RICH:DONOVAN: This isn't about charity. I's not about a special jobs for special people.
There's real profitability in driving this forward.
RICH is used to sympathy and charitable stares. But it's his mission to coach businesses to
see past that. His return on disability is an index he uses
to track the shares of firms that best deal with disabled people.
The bottom line? Pity the firms that don't.
IOANNA: How do you change their minds?
RICH: Numbers.
IOANNA:Numbers?
Rich: It all comes down to numbers. It all comes down to an observable measurement that
nobody can dispute.
And America's largest drugstore chain is the gold standard on how to do it big. And how
to do it right.
This is Walgreens' sprawling distribution centre in Windsor Connecticut. One of 20 the
company operates and one of the most profitable in the entire country.
(go inside)
The secret weapon here too? Nearly half of the 600 people who work here
are disabled.
SCOTT SYLVESTER:Right now we're between 40-45 percent of the people inside the facility
at all levels so, director all the way down have a disability.
Scott Sylvester runs the distribution centre. There's no "THEM" here. Just a big enthusiastic
"US" A vision born seven years ago from a savvy
senior VP who has a child with autism.
It's now a corporate policy. And not because it's the right thing to do.
SCOTT:It's obvious to say it's the right thing to do from heart, feel-good perspective but
it is truly from a business perspective. The work force we have in the facility, they're
dedicated, they come to work every day they give 100 per cent everyday they have good
attitudes. They thoroughly enjoy the opportunity to work.
The plant was designed to make it easy for ANYONE to work here....employees can opt to
follow icons instead of text....and pictures are used as markers. And small changes made
productivity go up for everyone.
SCOTT: So if a person can't read or sequence numbers maybe they can relate through a rhinoceros,
they'll know what a rhino is when you give direction you can say go to station 55 or
rhinoceros. And when you're giving that direction out to the group, you can say it both ways,
and however you... whichever piece of that message you need to use to process it you
take.
It's inclusive and also happens to streamline the work flow. The payoff? Huge.
SCOTT: Our facility is one of top facilities, the building itself is 20 per cent more efficient
than other facilities in our chain. It's been great, everything we've designed into it has
benefited everybody.
And THAT is the genius behind the Walgreens model
It's innovation designed with disability in mind that made the company big money.
MARK: I have 41 employees who have a disability. In 2011 we did not have a single hour of lost
sick time for any of those individuals.
Dollars and cents. It's the winning mantra and closer to home Mark's message is catching
fire.
On this night, he's in Oakville, Ontario giving the business community there his remarkable
pitch. He is so in demand, he gives more than 100 talks a year across the country.
MARK: You can't make change with this (pats heart) by talking about the emotional. you
can't make change when you're talking about compliance and legislation..we can make change
with a business case
Doing good because it's good for business. Now we're talking.
And Mark insists that businesses simply can't afford to miss out on the disability train.
MARK: we're looking for a million workers short by 2025..and that's not just skilled
labour, we're talking about entry level positions. If you don't do this now, you're running the
the risk of not having staff 10 years from now.
And you know, what's been good for Mark's business has been good for workers like Clint
too.
Clint...recently married his sweetheart Katie. they own a condo and live on their own.. with
some help from their families.
IOANNA:Do you see yourself staying here? Going somewhere else?
CLINT: Actually... There's no place in the whole world like Tim Hortons.
IOANNA: How much did he pay you to say that?
CLINT: Honestly. None whatsoever.
You can't buy that kind of advertising. All because one businessman spotted an opportunity,
and discovered it was the opportunity of a lifetime.
Ioanna Roumeliotis, CBC News. Toronto.