“In 1995, I said, ‘That’s it. I’m starting my own company. I know people with disabilities can work equally to anyone else,’” says Joyce Bender, CEO and founder, Bender Consulting Services, Inc. and the Bender Leadership Academy.
WorkingNation sat down with Bender at 2022 Disability:IN Conference in Dallas.
Bender Consulting Services helps companies hire people with disabilities and create an inclusive culture. Bender – who has epilepsy – says it’s important to facilitate job placement at all levels, including the executive level.
She explains that job seekers often come to the company through referrals. “We have many referral sources, including our colleges, college partnerships. We have a very strong partnership. We have a virtual career fair at Bender Consulting Services. We have a lot of avenues where people with disabilities are referred to us.”
“When I work with a company, [they] think it’s only going to be a junior level person. And many times, it is. Why? The high unemployment in this country for people with disabilities. We also place people at the executive level, only people with disabilities. If a company would say to me, ‘Joyce, we want to have a project manager or a director over supply management,’ we also recruit people at that level.”
She continues, “Sadly, today, 70% of people with disabilities are still not counted in the workforce. When I go to a company, I believe the reason that companies do not hire people with disabilities – there are several, but one is fear and the second is ignorance.”
Learn more about Bender Consulting Services.
Learn more about Bender Leadership Academy.
Watch more interviews from the Disability:IN conference.
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Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.
Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.
Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.
Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.
Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.
Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.
