IU Strength Coach Fighting for Disability Employment
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowFor more than 15 years, Tom Morris has served as an assistant athletic director for athletic performance at Indiana University. Morris, who was paralyzed from the waist down after a mountain biking accident nine years ago, is also a key driver in raising awareness about disability employment through the Indiana Work to Include Coalition. He says the goal of the coalition is to education employers throughout the state about the available workforce there is among people with disabilities and how they can help businesses.
Morris talked about the Work to Include effort in an interview on Inside INdiana Business with Gerry Dick. He cites statistics that show less than 40% of the 463,000 Hoosiers with disabilities are employed, which creates an opportunity.
“When you look at the potential workforce that’s out there and just sitting there not doing anything, it breaks my heart because working for so many, it isn’t a chore; it’s such a luxury to be able to come in and impact people and to make a difference,” said Morris. “It’s our goal to spread the message, to be able to share that, to get employers to help these people.”
Morris says people with disabilities can bring more to employers than just filling an open position.
“The impact that they can make from their perspectives to just their passions to the lives they’ve lived and how they could impact everyone around them, it’s staggering and it’s unbelievable and that’s why we need to continue to keep pushing with this initiative.”
You can learn more about the Indiana Work to Include Coalition by clicking here.