DESIGNING AND IMPLEMENTING BEST DISABILITY EMPLOYMENT PRACTICES WITH AN UNIVERSITY AND INDUSTRY COLLABORATION EFFORT

It has been 27 years since the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990, but there are still problems in the American workplace in which human resource management professionals still have not been able to change the complete “mindset” of management with the employment and placement of people with disabilities. While this topic alone could lend itself to many hours of debate, the aim of this paper is to focus on the applicability of the doctoral dissertation which was the first of its kind, based on a concept investigated by the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission (EEOC) called “Best Disability Employment Practices”. In fact, it has been 18 years since this work was published, but the work surrounding this concept has been in effect for 2 or more decades. However, the purpose of this paper is to examine how this concept could be the center point of a collaborative effort between universities and industries in order to meet the employment needs as a result of a shrinking labor force, due to the increasing number of retiring Baby Boomers taking early retirement for a better quality of life. However, this leads back to the central theme of the quality of life for employees and future candidates with disabilities in terms of finding better education and job opportunities, which could be better enhanced with a more concentrated or collaborative effort between leaders in local industries and educational institutions. Therefore, this paper will focus on how BDEP can be used with both of these audiences, as well as to explore and examine potential strategies to be used to better apply BDEP in the workplace, as well as building and strengthen potential partnerships between universities and industries.