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>> Good afternoon and welcome to today's webinar
on work opportunity, tax credit and hiring individuals
with feasibilities.
This event is sponsored by the Employer Assistance
and Resource Network,
an organization that provides free support
to employers relating to recruiting, hiring,
pertaining and advancing qualified reference
in individuals with feasibilities.
Our speakers today are from the TJX companies.
Pat Flavin is an AVP of workforce initiatives
within the TJX community relations department.
Sherrie Saint-Amant is a workforce development manager
in Past group.
Workforce initiatives was established
in the mid 1990's to oversee TJX participation
in the Federal Work Opportunity Tax Credit Program.
TJX is the leading off-price retailer of apparel
and home fashion in the US and worldwide ranked 119
in the current Fortune 500 listing with a--
but 2010 revenues of 22 billion dollars,
they operate over 2800 stores in 6 countries
and employ 160,000 associates.
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of the presentation.
And now I will turn it over to Pat and Sherrie.
>> Hi, good afternoon.
Good morning to our west coast callers and [inaudible]
from Boston and we're here today to talk to you
about the Work Opportunity Tax Credit
and Hiring Individuals with Feasibility.
If you wanna go to our first slide Mike [phonetic]
and put that up for our vision.
It really is to build strong community employment
and philanthropic networks in a community is
where we do business in order to see our account
in a pipeline and drive sales.
And that really is does the bottom-line here
for WOTC student to narrow the community is
where we do our business.
We currently only work with our US base change.
We do have operations in Canada and the UK
and have made some attempts to do similar type work,
the programs in UK and Canada however its proven
to be a lot more complicated
than it has been in the US.
Only insularly benefits are working
with many Community Based Organizations
or CBOs as we call them is that many
of the hires we make may qualify our organization
and yours for tax credit
under the current Work Opportunity Tax Credit Program
or WOTC as we call it.
You wanna move to the next slide, Mike?
The WOTC program is a federal program and is currently
under review and 0:03:27 at the end of this year.
And we'll be participating in some hill walks
and to talk with legislators about having it expanded.
For those of you who may not be familiar
with the program, there are 9 different groups
that people can be qualified
through participating the WOTC program.
I'll just go through the list,
but I have included the website up there for you
to get some more detail information.
We have long term [inaudible] recipients,
other [inaudible] recipients are member
of a family receiving pay off,
[inaudible] we have individuals in the 18
to 39 year-old snack or food stamp recipient program,
18-39 year old designated community residents
that live an empowerment zone that's been designated
by the state and federal government.
16 to 17 year old some are youth occasional rehab
referrals which we'll talk a little bit more
about today.
Expound in social security income recipients
that will all also talk with about today.
And those two groups really are the primary focus
for today's session in working with individuals
with feasibility on the SSI supplemental social
security and vocational rehab.
The programs are really base
on the individual's category,
to their family size income and the designated group
that that applicant may fall into.
The organization maybe eligible up to 9,000 dollars
in credits over two year period depending upon
which organization they come from
and which category they fall into.
What we use for calculation purposes is a thousand
dollars for an average credit based on and on the book
of our employment being part time
and then having a lot of turn over out in the stores
so we use a thousand dollar
to their average for that credit.
You can see from the department of labor,
government business incentives opportunity tax the
website there for those of you
who don't use an outside vendor
to process your credits you can go to the website,
it will walk you through the procedures necessary
in order to get the paper works and the procedures
that you need to process WOTC credits
for your organization.
Small companies do not make as much use of it,
you know, as Mitchell [inaudible]
but I would encourage you if you're
from a small organization to go to the website,
research how it will work for you and then make use
of the applicable tax credits.
We move on to the next one, Mike.
Since 1997 when we begin our work with the welfare
and the work program we were jumped in feet first,
head first, back at that time we were ask
by President Clinton, the CEO Nelson Washington to ask
if we could hire two thousand individuals from welfare
between 1997 and the year 2000.
We're raising half the capacity or know how to be able
to do that figure that--
[inaudible] is our chairman at the time
and they negotiate down,
and seeing he's keen of off price,
we thought that perhaps we'd be looking a thousands
to fifteen hundred individuals.
When he came back from Washington,
he promised that he'd get it done
down the side he said 500 and he said 5,000.
So they ask us to--
we committed to 5,000 and since that time we've hired
over 150,000 individuals through the WOTC program
that has been illegible for us.
And we have retained roughly 80 percent of them
since that time so a tremendous testament
to the ability for us to go out
and work with our community base
organization partners.
Work with them, tell them what we need and be able
to sustain that employment over the years.
We have also generated over 62 million dollars
in tax credits to help offset the cost
of the additional training
for hiring those individuals.
And what we do is we use fields figure
as an equivalency so we can talk to our operators
about the variables tax credits.
So roughly 62 million dollars in credit acquaints
over 560 million dollars in increment of sales for us.
So since 1997, we've had almost a half a billion
dollars in additional revenue generated
through using these programs.
And what we do to generate this is to come
up with a program that we utilize in our stores
through an IVR system.
Our store manager's call
in their job opening every Monday morning
and that goes through a process gets ruled
out to 22 job boards across the country as well
as several thousand community based organizations
that receive the job descriptions
and job openings directly.
What we do is zero in on a twelve mile radius
around each store or distribution center in order
to capture all the CBOs in that geographic range
for them to be able to send individuals to our stores
to apply for those jobs.
We work very closely with our outside vendor
to create a branding packet that all of the culture
that we need, all the job descriptions,
all of the characteristic that applicants should have
to be successful within our organization.
So that's truly helped us prepare a better applicant
that helps us retain those folks longer
with our company because they're long to coming into
and returning for a job at one of our TJX stores.
We also work with a number
of nontraditional work programs as a strategic way
to help job applicants get work experience and for us
to observe them before making a hire.
Some of those include a non paid work experience
or job shadow, an internship or employee that is paid
by the community base organization
and then does the work for us we have a direct hire
with a job coach for that individual to be able
to come in work under the direction of the job coach
and be able to perform all the functions of the job.
A payroll reimbursement program
where we hire the individual and a portion of his
or her payroll is reimbursed to us through the CBO.
And then we have an invoice program
with the employees paid by the CBO.
They work for us and we get also their hours.
So now I'd like to introduce you
to Sherrie Saint-Amant to take you
through the second half of our presentation
and discuss how we support our stores
and distribution centers.
>> Thanks Pat.
I'll Mike, can you move us to the next slide?
So in some of you here building strong employment
network, our team here in workforce initiative,
the TCAP [phonetic] and find the key recommendations
when we're consulting with one of our locations
about building community employment network.
>> The very first one at the top there is connecting
with the workforce investment board CEO.
Workforce investment boards are organized regionally
and then responsible for Department
of Labor's funding disbursement.
A business meeting with a CEO can open doors
to employment programs.
So its-- our worries have been [inaudible] the first
place to start out with.
Another place within the area of working
with individuals with disabilities is to set
up a meeting with the director
of vocational rehabilitation services.
The organizations do differ from state to state
but typically there is a regional director
within a market area.
Again, opening up more doors as the programs
and funding opportunity.
In the third bullet we--
with additional ways
to identify community employment program,
basically getting referrals from everybody,
from workers and our stores or distribution centers,
to shoppers, to friends and family.
And this will uncover community based organizations
and schools with employment program.
The website there that we list servicelocator.org is
one that many of you may be familiar with,
the Department of Labor website that list the One-
Stop Career Centers.
One-Stop Career Centers are also a function
of the workforce investment board,
so it's a service delivery area.
The ones are locations have done the research
within their market but we then, you know,
direct them to select those CBOs
that best meet their business needs.
I think sometimes in this work there is a sense
that we should connect with every organization.
But our learnings have been that some on CBOs,
do a great job working with specific industry sectors
and for our company we wanna make sure
that we connect to--
with those organizations that do job training
and referral for hospitality,
for retail and for customer service.
If there's an organization that's focused
on health care in the community,
then their best match obviously is
with the health care business.
And finally at the best point,
we always encourage an annual review.
Very often we find that the continuation
of our relationship that may not be the most robust
for both sides for our business as well
as the business of the CBO,
so an annual review is an important part of this,
third one to share with you some of these pointers.
Pat mentioned before
that we have created an employment branding package.
And in addition to this, we have other tools,
we have great story telling company
that we have something called the workforce initiative
newsletter that goes out quarterly
in which we capture stories from our stores
and distribution centers
about great employment program that they work
with including programs for the employment
of individuals with disabilities.
Some will be launched to our net slide.
I wanted to spend a couple
of minutes before we move in to questions.
Pointing out some of our success stories
across the country,
the first one we see there is AHRC based
in New York City.
And this is one that relationship began a couple
of years ago as a result of the job developer
from AHRC who reached out to one of our stores
where the point now where there are 6 stores
across all 3 chain [inaudible] in Manhattan,
the Bronx and Queens that engage with AHRC.
AHRC is then a private organization
that provides employment services to people
with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
To date, 130 candidates
from the programs have been hired in our stores
for a potential-- well,
property tax credit of 130,000 dollars based
on what Pat had mentioned before
about a typical 1,000 dollar credit per person.
Moving on, I'm going to cross the coast to San Diego.
We have been working with employment services
for a number of years.
This organization assists people
with psychiatric disability
to find meaningful employment within San Diego County.
Actually part of a larger organization providing these
services across California,
the [inaudible] organization's mental health systems.
On T.J.Maxx stores direct hires with job cultures
from this organization largely
because of a relationship with one
of our assisted store me
and [inaudible] started to build.
In the last 2 years, 17 clients have been placed
and 13 or 76 percent are still working for us
and this translates to about 30,000
in work opportunity tax credit.
In addition just recently,
this organization received funding
through their vocational rehab department
for a key role reimbursement program,
we mentioned that as one
of our non traditional work program.
So, just in the last year we've had 9 people come
through without realizing a payroll reimbursement
of 4500 dollars.
That's five hundred dollars per individual after 3
to 6 months of work.
We think to Minnesota pro actives,
another private organization that provides skills,
training and job placement services for people
with a variety of disabilities.
The Twin City's area in Southern Minnesota
and Western Wisconsin,
we've been sourcing for one store in particular
and one of the aspects of this biz
because of the good relationship,
the assistant store manager has his store open
for any kind of none pay work experience try outs.
This is a case where and individual may come
in for a day or two at a time and even and a week
to become familiar again in a work environment.
This store currently employs 5 people
with disabilities or eight percent of its workforce,
potential there a 5,000 dollars
in work opportunity tax credit.
So, these programs are one's that have been in place
for a number of years,
we're very excited about the last 2 there
because they've come to us as a result of a sharing
of best practices with other companies.
We attended the US business leadership network
conference last year for the fist time
and became connected with Walgreen.
Walgreen's introduced us to community enterprises
in Connecticut, and just
in the last 10 months the management team from one
of the distribution centers connected
with our management team
from the Home Goods distribution center and have--
now started a program at Home Goods
for hiring individuals with disabilities.
We gained support from the union,
so this is a first in a warehouse operation.
We received funding through state of Connecticut
for an industry specific training emplacement program
that features 6 weeks of classroom training
and simulation training in up to 9 weeks of OJT.
So, this is very exciting,
the objective is to help us feed our talent pipeline
for over 300 anticipated openings at the warehouse
and for, through this program we hoped
to hire 24 people the first year
and 26 people the second year.
Part of the component was working
on the curriculum together and this,
all the features of disabilities has disability
training for all of our associates
at the Broomfield facility.
And-- and then the--
the fifth bullet there features the Texas Department
of Assistive and Rehabilitative Services know as DARS.
Walgreen's again connected us with this
at the resource in the state of Texas.
Walgreen's has been a store pilot program
in the Dallas area, we found a store manager
in Houston who's willing to take the lead.
So he now has just started working
as what's known right now
as a marshal's pilot initiative,
we're looking for a name for it.
And what happens is DARS provided funding
to the Houston launch pad,
a non profit founded in 1998
to help homeless men rebuild their lives.
And we have brought through 32 consumers
from that program in just the last couple of months
and 13 of them were converted to direct hires
of 40 percent of the participants at the potential
of 15,000 and [inaudible] credit.
One of the-- of the pieces that,
that comes out as a positive
on this is each participant come through the training
with a certificate of completion that he
or she can use 'cause I understand there are women
also involved at this point in the program that he
or she can use from applying to open positions
at our stores or in other businesses.
So in closing, we wanna say
that across the board we found that hiring persons
with disabilities is good for our business, detention,
productivity and reliability are generally very,
very high.
Key to our success is we've indicated
that having a strong employment relationship
with a number of community based organizations
which is this step with that all important piece
of prescreening and ongoing support
of their consumers are associates.
And then of course in addition to hiring great talent,
we realize our hiring tax credit
so it's a win-win for all of us.
So, Mike, hand it back to you for questions.
>> Okay, thank you.
So, if anyone has questions,
we're gonna have you do again is find your chat box,
type the question in here and hit send.
[ Pause ]
>> We're just waiting to see if we got some questions.
[ Pause ]
>> Okay, while we wait, here is the question,
how do you track new hirers who have received services
from state vocational rehabilitation services?
[ Inaudible Remark ]
>> What's that?
It's kind of mixed [inaudible] we just recently
switched over to a new tax credit vendor that part
of the screening process is you identify
with those individual who have come from so not only
from the rehabilitation commission
but any CBO referral that we have.
If some of the better partnerships that we have,
the actual CBO will be in touch with the store manager
to work with him or her to set up an action
or a work plan so that [inaudible] at that base level
of that store level to be able
to track that information.
And if they qualify for the tax credit at the end
of the year, we'll have a number
that we can check back and to see what we have
through that partnership.
We also do work a number of state levels
with the rehabilitation commissions
and encourage the stores to get involved locally
to be able to work one on one
with the job countries and development.
>> Okay, I'm a small business, how can I take--
how can a small business take advantage of the WOTC?
[ Inaudible Remark ]
>> Oh, we go back to the slides,
do we have the ability to go back to that slide, Mike?
[Inaudible]-- first slide?
If you looked at that web site that we have
up on the board, if you go to that site,
that will take you through all the steps needed
in order to qualify your applicants to go
through that program.
It's a very simple process,
there's a formally called the 8850 at the end of it,
you'll fill it out,
you then mail it into your state agency
which they will give you on the website to do that,
the state agency will take a look at the questions
on that form, they get determination whether
or not they're eligible for the program.
If they are, then they send you,
the business owner a certificate that state
that this individual have a tax credit at the end
of the year, you sit down with your tax accountant
or yourself and go through,
they'll give you the formula,
you calculate what your tax credit would be
to take on the returns.
>> Okay, is there any way to inform the employers,
I mean an exact dollar amount that they will receive
when hiring an individual with disabilities?
[ Inaudible Remark ]
>> Upfront it's very difficult to do
because it's based on hours work,
there is a class limit you have to meet
of a 120 hours work before the credit will start
to calculate.
And then it's based on a formula which is a percentage
of their pay up to a predetermined amount
on their [inaudible].
So if you go to that website, it will give you--
and you can probably,
you can [inaudible] whether it would be based
on what you pay for your individual's [inaudible]
individuals, we'll calculate
and max out the credit more quickly
than say a part timer would
and sometimes part time don't max
out the credit during the 2 year time frame.
So if you go to the website,
you can go and look at the formula, [inaudible].
>> Okay.
>> Very good invitation.
>> If you want to develop, I'm sorry, go ahead.
>> Great question.
[ Inaudible Remark ]
>> Okay.
[ Inaudible Remark ]
>> If you wanna develop a program with our local TJX,
who do we contact?
>> I'm gonna give that to Sherrie.
>> Okay, so the purchase contact is the manager,
member management in the store and to go
in introduce oneself
and to explain what the program is like
and to indicate that the person here,
she would like to receive the job order hotline
listing, the TJX employment branding package's inner
policies and procedures our store managers should know
to provide a copy to the individual
who comes into the store.
>> Okay, how do I find out if there are programs
like this on the West Coast?
[ Inaudible Remark ]
>> Programs like this for the work in our stores or--
>> I-- we'll have to see
if we can get some clarification on that question,
let's move on to another one for a moment.
I know TJX were providing free income tax assistance
for its employees through VITA.
Are they still providing the service
and how are they marketing it to persons
with disabilities?
[ Inaudible Remark ]
>> For the VITA site information,
every tax here we do put up information in our stores.
We want our store managers know that it's available
and to encourage them to go
and look into local community to be able to do that.
As for individuals with disabilities, yes,
as an individual [inaudible]--
in the store, they have the disability,
the manager will take the time to let
that individual know
that the services would be available.
>> Okay. Is there an organization that handles elderly
with disabilities that would like to work?
[ Inaudible Remark ]
>> We use ARP, so I don't know
if they will consider elderly but there are--
there are community base organizations in communities
and really would depend upon where-- where you lived.
A lot of times they don't--
we don't have all services in every state or location
that we work with but there are some state
that are much better than others outside
with your local senior center.
They start with-- if they have a job referral program.
And then be able to talk with the--
rehabilitation commission because they maybe work
with individuals that are trying to back to work
after say-- slip and fall, or an injury or--
or doing a work for a while.
>> Okay. Looks like we got clarification
on that previous question.
How do I find out if there are programs like this
on the West Coast and that is with TJX?
[ Inaudible Remark ]
>> Okay so it's a program.
So we-- we rest through the different pieces
that we coach our locations on in connecting
with community based in employment programs.
So when-- when we use the word programs,
that would be a matter of checking
with the local workforce investment board,
CEO with the regional vocational rehabilitation
services directors.
So that would be the programs
and then our stores build the network out based
on what the programs are in the business need.
So it's-- there is an organization
that supplies these services than it's a matter
of connecting everyone
or if there is an individual whose on the phone
who is asking this question it would be
around connecting with the employment program
in the community.
I-- I hope that-- I hope that kind
of answers the question.
We-- we have learned over the years that they're--
that each state has a different way
of helping us build our employment network.
So unfortunately in terms of [inaudible],
everything isn't the same from state to state.
So we basically as stores
and distribution centers are looking to connect
with any employment resources in the community.
>> Okay. Let's see.
>> We just start looking at the screen here,
a couple of questions regarding what's
[inaudible] credits.
They way the program works is that you get 28 days
from the day the individual is hired in order to get
that 8850 form into your state agency.
And I can see some of the questions
that your [inaudible] hires from 2010.
My guess is that you--
you will not be able to go retroactive
for those credits.
And then maybe other credits are incentives available
so if you know the source where you--
the source that individual from,
they maybe will help you out with grants
which is a totally different set of circumstances.
>> Okay. How long does the process typically take
to complete for each hire?
[ Pause ]
>> To go through the entire 8850 process depends upon
the state that you live
in because the program has been expired
and put in high aid as the number
of different times the as a result,
the states have laid off the individuals
that had processed that information
and then brought them back
as the programs have back in.
We currently have some states that turning
around within, you know, a 3 to 6 month timeframe.
Some, it takes over a year
and it's depending upon the location
that you were able just locate the credit once you get
that certificate back.
>> Okay. Would you say importers
like to see pre-qualified individuals identified
during the application processes?
That is would they be [inaudible] to job seekers
who carry a document saving
that they qualify for tax credit?
[ Pause ]
>> There are some agencies in CBO that we work
with that actually do go through that process
and actually send them to the location
with a pre certified 8850 is also another program
called Ticket to Work.
Really verify the organization and how much effort
and time they wanna put into doing that work upfront.
But there are a number that do
that around the country.
We do hire individuals that come through as long
as they need the requirements that we need
for them to be hired.
>> So that's not a need
to have 'cause we have a [inaudible] of settled forms
that our store managers are very familiar with as part
of the interview process
and then the completion during a new higher paperwork,
so all that is covered there.
But it will be nice if an organization wanted
to provide this paperwork ahead of time
or during the application process, that's fine.
>> Okay. What if an individual is not eligible
to receive VR services,
can a one stop center referral be used for WOTC?
[ Pause ]
>> Again, it depends if they need the criteria for any
of those other 9 groups.
They certainly work with a number of one stop centers,
Sherrie, myself and members
of our staff also participate
on workforce investment boards and we have some folks
out in on the parts
of the country during the same thing as well.
Encourage our store managers to go when we open
up a new store and work with the one stops,
its what we call our math higher.
So a number of individuals
that populate a new store opening come directly
from the one stop.
Some have qualifications,
some don't but still a great [inaudible].
>> Okay, great, and I see we are out of time for today
so I just wanna thank you Pat and Sherrie
for joining us today and giving us presentation.
And I wanna thank everyone for joining us today
and let you know that the webinar will be archived
within 2 weeks.
So have a great afternoon.
>> Thanks Mike.
>> Okay, thank you.