Program areas at NOD
Corporate leadership council: membership in the corporate leadership council provides companies with opportunities to engage with Nod's Disability employment experts, to network and learn from their corporate peers, and to gain visibility for their commitment to diversity. By providing knowledge sharing opportunities, the corporate leadership council encourages and empowers all members to take on best practices in including people with disabilities in their workforce.
The Disability employment tracker, Nod's confidential, corporate self-assessment, allows employers to benchmark their Disability inclusion practices against other leading companies. Employers receive a free scorecard measuring their efforts in six inclusion aspects: climate & culture; talent sourcing; people practices; workplace & technology; strategy & metrics; and veterans employment. Offered annually--and at no cost--companies can use their tracker results to identify areas of strength and opportunities for improvement. Hundreds of companies, to date, have used the Disability employment tracker to measure their Disability inclusion performance.
Thought leadership: informed by tracker data and Nod's more hands-on work with employers, the Organization's thought leadership agenda aims to increase employment opportunities for people with disabilities nationwide by changing how corporate america thinks about Disability employment. Through pr, social media, email marketing, speaking engagements, webinars, and the leading Disability employer seal, Nod promotes awareness of people with disabilities as a valuable talent pool by highlighting the unique strengths they bring to the workforce, identifying and promoting best practices in Disability employment, and highlighting the efforts of leading employers in Disability inclusion.
Edpc: the rutgers employer Disability practices center established by the program for Disability research at rutgers university conducts research to examine the efficacy and scalability of employer practices. The overarching research goal for the edpc is to strengthen employee-employer trust and improve employment outcomes for workers with disabilities. In 2021, Nod was awarded a federal grant from the National institute on Disability, independent living, and rehabilitation research (nidilrr). The objective was to build and implement a 5-year rehabilitation research and training center (rrtc) alongside rutgers university, the burton blatt institute at syracuse college of law (bbi), the Indiana university school of medicine institute on Disability and community (iidc), and harvard university.
Professional services: for companies seeking expert assistance in advancing their Disability employment initiatives, Nod offers an array of customized professional services from an in-depth briefing based on the tracker data, to Disability etiquette training to hiring engagements. Services are offered on a consulting basis delivered by Nod staff and an associate network with specialized expertise
Policy: the Organization engages with members of congress and other Disability organizations in order to advocate for key policy initiatives that are of importance to people with disabilities.
Campus to careers: the Organization continues to develop innovative models to address current gaps in Disability employment. One such example is the campus to careers program, a three-year pilot project in the boston area, designed to create a campus to employment pipeline of talented college students with disabilities. Through the program, the Organization works with participating employers to adjust their recruitment and hiring practices to more effectively reach candidates with disabilities on campus. In parallel, the Organization also works with universities to help them better serve the needs to their students with disabilities through training of personnel in career-services and disabilities-services offices, as well as working with students to provide guidance on and support in their career search process.