Certified Rehabilitation Counselors (CRCs) are an unmatched asset to individuals with disabilities. From finding employment to navigating independent living, CRCs can serve as a catalyst for someone looking to finally find that role or quality of life they’ve been searching for. There are many human-centered benefits to working with a CRC, but for employers, individuals, and communities, the economic impact of a Certified Rehabilitation Counselor is also a driver of growth and sustainability.
Disabled Workers See a Major Economic Impact from Working with a CRC
Working with a Certified Rehabilitation Counselor helps individuals with disabilities find work that is meaningful and fulfilling. Those words, when applied to a career, can mean something different for everyone, so let’s break it down.
Working with a CRC means you’re partnering with a professional whose goal isn’t to get you the first job they can help you find and wish you luck. The skills matching and job market analysis that CRCs provide follow a very important question: what do you want to do for a living?
By starting from a place of desire and aspiration, CRCs translate goals into earnings impact. With higher wage gains and reduced benefit dependency, clients who work with a Certified Rehabilitation Counselor perform better in roles they earn because those roles match the type of work they wish to do and the skills needed to perform them.
As Julianne Hansen, CRC, said in a recent episode of Inside Rehabilitation Counseling, “we do a really good job being not only the cheerleaders but the boots on the ground who make sure that people are fully aware of their capabilities, their capacities, and their potential.”
A better fit in the role also leads to a stronger economic impact for employers when working with a Certified Rehabilitation Counselor
Employers Who Work with a CRC are Investing in People and Economic Growth
When employers are surveyed, they often list the same concerns at the top of their list of stressors when hiring new employees. Things like performance, reliability, and drive often come after another concept we often overlook: retention.
According to SHRM, it costs the average organization with 50 employees anywhere from $22,000 to $90,000 between offboarding, recruiting new candidates, and lost productivity. Even a short-term absence, such as an illness or injury, can be costly if you don’t have someone on staff who knows how to navigate these changes.
CRCs work to connect organizations with underutilized talent in the labor pool by understanding all job seekers, including those with disabilities. That means that turnover costs are kept to a minimum. Compliance with laws such as the ADA, workers’ comp, FMLA, and other employment laws is also integrated into the hiring process.
Not to mention, CRCs are eager to help people with disabilities find work because they know they often outperform workers who do not identify as disabled. For example, Shirley Ryan Ability Lab found that 61% of workers with a disability stayed in their roles for 4 years or more, outlasting non-disabled workers over the same period.
A CRC has a strong economic impact on employers by maximizing the talent pipeline, increasing retention, and mitigating risk through knowledge of disability and labor laws, which can cost employers tens of thousands of dollars when mismanaged. The impact on organizations and individuals is significant and has real implications for economies at every level.
Local/State/National Economy Impacts of Hiring a Certified Rehabilitation Counselor
Disability employment is the process of enabling an individual’s aspirations and potential to be realized. That said, it also has a real economic impact on the worker’s local economy, their state, and the entire country.
When someone returns to work, they help boost the tax base by paying income taxes. They’re also, in many cases, reducing their reliance on SSDI and public assistance programs, resulting in direct fiscal savings that pair with increased taxes paid back to the state and country.
When individuals with disabilities are able to work in roles that fulfill them emotionally and economically, they also directly contribute to regional economic activity through spending on housing, retail, services, and more.
SSDI and assistance programs should be protected, funded, and available to all who need them. For those who can work and desire financial independence, there isn’t a better investment for state and federal governments than investing in Certified Rehabilitation Counselors.
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