Able!: How One Company's Disabled Workforce Became The Key To Extraordinary Success

by Nancy Henderson

In a time when companies are outsourcing abroad, Habitat International, a Tennessee-based carpet manufacturer, has managed to achieve superior levels of productivity at home, often two to three times greater than its competition. Habitat’s business has grown enormously, with much of its new business coming from work outsourced to them by competitors who could not come close to matching its productivity.

Habitat’s secret: they hire the people no one else will.

At Habitat three of every four workers have a physical or mental disability. They earn normal wages and are cross-trained on every job. They work harder, with less supervision, lower turnover and an unparalleled level of loyalty. The challenges have been significant; the rewards extraordinary.

This is Habitat’s story. It’s a powerful and moving tale of personal courage, deep commitment and challenging expectations. It’s a story of success and personal triumph. It’ll change the way you think about business … and the people around you.

Genres: Nonfiction

207 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2005

Reviews

[Alex · Rating 1 out of 5]

Saw this is in a library box, thought "this is going to be horrendously offensive inspiration porn" but decided to give it a chance. I never got past the first page after it called Deaf and Hard of Hearing people "hearing impaired." They evidently hired no sensitivity readers or this would have been caught. If the author couldn't even figure out that "hearing impaired" is considered a derogatory term then there will definitely be no understanding of the intricacies of ableism. Just skimming the book there's consistent use of derogatory language, person first language (which is not the preferred language by the disabled community, we find it rather offensive, really) I'm not going to waste my emotional energy on a hate read where I'll see myself and people like me demeaned so I'm just giving this a fat one star rating instead.

[Weavre]

ILL; my local library system doesn't have it