Disability Inclusion In The Workplace: Gregory T Miller Of Penn-Mar Human Services On How Businesses Make Accommodations For Customers and Employees Who Have a Disability
An Interview With Eric Pines
Faith is a leadership weapon, not something to avoid or be afraid of.
As we all know, over the past several years there has been a great deal of discussion about inclusion and diversity in the workplace. One aspect of inclusion that is not discussed enough, is how businesses can be inclusive of people with disabilities. We know that the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) requires businesses to make reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities. What exactly does this look like in practice? What exactly are reasonable accommodations? Aside from what is legally required, what are some best practices that can make a business place feel more welcoming and inclusive of people with disabilities? To address these questions, we are talking to successful business leaders who can share stories and insights from their experience about the “How Businesses Make Accommodations For Customers and Employees Who Are Disabled “.
As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Gregory T. Miller, President and CEO of Penn-Mar Human Services.
As the organizational leader of Penn-Mar since 2012, Greg Miller has direct responsibility for the programmatic, financial, and strategic operations, including board development of the human services organization. In the years since joining Penn-Mar, he has served in various leadership roles, most recently as president and COO. Greg holds a bachelor’s from Shippensburg University and a master’s from McDaniel College. He earned a Certificate for Performance Measurement for Management of NPOs from Harvard University Kennedy School of Government and a Certificate for Strategic Perspectives in Non-Profit Management from Harvard Business School. On three separate occasions, Greg has addressed the International Conference in Sao Paulo, Brazil on leadership development and employment and service models for people with disabilities.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you ended up where you are?
Currently I am President and CEO of Penn-Mar Human Services, an organization that annually serves nearly 2,000 adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities through community living, day learning, customized employment, family and peer supports, and respite programs in northern Maryland and southern Pennsylvania. I have served with Penn-Mar for 34 years in various capacities.
I became interested in people with IDD early in my life because I had cousins with disabilities and I was always attracted to the special qualities I saw in them.
At the end of my college days, my wife and I were presented with an opportunity to open one of the first group homes for children in the state of Maryland. I earned my degree in social work, but I wasn’t real clear at the time as to what direction I would take in the field. But shortly after having experienced helping to bring kids back from institutional settings to the local community, I fell in love with the disability field and 34 years later, I’m honored to be in my current role at Penn-Mar.
I think a lot of my backstory has to do with having both of my parents in helping professions who were also active members in the community. I grew up in church with a clear understanding of how blessed our family was and knew that not everyone was as fortunate as we were in terms of resources and opportunities.
It became clear to me as I was helping to raise the boys that I had found my life’s calling and I wanted to be an influencer, long before that term became popular. This was during the heart of the de-institutionalization movement and I could see the possibilities. As a young person in the field, it was exciting to be at the forefront of all of this where we were just beginning to understand the need for getting people with IDD out into the community.
I have spent my career doing everything I can to help the people we support enjoy the kind of life that everyone deserves.
You are a successful leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
I think I would start with integrity since that influences everything I do. Integrity can take on many different forms. It’s not just about the bad things you don’t do. That’s only part of the picture. In Dr. Henry Cloud’s book, Integrity: The Courage to Meet the Demands of Reality, he talks about this quality and how it can be lived in our everyday experiences.
As a leader, it is important to be a person of integrity. For me that means fully utilizing my talents so that everyone around me can achieve the best possible outcomes for our mission and the people we support. There are so many examples of what integrity looks like, from not taking shortcuts to being fully transparent and honest in dealings and relationships. Opportunities to do the wrong, most expedient thing are around us all. Had I fallen into that trap, I am convinced my leadership and calling would have failed in a big way.
I think a very powerful example of integrity would be to look at the people I surround myself with, the character of my team and how we work together on a daily basis. That’s the ultimate litmus test. How are the people who work for me leading? Are we aligned around the idea of integrity and meeting the required needs of our organization every day?
I’m also a very curious person. Being a voracious reader, I am always trying to expand my knowledge base so that I can get better, do better and be better, but I never feel like there is an ultimate destination. The world is constantly changing and evolving so what is important today and the best practices we use to achieve certain goals are changing too.
That’s why I’m always wanting to press forward, not because I’m dissatisfied with the successes we’ve achieved. I appreciate and celebrate the victories but never want to get to a place where I think we’ve achieved all that we can. Tomorrow is a different day and we need to look at it in a different way. So I strive to be continuously curious, always asking what can we do better, differently.
In my field, there’s no doubt we’ve done reasonably well to support the IDD community, but a lot has changed in the past 10 to 20 years. So what can we do to improve our supports today? It is very important to me to be able to motivate others to remain curious so that they are always focused on what success looks like.
As an example, when Penn-Mar made the decision to completely move away from facility-based workshops to a more person-centered, community integration model, we were 12 years ahead of what most other organization in our field were doing. Our team understood that it was the right move to make. And this was long before it became the requirement it is today.
As a leader, I don’t want to dictate. I want to inspire by my words and actions, just as I am inspired by the courage of the people we support and the dedication of our team members. Part of what drives me every single day is being able to draw from the experiences and successes that we create in the lives of people with disabilities.
My leadership of this organization is based on the understanding that I am not better than anyone else is. I, like all my team members, am continually learning what it means to inspire others from the courageous people we support that many in our society would not readily consider teachers.
But they are. And they inspire us every day to work toward our goal to enrich every life we touch and support a life well lived. I am always looking for a different way or process to inspire my team, not just to be different, but to ensure we are truly innovative in achieving our goals.
Can you share a story about one of your greatest work related struggles? Can you share what you did to overcome it?
Part of the evolution of my leadership was when I started to think from an abundance mentality, rather than scarcity, to help me overcome the negative thinking that often keeps our industry from moving ahead. The Number One favorite activity in human service organizations is to sit around and talk about how underfunded they are and what they could do if the government would just give them more money.
I assure you, I am at the head of the advocacy line to fight for the people we support and the resources we need to provide quality service. But early in my career I pivoted my mindset from linking our success as an organization to how well funded we were to focusing on the best use of what we actually had. I want to concentrate on what we can control, how we can innovate and how we can create support outside of traditional funding sources.
Part of this evolution took place as I traveled extensively around the world for both Penn-Mar and my ministry work. I saw what was being done in other places in the world where there were limited or no resources.
I was inspired by the determination and curiosity of people focused on doing the right thing, regardless of the tools and resources they had. They rarely complained about lack of money but rather prioritized needs and put the right people on the case.
For so many of us, some of our greatest successes have come when we have had to solve problems with a mind shift. Whining won’t do it and sometimes a million dollars won’t either. In the human services field there will never be enough money to do all the things we want and need to. So the money we have in hand has to be enough for today’s priorities and then we can figure out what to do from there.
What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now?
For our team members at Penn-Mar we are launching a new program called the “Belonging” initiative that will focus on opportunities that will ensure that all our team members have a profound sense of belonging as we leverage the differences among us to best meet our mission as an organization. Leading us on this ambitious, yearlong initiative will be Dr. Martin N. Davidson, a Professor of Business Administration at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. He is the author of the book, The End of Diversity as We Know It: Why Diversity Efforts Fail and How Leveraging Difference Can Succeed, and a thought leader on global leadership with an emphasis on how to manage diversity to generate superior performance.
For the individuals with disabilities who we support, we are continuing our advocacy efforts to find meaningful employment for them. There are now unprecedented opportunities for businesses to hire people with disabilities following the “The Great Resignation” that started with the COVID pandemic, the standardization of hybrid work models, and the challenges business owners continue to face to fill positions that remain stubbornly vacant. This is a golden opportunity for us to make employers aware of the unique impact that a diverse workforce can have on their businesses and employees. It is a very exciting time for matching the people we support with employment opportunities that were not traditionally available to them.
Fantastic. Let’s now shift to our discussion about inclusion. Can you tell our readers a bit about your experience working with initiatives to promote Diversity and Inclusion? Can you share a story with us?
As our field has shifted from facility to community-based supports, many exciting things are happening to help people with disabilities get to a place of belonging in the community as opposed to just being in the community. It’s not just about their being somewhere “outside,” but what is happening for them when they are there.
Promoting Diversity and Inclusion is our daily work. We see our mission as helping people with disabilities live courageously at church, in the workplace, in social settings and in community activities. It’s very exciting when someone we support doesn’t just get a job but suddenly has a career and all the social capital that goes along with it. We work every day to ensure that the people we support are included and integrated in all things to ensure that can have the same hopes, dreams and experiences that we all desire. There are numerous examples of people we support now working competitively in vocations of their choosing, joining co-workers for personal outings, and living their best life.
This may be obvious to you, but it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you articulate to our readers a few reasons why it is so important for a business or organization to have an inclusive work culture?
If people don’t feel comfortable bringing their natural selves to work each day, you are leaving much of their best work off the table. If people have to become someone different at work, especially people with disabilities, you cannot get the best they have to offer in terms of creativity and passion. Fear is de-motivating and without true inclusion and belonging people are afraid to make mistakes, innovate and try new things.
We have countless business employers who tell us that hiring people with disabilities has changed their workforce, redefined what it means to be a team, and enhanced their customer relations and reputation in the community. Quite simply, including motivated, engaged people with disabilities who are excited to go to work every day makes any business or organization better.
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires businesses to make reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities. For the benefit of our readers, can you help explain what this looks like in practice? What exactly are reasonable accommodations? Can you please share a few examples?
When I think of reasonable accommodations, things like ramps, automatic doors, and handicap bathrooms quickly come to mind. Any adjustments that will allow people with disabilities to navigate their homes, businesses, and communities in a practical way. That’s the easy stuff.
If you’re talking about an employer, you would be talking about very specific workplace accommodations that would allow a person with a disability to be able to give the same effort on the job as his or her co-workers. It could mean putting a person in a job setting designed to help them succeed with appropriate skills training, defined expectations for working with co-workers or customers, providing a safe work environment, and on-the-job support by a co-worker or coach if appropriate.
Aside from what is legally required, what are some best practices that can make a business place feel more welcoming and inclusive of people with disabilities? If you can, please share a few examples.
Agreed, all of the special accommodation requirements are a given and necessary for a business in order to attract loyal customers with disabilities and make them feel their patronage is valued.
But it is also important to celebrate the successes of people with disabilities who have been included on a workforce team without having them feel that it is a token success. People with disabilities should be recognized in the same way as their peers. Sharing experiences with and testimonials from fellow employees is a best practice.
But what it takes to get to those moments is for one employer, one person, to open up opportunities in the workplace for people with disabilities. Someone who is willing to train a person to succeed on the job and become part of a team, drawing attention to everything about the person that has made the business better, with the exception of the disability.
Customers draw positive conclusions about businesses who include people with disabilities in their promotional materials and in their workforce. It can help a business to do well by doing good.
Can you share a few examples of ideas that were implemented at your workplace to help promote disability inclusion? Can you share with us how the work culture was impacted as a result?
Historically we have had people with disabilities that we weren’t supporting employed at Penn-Mar. The accommodations we have made for them throughout our facilities have also benefitted the people we support in our own programs.
We don’t employ anyone we support at Penn-Mar because our feeling is if they are capable of working for us then they are capable of working with an outside employer. We don’t want to give the perception that they can work at Penn-Mar because they can’t get a job anywhere else.
Through our Discovery and job training programs, they have secured work in the community at schools, restaurants, retail stores, manufacturing facilities, service businesses and healthcare organizations. Our people are trained and ready to work Day One.
This is our signature question that we ask in many of our interviews. What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started My Career”?
# 1: Cultivate the habit of reading.
It wasn’t until much later in my career that I fell in love with reading and learning. Through the encouragement of a mentor, I began reading to grow as a leader. This discipline has changed the way I process information and has given me an understanding of viewpoints I would never have considered. Reading a variety of books from multiple perspectives has allowed me to empower others who don’t think the way I do, but are equally, or in some cases, more effective than I am. One of our largest restructures as a company was fueled by a great book I read and shared with our team.
#2: Don’t Fear Endings
In looking back over my career and my life in general, I can see that I wasted time being afraid to bring tasks, projects, and sometime relationships to a healthy ending. At Penn-Mar, we had a line of business that needed to be closed and my growing understanding of necessary endings allowed me to pull the plug. This decision was greeted with much gratitude, as no one else was willing to stop trying to save something that was not worth saving. Rarely do endings come too soon.
#3: Lead with Values instead of Beliefs
As a strong, decisive leader, I also have very strong beliefs. Many times this has served me well and in most cases, it has served my leadership well. There have been some instances, however, where I came to understand that my strong beliefs could shut down conversation or offend someone who doesn’t share the same beliefs. So I am still learning to lead with my values, and our organizational values, which provides a better platform for considering multiple perspectives and for ultimately reaching better outcomes. Despite the political environment we find ourselves in, compromise is not a dirty word. And when we are discussing values, there is usually a better likelihood of finding common ground.
#4: Pay attention and attend to others especially when I really don’t want to.
As a leader with a touch of Attention Deficit Disorder, I tend to reach conclusions very quickly, sometimes before the person I am talking with has even finished talking. My wife has been my biggest cheerleader in helping me to stay attentive with a few timely kicks under the table. In all seriousness, my pace is not an excuse for ensuring respect and empathy in a conversation and I know I have hurt people by appearing rude or unengaged once I got what I thought I needed out of the conversation. In the role of leader, I am my best when my team is fully engaged. I share the responsibility of ensuring this and I have shared this weakness with my team and given them permission to call me out on this if necessary.
#5: Faith is a leadership weapon, not something to avoid or be afraid of.
As a Christian, there is nothing more important to me than my faith. It took me a few years to figure out that there really is no separation between the Church Greg, the Home Greg and the Work Greg. Leadership is a calling, and within that calling, the power of my leadership has been fueled by my faith. Psalms 37:4 says, “Trust in the Lord and do good, dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.”
While my faith is not to be expected or ever imposed upon others around me, I cannot be expected to abandon it when I go to work. In fact, it is what provides me the catalyst to do my work at the highest level. Cultivating faithfulness matters to me and is a help to others.
In my work at Penn-Mar, I have performed more funerals and counseled more people that I can count. In these vulnerable moments, my faith has allowed me to affirm the value and dignity of life for all those we support as well as our team members.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share a story about how that was relevant in your own life?
I think this quote from Andy Stanley, author, speaker and pastor,
Epitomizes how I lead on a daily basis: “It’s not my responsibility to fill your cup but it is my responsibility to empty mine.”
It is the sum total of the interaction I have with the team members I manage and influence at Penn-Mar. It’s all around having an open hand; the idea that nothing is mine. If I have something given to me, I need to share it with others.
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? (You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I would like to inspire a movement where people are always assuming positive intent. We judge and limit people when we lead with our beliefs. The world would be very different place if, rather, we led with our values. Strong political beliefs have a tendency to immediately shutdown reasonable conversation. If we focused more on our common values, it would open up the opportunity to have a more thoughtful conversation that could lead us to finding the common ground. Great decisions are always reached when the consensus is somewhere in the middle, not in the extremes where all the passion and energy lies.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
You can read my monthly blog on Penn-Mar’s website at https://www.penn-mar.org/news/ceos-blog/
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this. We wish you continued success and good health!
About the Interviewer: Eric L. Pines is a nationally recognized federal employment lawyer, mediator, and attorney business coach. He represents federal employees and acts as in-house counsel for over fifty thousand federal employees through his work as a federal employee labor union representative. A formal federal employee himself, Mr. Pines began his federal employment law career as in-house counsel for AFGE Local 1923 which is in Social Security Administration’s headquarters and is the largest federal union local in the world. He presently serves as AFGE 1923’s Chief Counsel as well as in-house counsel for all FEMA bargaining unit employees and numerous Department of Defense and Veteran Affairs unions.
While he and his firm specialize in representing federal employees from all federal agencies and in reference to virtually all federal employee matters, his firm has placed special attention on representing Veteran Affairs doctors and nurses hired under the authority of Title. He and his firm have a particular passion in representing disabled federal employees with their requests for medical and religious reasonable accommodations when those accommodations are warranted under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (ADA). He also represents them with their requests for Federal Employee Disability Retirement (OPM) when an accommodation would not be possible.
Mr. Pines has also served as a mediator for numerous federal agencies including serving a year as the Library of Congress’ in-house EEO Mediator. He has also served as an expert witness in federal court for federal employee matters. He has also worked as an EEO technical writer drafting hundreds of Final Agency Decisions for the federal sector.
Mr. Pines’ firm is headquartered in Houston, Texas and has offices in Baltimore, Maryland and Atlanta, Georgia. His first passion is his wife and five children. He plays classical and rock guitar and enjoys playing ice hockey, running, and biking. Please visit his websites at www.pinesfederal.com and www.toughinjurylawyers.com. He can also be reached at eric@pinesfederal.com.
Disability Inclusion In The Workplace: Gregory T. was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.