Disability & Diversity at PDA

If you look directly under our company name and logo you may have noticed about a year ago we changed our slogan from “Ideas, Training and Solutions for Today’s Disability Professional” to “The Professional’s Choice for Disability and Diversity Resources”.

I must admit, I wasn’t sure it was a good change. We’d had the old slogan for 25 years, and it served us well. Why did we need to add ‘diversity’ to the mix? We have always been the ‘go to guy’ for all of our customers’ disability resources, would we be diluting a core reason for founding PDA by adding it?

In an effort to understand it, I turned to Google and Merriam-Webster for some help and found there are 2 ways to define ‘diverse’;

As an adjective:
1: differing from one another: unlike
2: composed of distinct or unlike elements or qualities

And as a noun:
1: the condition of being diverse: variety; especially: the inclusion of diverse people (as people of different races or cultures) in a group or organization

Based on either definition, disability is clearly, a dimension of diversity. Plus diversity is also a major management strategy for our customers. Companies employing people with disabilities not only increase their competitive advantage, they know the value and recognize the many benefits of diversity within their organizations. Managing diversity involves the creation of an open, supportive and responsive program that includes and acknowledges the talents of people of disability.

To that end, PDA has expanded their product line to include a new category exclusively for diversity related resources. And has recently added two programs created specifically to help employers manage diversity:  We’re All Different: Diversity in the Workplace and Getting It Right: Disability Etiquette in the Workplace. Although We’re All Different barely mentions disabilities and Getting It Right focuses on disability, they both foster an atmosphere of acceptance and understanding.  These training DVDs will help create a workplace that is accepting and respectful of differences, while at the same time encouraging employees to see the unique values in their co-workers.

So, did we lose anything by adding diversity to our slogan? Absolutely not. People with disabilities are our nation’s largest minority crossing all racial, gender, educational, socio-economic and organizational lines. Just like any business who adds diversity to its workforce and customer base, we are better and stronger.

Getting It Right: Disability Etiquette in the Workplace
http://www.disabilitytraining.com/product-info.php?Getting_It_Right_DVD-pid174.html

We’re All Different: Diversity In the Workplace
http://www.disabilitytraining.com/product-info.php?
We_re_All_Different_Diversity_in_the_Workplace_DVD-pid501.html

For the complete list of Diversity products:
http://www.DisabilityTraining.com/product-list.php?Diversity-pg1-cid43.html

Reference:
US Dept of Labor, Offices of Disability Employment Policy
http://www.dol.gov/odep/pubs/ek96/diverse.htm