Goodwill CFO Chris Baker Says Hiring Special Needs Workers Is Good Business interview with Ramon Ray

Chris Baker is the CFO of Goodwill of Silicon Valley and he’s honored to work for a non-profit like the Goodwill which is making an impact on the lives of people. Their mission is to get individuals who have employment barriers back into the workforce. Who are these people? They could be seniors, veterans or the imprisoned.

See our interview below, and the full blog post.

They want to provide the ability for them to get back into work and get them used to being able to work.  Building a structure of  basic processes and procedures of a workforce and having a structure is so important.

Chris shared with me that the Goodwill of Silicon Valley is one of the first to go inside the prisons and county jails and before the inmate is released they do work ability programs and special training sessions. They want them to understand what it means to get back into the workforce.  Once they are released they’re given 90 day work training – 65% of participants that get employment stay employed after 6 months.

Goodwill of Silicon Valley also has a special program for those with autism. These are highly skilled individuals, but because of challenges in getting past the initial hiring process are not getting employed. The tech industry and the way the world is going now is calling for data scientists, many autistic individuals make great data scientists. Chris has found that often that it is this group of individuals that make the best employees.

To do all of this good work takes a system that can bring together finances, staffing, and the many resources needed to run Goodwill. Chris and his team rely on NetSuite to optimize their operations.