WELCOME TO employmentincentives.com.

Interested in hiring a person with a disability? Want to find out if the building improvements you just made can qualify as a tax deduction or a tax credit? Would you like to take advantage of state tax incentives and grants for building your company and training your staff by hiring or retaining workers with disabilities? Do you want to know how to find out if an employee's disability qualifies for an incentive? Want to find out how to make the hiring process payoff for you? Then this is the web site for you. This website is sponsored by Sierra Group's Workplace Foundation.

The Sierra Group's Workplace Foundation launches "One More Way."

On April 18, 2008, The Sierra Group's Workplace Foundation will launch One More Way. One More Way is a national forum created in response to all of you who tell us that "it's hard to get connected."

The Sierra Group Foundation, through this one of a kind national program will serve as ‘One More Way’ to bring everyone together to see that job seekers with disabilities - starting with veterans, get connected to the people, the programs and the specific businesses who are out there looking to work with them. It’s all too easy to get lost in the process. This effort will bring key players together to clear up confusion and create new connections when none have been established. The One More Way initiative serves as a forum for all parties involved in the area of disability and employment to come together to do together what we cannot do alone.

One More Way Fact Sheet. PDF - 130 K

Visit One More Way page.

Denise Barnes joins Sierra Group's Workplace Foundation

Well known advocate, Denise Barnes, joins Sierra Group’s Workplace Foundation board as Vice Chair. Denise manages the sales force for bank loans at Washington Mutual, Tampa Florida where she combines her extraordinary people skills with her passion regarding workplace success through inclusion. Denise was lured back to corporate America after a very successful post serving as the Business to Business Connections director for Enable America. Desiring to stay connected to the community of friends she made while working at Enable America, Denise is proud to accept the position of Vice Chair, at Sierra Group’s Workplace Foundation.

“Really, the foundation of every workplace is its people” says Barnes. “After working in the area of employment and disability, I became quite impassioned regarding the absolute need to include people with disabilities into corporate diversity plans.”

Together with her ally, board chair, Janet Fiore, Denise will address the invited guests in on the upcoming launch of the Foundation’s One More Way Collaborative in Washington DC, April 18th..

The Power and Efficiency of Keyboard Shortcuts

Most computer users think of the keyboard as only a way to enter text. Nevertheless, did you know that you can pretty much do everything you can do with a mouse via the keyboard using keyboard shortcuts? Keyboard shortcuts are a powerful and efficient way of controlling your computer by using one or more keystrokes.

It may be hard to believe, but not everyone uses a mouse to operate a computer. Of course, many people have become mouse dependent. However, many users know and utilize the power of keyboard shortcuts. Keyboard shortcuts can not only save time, but also offer an accessible way for those with visual and motor impairments to use a computer.

Computer users with motor impairments because of injury or disease process may not be able to use a mouse at all or on a limited basis. Users that are visually impaired, may not be able to see where to click or have a hard time clicking on small links or text accurately.

Software and Web designers have created keyboard shortcuts in their programs. In turn, designers of accessible adaptive equipment utilize these keyboard shortcuts to create alternatives to having to use a mouse.

You can easily take advantage of the efficiency and power of keyboard shortcuts. Microsoft designs their products with keyboard shortcuts. You can find out more about keyboard shortcuts and the specific shortcuts for your favorite Microsoft programs, by going to the Keyboard Assistance and Shortcuts for Microsoft Products.

RecruitMilitary LLC, Connects Employers with Job Seekers who have Military Backgrounds

RecruitMilitary, LLC, connects employers with job seekers who have military backgrounds. The company works with The Sierra Group and Sierra Group's Foundation to help employers hire veterans with disabilities. Through this three-way partnership, a typical employer that has a job opening can gain access to a carefully selected veteran who has a disability and is highly qualified for the job—or a small group of such veterans—along with information regarding accommodations and employment incentives for hiring veterans with disabilities.

RecruitMilitary’s connectivity tools include outsourced professional recruiting, RecruitMilitary Career Fairs for veterans and others with military backgrounds, and online hiring products.  The company serves veterans who already have civilian work experience, men and women or are transitioning from active duty to civilian life, members of the National Guard and reserves, and military spouses. All of RecruitMilitary’s hiring services are free to the job seekers. RecruitMilitary is based in Cincinnati and was founded in 1998 by Drew Myers, formerly a Captain in the Marine Corps. All of the company’s owners, officers, account executives, and recruiters are either veterans or active or former reservists.

WhiteSmoke – A Writing Tool for Today and Tomorrow

WhiteSmoke is the first language based software in history to create a program that facilitates sentence processing as opposed to word-by-word processing. This program offers the writer enhancing tools that address grammar, vocabulary, spelling, formatting, and translation. WhiteSmoke comes in a variety of styles including personal, business, legal, medical, creative - and executive, which is the all-in-one comprehension package. Because this program processes entire sentences, WhiteSmoke has a stronger ability to recognize words and sentence structure within a contextual setting. The result is an enriched writing capacity for nearly every style of text. For more information, please visit is the WhiteSmokewebsite.

WhiteSmoke works in a variety of applications.

Gaps in vocational history automatically trigger red flags for HR personnel, quickly lowering the likelihood that your resume will make the cut.

iSearch is a fixed-price service designed to help online job-seekers gain an edge over their competition. By knowing the ways in which job boards filter and delineate information, iSearch has a comprehensive understanding of how to get its members' resumes in front of decision makers.

View the iSearch program and pricing overview PDF - 95 K.

Contact Seth Acosta (Program Manager) directly.

FREE SOFTWARE! Free Assistive Technology Software.

Online Conferencing Systems and the Ohio Governor’s Counsel on People with Disabilities have created an online, single stop library of free assistive technology software applications. This site hosts more than 200 links to free software applications for visitors to access. The assistive technology applications include games, calculators, web based text-to-speech software and much more. All applications are listed alphabetically, making software easy to locate. In addition, the site is fully accessible, offering a number of ways in which links can be accessed. To see all of the software applications available, please visit Online Conferencing Systems.

Bookshare – A Different Kind of Library

If you are someone who has a difficult time reading standard, written text - did you know that there is a whole library just for you?

Whether you are looking for books written in Braille, large print, or text-to-speech audio format, Bookshare may be a helpful program for you. Bookshare has a stockpile of over 31,000 books and 150 periodicals that are converted into various accessible formats for persons who have difficulty reading customary text.

Please log onto www.bookshare.org for more information and subscription details. Access costs around $75.00 per year.

Understanding Auto-Correct in MS Word

Word’s AutoCorrect feature is designed to typos as they occur. You’ve probably noticed that “teh” is changed to “the” and “adn” is changed to “and.” This saves you some time when it comes to editing your document.

AutoCorrect is also used to apply special formatting. For example (c) is changed to the copyright symbol.

Like many of Word’s features, you can customize AutoCorrect. You can use it to save some time when you’re working. You can assign abbreviations to frequently used names, phrases, and terminology.

To customize AutoCorrect, follow these steps:

1. From the Tools menu, select AutoCorrect Options…
2. In the box labeled Replace type the abbreviation
3. In the box labeled With enter the full text
4. Click Add
5. Click OK

employmentincentives.com is funded by a grant from the Sierra Group's Workplace Foundation. The Sierra Group's Workplace Foundation is a non-profit organization established through funding by The Sierra Group, Inc. Together, these organizations are committed to reversing the rate of unemployment for people with disabilities. For more information visit www.thesierragroup.com and www.workplacefoundation.org.

The Sierra Group is a national consultancy offering disability employment solutions in the areas of Accessibility, Compliance, and Diversity.

Janet Fiore, CEO of The Sierra Group, and Sierra Group's Workplace Foundation Board member offers that, "because accessing the vast array of financial incentives available to business when hiring a worker with a disabling condition is often confusing, we have partnered with Sierra Group's Workplace Foundation to create and support this free informational tool to assist employers in making the employment process pay-off for them."

This site is arranged to allow you to see what incentives are available and how they can be used by your business. When required, Federal and State forms have been included in an Adobe PDF format. Many of the programs listed also have links to sites that can offer you more information on additional tools and programs in your area. Please see our accessibility page for more information about the accessibility features of this site.

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If you should have any questions on the materials presented on this site, please contact the Sierra Group's Workplace Foundation at tax incentives or call 610.992.1011. While this site is constructed and maintained to be accessible, we cannot assert that all external links referenced open onto accessible web sites. Please report any known problems.

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