Wells Fargo

Chauncy Barnhill, Operations Manager, Vice President within Wells Fargo Bank’s Enterprise Utility Services (EUS) in Charlotte, NC says, “EUS has put more than 110 individuals with disabilities to work as temporary employees since 2010 and the Specialty Printing, Fulfillment, and Warehouse Operations group that I manage has hired six individuals with disabilities as fulltime team members since 2010.”

Barnhill’s team provides a diverse set of operational services for Wells Fargo. These services include printing payroll checks for small businesses who bank with Wells Fargo; printing, packaging, and shipping mortgage loan and prequalification documents; and a warehouse operations team receives, stores, and ships over 4,500 products to the nearly 7,000 Wells Fargo branches and service centers that access the bank’s inventory using a virtual storefront similar to Amazon.

The department also provides copy center services to the over 240,000 Wells Fargo team members, which among other things includes printing and assembling classroom booklets and marketing materials.

This bustling division has 150 full time team members, and approximately 35 contractors located across six locations in the United States. And, hiring co-workers with disabilities is important to Barnhill.

“I believe that in addition to fostering mutual respect among team members/employees, disability and inclusion helps improve employee engagement, and leads to more diverse solutions for any problems that are encountered,” he says.

To support new hires with disabilities, “We have been able to work with local agencies like Vocational Rehabilitation Services to create an onboarding process that works for the company and the employee,” adds Barnhill. “As part of this onboarding process, a job-coach is provided by the staffing agency for a period until both parties are comfortable that the employee is able to work safely in the environment and that he or she is able to perform the tasks of the job at the expected level.”

He proudly shares a success story about Kristin Dusharm, one of his employees who is on the autism spectrum. Dusharm is part of the group that produces mortgage packages for Wells Fargo clients. She and her peers created a sustainable process and increased efficiency to better serve customers – which was ultimately received well by the bank’s leadership team.

“All of our employees, regardless of ability, work well together and are crossed-trained in multiple functions,” he says.

Wells Fargo and Barnhill are proud of their inclusive work environment. When sharing their success about an inclusive workforce, he encourages more businesses to look at including and integrating people with disabilities in their everyday operations. And, it’s just plain good for business.