Warehouse jobs can be hard to fill, with their demanding pace, repetitive movements, and strict quotas.
But the New Jersey-based third-party logistics service provider (3PL) Bettaway Supply Chain Services has come up with a solution, filling 68 of these demanding positions from an often-overlooked labor pool. In October, Bettaway completed its first year partnering with the Pennington, New Jersey-based nonprofit We Make: Autism at Work to operate a structured hiring, training, and skills development program that provides jobs for adults on the autism spectrum. The pilot proved so successful that Bettaway, a family-owned company that serves beverage and consumer goods companies throughout the Northeast, has signed up for a second year.
The 3PL space has proved to be an ideal match for We Make because of the industry’s chronic labor shortage and the type of work to be done, according to Moe Siddiqu, We Make’s founding executive director. “This is something we can put into a teaching curriculum,” Siddiqu said in a release. “These are long-term jobs that are not going away, provide stability and consistency, and even offer opportunity for development and advancement, all of which help instill pride, confidence, and self-esteem.”
At Bettaway, specific jobs were designed for the workers that involved packing assorted beverage products into cases and then moving them into a shrink-wrapping line. Over the course of the year, We Make participants produced tens of thousands of cases, fulfilled them with over 99% accuracy, and exceeded productivity goals set for the project.
“From a business perspective, it was a remarkably smooth, sustainable performance,” Bettaway President John Vaccaro said in the release. “But the real value for me and our team was watching how these individuals grew into the jobs, embraced them, improved, developed a camaraderie with the team, and really found a joy that wasn’t there before. You could see it in their faces. There was a pride and a sense of accomplishment that you could see and feel.”
