Patience, patience. (training former welfare recipients to work)(Welfare Reform: Making It Work)

Flexibility key when hiring from welfare ranks

Rob Smith scolded a worker at his vertical blinds-making company for incorrectly measuring the blinds before drilling holes in them. When he told her she should have asked if she had a question, she retorted that she thought she was doing it right, so she didn't ask.

The woman is one of three employees at Smith's five-person Milwaukee company, Verticals Unlimited, hired from the ranks of welfare recipients.

He is trying to make welfare reform work and is trying to stay in business.

"It requires patience, which I sometimes lose," Smith said.

Businesses large and small will be encouraged to hire more welfare recipients as Wisconsin Works, or W-2, gets underway Sept. 1. The state plan to replace the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program requires AFDC recipients to enter the work force and …