Bailey Richards | Hazard Herald

Joshua Ball was recently recognized by Hazard Mayor Nan Gorman for his work with Kentucky Teleworks. His is pictured above with Mayor Gorman (right) and Janie Hackney with the Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program.

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A group from Eastern Kentucky was recently honored for their use of technology in business.

Kentucky Teleworks, through the Eastern Kentucky Central Employment Program, was recently presented with the Small Business Technology Award by ConnectKentucky. The award was presented for Kentucky Teleworks’ use of broadband technologies to bring jobs to the region and connect employees to employers.

The teleworks program finds, connects, and screens employees for major companies so people can stay in Eastern Kentucky and work from home. These jobs can be good-paying technical positions that can be hard to find in the limited job market of the region.

Joshua Ball is the director to of Kentucky Teleworks and he said he hopes the award will bring in more employers. “This confirms that telework is no longer just an idea, but that it now has a seat at the table with some of our top methods of job creation in Eastern Kentucky,” said Ball.

Since the program started, Kentucky Telewords helped put about 500 people to work with around 300 of those in the last year. The program continues to grow with more businesses getting on board. Some of the largest companies in the United States are turning to teleworks for employees for the larger applicant pool and low overhead.

DIRECTV, Amazon, T-Mobile, Cincinnati Bell, JPMorgan Chase, and more have signed on for help finding qualified, hard working employees. Ball said that he has been in talks with another company that could be looking to hire around 40 more people in the coming weeks.

ConnectKentucky recognizes the program’s innovative way of consolidating the work of both the employee looking for the job, and the employer looking for workers, into a database of legitimate options for both. It then uses job councilors to facilitate the connections.

Jeff Whitehead, executive director for the Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program, said that he hopes awards like this will help foster new relationships with companies and bring even more telework job options to Eastern Kentucky.

“The high profile of this award will help us continue to match good workers from Eastern Kentucky with these employers as we keep moving forward,” said Whitehead.

Ball and Kentucky Teleworks were also honored for their work in job creation by the City of Hazard. Mayor Nan Gorman made Ball an honorary Duke of Hazard and commended him on his work for the region during a presentation this week.