Happy, confident businesspeople with visible and invisible disabilities together in a modern office
Are you missing the opportunity to attract or retain a highly motivated and qualified segment of the working population? Research shows that disabled people have higher levels of motivation, innovation, loyalty, problem-solving skills, and the ability to identify creative solutions. And it’s time to retire the outdated perception of disabled employees as needing wheelchairs or seeing-eye dogs.
A wide range of health conditions or impairments qualify a person as disabled, including loss of hearing, a broken leg from a skiing accident, autoimmune fatigue, the need for regular medical treatment such as dialysis or chemotherapy, neurodivergence or having a mental illness. Indeed, most of us will experience some period of disability in our lives due to accident, sport injuries, illness or aging. “One in four Americans has a disability and 70% of disabilities are not [visually] apparent,” according to a conversation with Jill Houghton, President and CEO of Disability:IN, a global organization driving disability inclusion and equality in business.
And yet, many businesses fear the disruption and expense of making accommodations for disabled workers, and therefore are not intentional about providing a welcoming, supportive environment for workers with disabilities. This seems pennywise and pound foolish. The average cost of accommodating an individual is less than $500, which is quite small when you consider that the average cost per hire is $4,700 and that disabled workers need to be replaced less often. It can help to think of accommodating disabilities less as a matter of legal requirement and more as an opportunity to attract and retain dedicated talent.
How To Evaluate Your Organization’s Readiness
In too many workplaces today, disabled people feel forced to pretend they are not disabled even when they’re struggling. They fear they won’t be hired or will be treated differently by their supervisor or colleagues. Unfortunately, if concerns about adverse treatment cause them to hide or mask their disability, they may not be able to work up to potential. A better alternative is to create conditions of safety under which they can do their best—then both they and the organization will benefit.
To prepare your organization, evaluate its readiness for disability inclusion. Houghton recommends using an assessment tool like the Disability Equality Index, developed in partnership between Disability:In and the American Association of People with Disabilities. It “measures culture and leadership, enterprise-wide access, employment practices, community engagement and supplier diversity to help companies identify actions they can take to advance disability inclusion,” says Houghton. Research by Accenture shows that “companies that participate in the DEI and improve their scores over time had 28 percent higher revenue and two times higher net income.”
When companies use a tool like the DEI, they “impact their culture and leadership,” says Houghton. “When the culture and leadership demonstrate that they are inclusive of disability, then ultimately, we’re creating an environment where our existing workforce can openly identify as having a disability and celebrate that as a strength, and our new hires can identify as having a disability and get their needs met.”
As organizations become more intentional, notes Houghton, their employees with physical disabilities, chronic medical conditions or neurodivergence share their positive experiences, which in turn encourage others with invisible or situational disabilities to disclose their own conditions and to feel more authentic and accepted. Leadership involvement is crucial: “Sponsorship and mentorship are key ingredients” of any disability-focused initiatives, says Houghton, and when leaders “set goals publicly and held themselves accountable, it has helped move the needle.”
The Practicalities Of Managing Accommodations
Companies and managers also worry about the difficulty and expense of making accommodations, but often an accommodation is as simple as a supervisor providing a small amount of extra attention to, say, an employee with ADHD who needs extra prompting or check-ins to ensure that deliverables are completed on time. The Job Accommodation Network can provide technical assistance for determining the most effective accommodations. Permitting and supporting remote work can be a less expensive and less disruptive way to resolve many accommodation needs and will appeal to people who are usually comfortable in to the office but occasionally have bad days or difficulty commuting due to pain, acute fatigue or medical treatments.
Houghton emphasizes that the accommodation process should be interactive and driven by employees, so make your accommodation policy readily available to all your workers—not just if they ask for it, but as part of the culture. That way, all employees feel comfortable to ask and managers are aware and ready to discuss it. Otherwise, employees may hesitate to ask for accommodations out of fear that they’ll be seen as “less than” in any way, even if not having an accommodation puts them at risk of job loss due to unsatisfactory performance. “Every company is different, every culture is different,” notes Houghton, “and there are a wide range of actions a company can take, but they should be informed and driven by people who openly identify as being disabled.”
Without training, managers may avoid or resist conversations with employees seeking accommodations, and those individuals may not get their needs met. Houghton notes that standardizing the accommodation process can help simplify requests. Then tools can be bought in bulk across an entire organization rather than individually, or scheduling can be smoothed across multiple people or departments. Formalizing training and procedures will ensure that managers “know how to engage in the interactive dialog and whose budget [accommodations will] come out of, [as well as] how to create an environment in which asking for an accommodation or identifying as a person with a disability isn’t seen as a bad thing.”
How To Create A Welcoming Environment
To demonstrate acceptance of people with disabilities, assess and highlight your organization’s recognition and welcoming of the workforce’s real needs. Survey managers to compile the various ways they’re accommodating disabled people’s needs now. Add in other ways that employees are encouraged to be who they are and how they live full lives, such as recognizing their different cultural heritages and lifestyles, providing volunteer time, making contributions to favored causes and supporting time off for kids’ games and performances.
When you invite job applicants in for interviews or to participate in screening processes, include as a standard part of your introduction and materials the list of accommodations you provide for employees and candidates, such as large-print forms or screen readers for visual disabilities, closed captioning for video meetings, noise-blocking headphones and flexible scheduling. Identify upfront your accessible entrances and restrooms as well as places for people to rest or manage medications, and let candidates know whether your organization permits service animals. At minimum, provide a statement of reasonable accommodation for hiring on your website and in your recruitment materials. Make sure all of your organization’s interviewers and recruitment contacts are trained to offer accommodations and answer questions about them. And whenever candidates request an accommodation, respond promptly so that they see immediately that it’s standard practice.
The point is to show that you're already prepared for what people may need. If people see that disabilities are understood and accepted as a normal part of your workplace culture, they’ll feel much more accepted. Although it can require time and effort to improve working conditions significantly for disabled people, taking even small actions today and using the resources that are already available in the marketplace can help your organization attract and retain a deeply committed staff.
