At 20 percent of the population, people with disabilities are America’s largest minority group.
Celeste Blackburn, The Employment Law Post, Brentwood, TN, USA, March 15, 2009
“They carry a second distinction of being America’s most invisible population,” says Wayne McMillan, president and CEO of Bobby Dodd Institute (BDI), an Atlanta-based nonprofit providing career services and job training for the disabled. “Instead of an uproar,” he says, “their chronic underemployment is a largely unspoken issue.”
If you’re not marketing to them, you should be. The disability community is large and with an estimated $1 trillion in aggregate consumer spending power, they could very well be your next customer
BDI’s recent national survey, Disability in Our Daily Lives, gauged the perception of people with disabilities in the American workplace. The results show that 86 percent of survey respondents felt people with disabilities face hiring limitations. Among numerous barriers facing this population, respondents cited cost of accommodating (54 percent), lack of knowledge about accommodations (53 percent), and insufficient knowledge of people with disabilities (49 percent) among reasons why employers are reluctant to hire from the disability talent pool.
Results also showed that more than two-third of respondents have never participated in diversity training, whether at past or current jobs. “As a result, more than one-quarter of respondents admit they are uncomfortable when interacting with people with disabilities or even avoid interaction,” McMillan says.
Education Results in Hiring
But the most groundbreaking outcome of BDI’s research over the past few years is a renewed and refined emphasis on disability awareness.
“Our research data from 2006 and 2007 showed a causal relationship between diversity/disability education, the writing of a diverse hiring policy and the actual hiring of people with disabilities,” McMillan says. “This link showed us that it is as mission critical that we promote awareness as it is that we provide job placement. For this reason, we encourage HR professionals to view training as an integral step on their journey to becoming a more inclusive company.”
Training is especially necessary considering that stereotyping is one of the most common reasons for underemployment of people with disabilities. BDI’s surveys have asked about the greatest barriers employers face in hiring people with disabilities, and half of respondents have repeatedly cited the belief that disabled persons cannot adequately perform required work duties.
“This is simply not true, yet breaking away from stereotyping can be tough because most often a general stereotype is dispelled only by personal experience,” McMillan says. “However, with so few people with disabilities employed, it’s difficult to reach the tipping point of widespread public acceptance and comfort.”
It’s a classic chicken-and-egg scenario, McMillan says: Increased employment would likely occur from increased stereotype-busting personal experience, yet that experience can only come from increased employment. “As they journey to overcoming that conundrum, companies can take an easy first step to escape the stereotype trap by placing special emphasis on including disability awareness as part of a diversity training curriculum,” he concludes.
The effects could be far-reaching, McMillan adds. “We feel that by increasing the employment of people with disabilities we can generate a ripple effect that will impact the other numbers, such as reducing the 52-percent rate of dependence on public assistance by people with disabilities,” he explains. “By helping people move from receiving a welfare check to paycheck, BDI helps make a difference in the communities we serve.”
Three Reasons You Shouldn’t Ignore the Disabled
Many businesses overlook the disability community when it comes to formulating their business plans. “This can be an expensive oversight,” says McMillan. Here are his top three reasons businesses can’t afford to ignore disabilities:
1. Members of your staff could acquire a disability. Is your business ready to accommodate them? Small tweaks to the work environment can make the difference in keeping a quality employee on staff at little cost to you. The Department of Labor estimates that the average cost of accommodations is less than $500, McMillan says. Plus, integrating disability awareness into staff training will help ingrain it as a part of your organizational culture. “The comfort level gained through training helps build the strong work teams that power your business,” he says.
2. Your next job candidate could have a disability—but that doesn’t mean they’re not able. People with disabilities can and want to work. “Plus, national job studies show that people with disabilities have equal or higher performance ratings, better retention rates, and less absenteeism,” McMillan says.
3. If you’re not marketing to them, you should be. The disability community is large and with an estimated $1 trillion in aggregate consumer spending power, they could very well be your next customer, McMillan says. And this group is only getting larger.
Leave a Reply