Earlier this year, Suzanne Maher formerly of EmployAbility Service South Tipperary, an INOU member organisation, completed her dissertation into employer’s attitudes, and the experiences of employees with disability in the workplace. Through interviews with employers, working people with disabilities, and job coaches specialising in services for PWD, her research uncovered a number of barriers to employment for people with disabilities (PWD).
Lack of knowledge and misconceptions of disability emerged as a persistent barrier for disabled people in the workplace. It was discovered that many employers are likely to prefer able-bodied applicants over those with physical disabilities, regardless of whether or not the disability would impact upon the applicant’s ability to perform their duties. Similar was found with mental disabilities. Most surprisingly was that autistic applicants were being looked over for computer programming roles, where the autistic tendency towards attention to detail, hyper-focus, rote memorisation, and a greater ability to perform repetitive tasks could be seen as an advantage over neuro-typical applicants.
There were a number of factors that affected employers’ decisions to overlook disabled applicants. Employers lacked knowledge about employing PWD. It was found that people without a disability tend to underestimate PWD, usually presuming a lack of ability in areas unaffected by a person’s specific disability. This misconception not only gets in the way of hiring PWD, but often makes for a worse work environment for PWD, hampers promotion prospects, and negatively impacts retention rates for employees with disability. For this reason many with invisible disabilities choose not to disclose their disabilities to employers.
When it came to existing government supports and programmes for employers looking to employ PWD it was found that many employers did not know about them. Employers were also found to be lacking in knowledge when it came to the advantages of employing PWD, and the accommodations necessary for PWD. In this regard larger employers fared better, often having clear goals and policies set out for employing people with disabilities.
Existing government supports came under scrutiny in general for being geared towards making PWD more attractive to employers rather than enabling PWD to compete on a level playing field. This employer-led approach was at the heart of criticism of the procurement process for assistive technology, where PWD had to go through employers to obtain necessary items from government support programmes. Disabled employees felt that this hindered their promotion prospects and would prefer if they could deal directly with the state. The Wage Subsidy Scheme also came under criticism for being paid to employers of PWD where there is a productivity shortfall, as there is not always a productivity shortfall.
The research presents a number of recommendations to dispel negative attitudes to disability and make it easier for people with disabilities to take part and prosper in the workforce.
- Provide Disability Awareness & Diversity training in schools, colleges, and workplaces to challenge and dispel existing myths and stereotypes.
- Enable people with disabilities to request their own accommodations, replacing current one size fits all approach controlled by employers and the state.
- Government led initiatives to encourage disclosure and promote grants and schemes to employers.
- Link funding applications for small and medium enterprises to participation in Disability Awareness & Diversity training.
- Addressing productivity shortfall requirement to avail of Wage Subsidy Scheme.
- Establish a nationwide “Job Shadow” scheme to encourage participation of employers in work-placements for people with disabilities.