3 Steps Leaders Can Take to Support Persons with Disabilities

Ensuring employees with disabilities receive the help and support they require to succeed is both a legal obligation and the right thing for employers to do. According to the World Health Organization, persons with disabilities (PwDs) constitute about 16% of the world's population. At roughly 1.3 billion, they present a growing, untapped talent force that employers can leverage to fill rampant skill gaps in organizations. Further, according to a Gartner study, companies that employ individuals with disabilities gain a competitive edge and boost retention rates (89%), employee productivity (72%), and profitability (29%).

CHROs must work with stakeholders to develop inclusive leadership policies for persons with disabilities to make workplaces more diverse and disability support more accessible. This article discusses the steps leaders can take to help PwDs succeed in the workplace.

Benefits of Hiring People with Disabilities

With persons with disabilities making up a significant portion of the world population, organizations that do not fully include PwDs in their recruitment, hiring, and training practices or fail to provide PwDs with disability support fall behind in creating a future-ready workforce.

• PwDs represent an untapped pool of critical talent, possessing technical and high-level problem-solving skills due to their unique daily challenges.

• According to the Society for Human Resource Management, instances of absenteeism are less common in people with disabilities. There may also be a reduced risk of job hopping and employee turnover, and hence productivity loss, when hiring persons with disabilities.

• Hiring PwDs can help employers boost workforce morale, improve organizational competency, and increase employee loyalty across the board.

3 Steps Employers Can Take to Support PwDs

Leaders can support people with disabilities by ensuring inclusivity across practices, systems, and products, incorporating assistive technologies like braille readers and virtual reality, and offering other forms of job aid.

1. Providing accommodations for employees with disabilities

Employers must mindfully plan and work with job coaches, supervisors, and employees to provide disability support to employees.

Doing so requires providing accommodations, i.e., making necessary changes or modifications to ensure individuals with disabilities can perform to their potential. Some reasonable accommodations include

• Allowing employees to set and adjust their work schedules for medical care and treatments. 

• Ensuring workplace accessibility, such as incorporating ergonomic workstations or adding ramps, automatic doors, etc.

• Providing assistive technologies like braille readers, captioning software, etc., to assist employees with their day-to-day tasks.

• Including quietness rooms, wellness spaces, and flexible lighting to ensure mental well-being.

• Reducing workload by eliminating non-essential tasks or reassigning them to coworkers. Managers may also offer additional time to finish tasks if necessary.

While providing accommodations is necessary, if modifications become particularly extensive or unreasonable, it can lead to misunderstandings, conflicts, and incurring financial burden. For instance, significant office transformations or requests for personal assistance or care, extensive leaves, etc., may not always be feasible, realistic, or even possible. In such scenarios, leaders may consider more practical strategies, such as partnering with their local disability organizations to cover additional costs or denying requests altogether after careful consideration.

2. Ensuring training and inclusive behaviors

     Leaders must take steps to ensure PwDs feel supported beyond the onboarding and training process.

• Conversations between managers and employees with disabilities must occur on a regular basis through check-ins, in-person meetings, anonymous surveys, or emails based on their preferences and level of comfort.

• Managers must be trained to ask PwDs intentional questions to determine the role they can play in setting them up for success. For instance, some people with disabilities may seek flexible scheduling to manage their medical appointments, while others may be uncomfortable working alongside large teams. Managers must strive to uncover any such challenges persons with disabilities may be facing and effectively address them. 

• Leadership may embody inclusive behaviors and encourage them across teams to ensure persons with disabilities feel psychologically safe, seen, and empowered to speak openly. According to the Harvard Business Review, when managers and leaders exhibit vulnerability and empathy, it makes them 76% more approachable, ensuring PwDs feel safe to open up.

• Ongoing efforts to increase participation and representation of PwDs in management and leadership positions are necessary.

3. Using emerging tech to remove accessibility barriers

Disability support may be represented in everyday communications, workflows, processes, and technologies. Leaders may employ emerging technologies like AI, robotics, screen readers, and virtual reality to eliminate barriers of access for people with special needs.

Conclusion

Hiring individuals with disabilities can translate to profound impacts on teams and drive meaningful outcomes for organizations—including closing skill gaps, improving productivity, retention, and more. it may also push employees to leverage innovative problem-solving approaches and drive desirable results. 

Hiring managers must work with stakeholders,  leadership, and management to devise inclusive policies for employees with disabilities to ensure they are supported beyond the recruiting and onboarding processes. Use of emerging technologies, promoting inclusive leadership, and providing training to inculcate inclusive behaviors across teams can collectively help build a diverse workforce and improve organizational competency.

References:

• https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2020-01-23-gartner-predicts-69--of-routine-work-currently-done-b#:~:text=Today%2C%20AI%20and%20other%20emerging,a%2029%25%20increase%20in%20profitability

• https://hbr.org/2023/04/how-to-make-workplaces-more-inclusive-for-people-with-invisible-disabilities