PurposeEmployers increasingly seek a competitive advantage through inclusive hiring practices and recruitment of persons with disabilities. Early research indicates when employers consider individuals for their strengths rather than solely for their needs, the organization prospers. However, details about how companies pursue a disability inclusive workplace and the effect of those efforts are poorly understood.Design/methodology/approachAn inductive qualitative case study approach was utilized to understand one biotechnology corporation and their approach to recruiting, hiring, and retaining employees with disabilities. Individual and focus group interviews were conducted.FindingsResults suggest that when the company lives its mission around wellness and inclusivity, they benefit from working with and learning from a range of perspectives, furthering their growth. Placing equal emphasis on hiring a diverse workforce and prioritizing supports and wellness practices lead to greater productivity and innovation.Practical implicationsThis study illustrates how one company successfully recruits and hires persons with disabilities, resulting in benefits to their financial bottom line and to the organizational culture.Originality/valueThis paper offers insights for other companies intentionally hiring persons with disabilities, providing accommodations in the workplace, and creating an organizational culture where all employees feel valued and supported. These steps have a direct impact on employee engagement, productivity, and retention.
Background and Objectives
Sexual minority individuals demonstrate disparate rates of substance use. Research suggests that bisexual women are vulnerable to substance use disorders when compared to other sexual minority groups. This study explored differences in prevalence of past‐year alcohol use disorder (AUD) with and without concurrent past‐year opioid and/or benzodiazepine misuse.
Methods
The present study utilized responses from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) public dataset between the years 2015–2019 (N = 16,002) to examine the association between sexual orientation and concurrent misuse of opioids and/or benzodiazepines among individuals with past‐year AUD, stratified by sex.
Results
Bisexual females demonstrated higher rates of concurrent opioid and benzodiazepine use compared to all other groups. Although there was no association between sexual orientation and concurrent substance use patterns among males, female respondents with past‐year AUD endorsing past‐year misuse of opioids and benzodiazepines, both alone and in combination, were more likely to be bisexual compared to heterosexual. Lesbians were less likely to endorse concurrent misuse of opioids and benzodiazepines compared to bisexual females.
Discussion and Conclusions
In a national sample, bisexual females demonstrated higher odds of risky concurrent substance use patterns. Identifying sexual minority individuals who exhibit elevated risk of co‐occurring alcohol, opioid, and/or benzodiazepine misuse is an important step to targeted prevention efforts and allocation of resources to combat rising overdose deaths.
Scientific Significance
For the first time, this study explored risky concurrent alcohol, opioid, and benzodiazepine misuse patterns among individuals of different sexual orientations.
The purpose of this case study investigation is to understand how staff from a large multisite organization with demonstrated excellence in supporting persons with disabilities (PWDs) construct their understanding of disability and hiring practices related to PWDs. Better understanding how individual employees internalize organizational practices regarding PWDs is essential to facilitate expanded employment opportunities, enhanced organizational functioning, and more supportive work environments for PWDs. Drawing on the Theory of Planned Behavior, in this investigation we have sought to better understand how employees internalize (or do not) the organizational commitment to hire PWDs, and how individual employee understandings of PWDs negotiate (mis)alignments between their perspectives and organizational practices and values. Overall, we found fundamental differences in the understandings, motivations, rationales, support strategies, and concerns of participants related to the employment of PWDs. Even though participants in this study were recruited because of their direct involvement in supporting PWDs in the workplace, they articulate different definitions of disability, perceptions of organizational commitments, and investments in employment practices related to PWDs. We found that virtually each participant in this study is mission-driven, articulating a rationale for hiring and supporting PWDs that is connected to their perception of the organizational investment in the same. However, participants negotiate two very different rationales in articulating their perspectives—with one extreme being charity-oriented and the other human resource oriented. While some participants seemed to embody the elements of one extreme consistently, many incorporated elements of both in discussing their understandings.
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