Employer-recommended strategies to increase opportunities for people with disabilities

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The employment rate among persons with disabilities is less than half the rate among persons without disabilities. Broad innovations are needed to reduce this disparity. OBJECTIVE: We examined employers' perspective related to: a) challenges they face when hiring people with disabilities, b) advantages (i.e. the business case) to employing people with disabilities, and c) their recommendations for innovations in both the public disability employment services systems and their own hiring practices to increase employment of people with disabilities. METHODS: We conducted four focus groups with a total of 74 participants. Participants were purposively sampled among Massachusetts private and public sector employers. Qualitative methods were used to analyze the data. RESULTS: Employers identified stigma, uncertainties about applicant abilities, and the complexity of the public disability employment service system as hiring challenges, and increasing diversity, expanding talent and increasing brand loyalty as advantages to employing people with disabilities. Employers recommended establishing business-to-business networks and improving coordination across the disability employment service system to increase job opportunities for people with disabilities. CONCLUSIONS: Service system innovations and changes in employer hiring practices may increase employment among people with disabilities and have benefits to employers and companies, especially those looking to diversity their workforces.

Lessons from the Diversity Partners Project: Using knowledge translation to strengthen business engagement strategies and improve employment outcomes for job seekers with disabilities

“…Frontline employment professionals typically come to the field with limited experience providing job placement for job seekers with disabilities, and even more frequently, with a limited understanding of how to implement effective employer engagement strategies. Nevertheless, they are the primary point of contact in most employer interactions and must be prepared to present a business case for hiring people with disabilities that will be relevant to business necessity (Henry, et al, 2014). During the action planning sessions, many frontline staff expressed the value of having a readily-accessible, relevant, online intervention like Diversity Partners available to provide them with critical knowledge, tips and strategies for employer engagement.…”

A Systematic Literature Review of the Barriers to Job Placement for Person with Disabilities

“…The main cause identified is the employers' attitude towards hiring disabled person. Employers have a negative perception towards person with disabilities whereby they are concerned that person with disabilities could not perform the task (19)(20)(21)(22). Past literature shows that attitude of managers impact the hiring of PWDs (23)(24)(25) found that attitude influences intention, while in turn, intention predicts behaviour.…”

Shaping attitudes to disability employment with a national disability insurance scheme

“…A minority of employers are positive about employing people with disability, viewing them as productive and reliable employees . Hiring people with disability can enhance an employer's social reputation (Henry et al 2014), but most employers maintain negative attitudes (Pruett et al 2008) and concerns (Fraser et al 2010) that prevent them from hiring disabled people.…”

“…Attitudes are reflected in behaviours such as avoidance (Altman 1981). Government efforts to break down barriers to employment for people with disability in Australia have followed international recommendations such as making employment of people with disability easier for employers, incentivising hiring, and providing access to training for employers, their workforce, and people with disability (Henry et al 2014). Differences in work impairments -in disability type and severity -increase the complexity of overcoming employer resistance to hiring people with disability (Tuckerman et al 2012;Waghorn & Hielscher 2015).…”

“…Personal support for people with disability included in the NDIS might not be enough for employers to include people with disability in their workforces (Hallahan 2015). The Australian government may need to consider more controversial interventions in the international literature such as tax incentives for hiring and workforce diversity mandates (Henry et al 2014).…”