Employers' Attitudes Towards Hiring and Retaining People with Disabilities: A Review of the Literature

Abstract

This selective review provides an overview of salient research findings related to employers' attitudes towards disability and prospective influences on employers to improve employment outcomes of people with disabilities. Research studies included for review are mainly those which investigated employer attitudes towards disability as predispositions to hiring people with disability. Selected studies were classified into three categories including hiring and accommodating employees with disabilities, work performance, and affective reactions and behavioural intentions of employers. Excluded from the review were studies that investigated other factors influencing employer attitudes toward disability. Altogether 34 research studies from the period of 1987 until 2012 were included in the review. Primary databases for the review included ProQuest, Ebscohost, Lexus Nexus, ERICK Database and the Sage Sociology Collection. This review of the demand-side employment literature suggests employers hold relatively positive attitudes regarding individuals with disabilities. However, employer affective reactions and behavioural intentions of employers towards disability in the work setting were less positive and negatively impact hiring decisions, provision of accommodations and work performance appraisals. Employer attitudes represent an important demand-side factor impacting full participation in competitive employment for individuals with disabilities. While employers report generally positive attitudes toward disability, hiring practices may still be discriminatory. Use by rehabilitation professionals of demand-side strategies with employers would likely result in higher rates of work participation by people with disabilities.

Disability Diversity Training in the Workplace: Systematic Review and Future Directions

“…At this point, researchers have done much more to document negative employer attitudes than develop strategies to change these attitudes [3,53,69,70]. It is likely that lasting improvements in the employment of people with disabilities will require alternatives to the traditional approach of increasing employability of people with disabilities, including reducing stigma toward hiring and retaining people with disabilities [14,71].…”

Additional Evidence for the Validity of the Employer Attitudes Toward Blind Employees Scale

“…Both types of scales (i.e., those measuring general attitudes and those measuring attitudes toward hiring people with disabilities) have been used in employer attitude studies. Multiple literature reviews synthesizing the results of these employer attitudes studies have been published (e.g., Burke et al, 2013;Greenwood & Johnson, 1987;Hernandez, Keys, & Balcazar, 2000;Ju, Roberts, & Zhang, 2013;Unger, 2002), and new employer attitude studies continue to appear in the literature (e.g., Andersson, Luthra, Hurtig, & Tideman, 2015;Nota, Santilli, Ginevra, & Soresi, 2014;Paez & Arendt, 2014). Hernandez et al (2000) provided one of the early comprehensive reviews of the literature on employer attitudes 642598R CBXXX10.1177/0034355216642598Rehabilitation Counseling BulletinMcDonnall toward people with disabilities.…”

Employers' recruitment of disadvantaged groups: exploring the effect of active labour market programme agencies as labour market intermediaries

“…While ALMPs marginally increased the probability of hiring from disadvantaged groups – including increasing the likelihood of employers recruiting the long‐term unemployed in the UK and lone parents in Denmark – they were not capable of counteracting the negative impact of selective hiring. Disabled people featured prominently in terms of significance levels only in Denmark, but in both countries, recruitment from this group was much lower than other disadvantaged groups, suggesting that there are significant barriers to their employment (Burke et al, ). Although the LMI literature suggests that ALMP agencies have the potential to increase employers' recruitment of disadvantaged groups, this is constrained if they act as basic ‘information provider’ LMIs.…”

“…Younger workers may be disadvantaged because of their perceived lack of skills and work experience (Snape and Redman, ; Loretto and White, ). Indeed there is an overt inconsistency between employers' claims to be positively disposed to employing disabled people and low employment rates for this group (Burke et al, ). Additionally, disadvantaged candidates who meet employers' suitability criteria may still be disproportionately affected by subjective acceptability criteria, which can amplify minor differences and signals (Brooks et al ., 2009).Hypothesis The importance employers attach to selection criteria in the recruitment process is negatively associated with the likelihood of employers hiring from disadvantaged groups.…”