DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION ANNE HAWKER
The forgotten twenty per cent Expectations have been established for disabled people that they will have the same opportunities as others, following New Zealand ratifying the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities and the New Zealand Disability Strategy (2016 to 2026). Anne Hawker, Principal Disability Adviser at the Ministry of Social Development, explores how we, as HR professionals, can get this right.
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mployment is often seen as an opportunity for people to be truly contributing citizens, with economic and social values that benefit our communities and society. But for many disabled people, it can be challenging to get a foot in the door, stay in the job, and to have meaningful career development. With disabled people making up 21 per cent of our working-age population, only 49 per cent are in paid employment. Compare this with 77 per cent of non-disabled people, and we start seeing that there’s a gap. We know that the economic cost of excluding disabled people from the 34
HUMAN RESOURCES
SUMMER 2020
workplace is $11 billion. So, it’s time to act. We know that disabled people are less likely to be employed than any other minority group, and disabled students are twice as likely as nondisabled people to leave school without a qualification.
Why do disabled people find it hard to get work?
There are myths about disabled people: “They’re a health and safety risk”; “They’ll be away a lot”; “They’ll cost more”. These myths are easily busted. A Deakin University study of the benefits and costs of employing disabled people published in 2002 found that: • disabled people were absent from work 15 per cent less than their colleagues without disabilities • employing disabled people was financially cost-neutral or cost-beneficial to the whole organisation. Technology has also removed many barriers faced by disabled people, enabling more people to reach their full potential • disabled employees averaged one-sixth the recorded occupational health and safety incidents of non-disabled employees. In managing their impairment, disabled people have
developed strategies to address health and safety risks. However, too often, we are seeing that the challenge for disabled people to find meaningful employment may not be about their visible impairment but society’s attitude towards disability and disabled people. In particular, the soft bigotry of low expectation, unconscious bias and deficit-based language can be a daily experience for some.
Shifting the dial
As an HR professional, you can play a vital role in changing the figures and helping disabled people to achieve their aspirations. The following are ways to make your workplace more inclusive. • When advertising for positions, use a statement like “We welcome enquiries from everyone and value diversity in our workforce”. • Increasingly, online recruitment is being used. Websites, application forms, job descriptions and contracts should all be tested for accessibility. • Job descriptions should not be too specific about how a task is to be completed, for example, requiring the employee to have a driver’s licence when the task simply
