Diversity & Inclusion: 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.

Employment 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 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 requires someone to be able to travel.

• When arranging an interview, ensure the format of the interview does not disadvantage the disabled applicant.

• It’s important that questions relate to the requirements of the job. Avoid any questions you would not ask of a person without a disability.

Use strength-based and neutral language. Avoid using ‘disclose’. The preferred terminology is ‘share information’. This is consistent with other personal information such as gender. Neutral language is more likely to reassure job applicants and employees that telling you about their disability does not mean they will be dismissed – especially if you make it clear you will make adjustments for employees who need them.

Creating an inclusive workplace

The term ‘disabled people’ is used because people are not disabled by their impairment but by the environment, such as the workplace. These barriers can be addressed by creating an inclusive and accessible workplace. The recipe to achieve this is relatively simple, it comprises the three As with the support of the magic three.

The three As are:

1. attitude: provide disability responsiveness training for participants to understand and acknowledge their unconscious biases, their fears and have the confidence to ask questions and converse effectively with disabled people

2. accessibility: provide access to the external and internal built environment and to information. Accessibility should be considered throughout the employment cycle, from recruitment to exit. Disabled people have the same career aspirations as everyone else.

3. accommodation (workplace adjustments): provide a reasonable accommodation policy and guideline for employees and managers.

The magic three are:

1. support of the leadership team of an organisation, which may range from an employer in a small to medium organisation to the chief executive and their leadership team in a larger corporate

2. support of HR professionals and line managers or team leaders

3. provision of an employee-led network or mechanism for disabled employees to give advice and suggestions back to the leaders.

One area often forgotten is career development. Are professional development opportunities accessible? Here are some suggestions for improvements.

• Invitations to career development opportunities with a clear heading structure that are available in alternative formats: braille, larger print, audio, Easy Read and New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL).

• Accessible venue: ramps with handrails, lightweight doors, good seating and clear signage.

• Information provided is digitally accessible and in alternative formats.

• PowerPoint presentations are accessible with alternative text for any graphs or diagrams.

• E-learning is based on accessible templates. If you are using videos in your training, make sure they are captioned, audio described and have picture-in-picture (NZSL in the corner of the video).

• If you are using examples, include positive stories about disabled people. This is important because it will change beliefs around disability.

The Accessibility Guide

suggests people adopt an inclusive design approach and all documents should be ‘borne accessible’. To create a borne accessible document, it should be:

• written in plain English

• have active and not passive verbs • have a clear structure

• have good colour contrast

• have left aligned text

• use plenty of white space.

Successful managers can get the best from their staff when they identify and accommodate what will help that employee in doing the best job possible. This is called reasonable accommodation and is supportive of many employees, not only disabled people. Reasonable accommodations are workplace adjustments.

The most common reasonable accommodation for everyone is flexibility, including flexible hours. Most accommodations have little or no cost, such as providing instructions in writing and showing people how to do a task.

You can do things to make sure people get the workplace support they need.

1. Ask the person what is required – don’t make assumptions.

2. It is crucial to remember everyone’s experience of a disability or health condition is different – two people with the same condition may have entirely different symptoms, impacts on their work capacity and coping mechanisms.

3. Workplace adjustments let an employee (or potential employee) perform to their full capacity.

4. Talk to the person and listen to what they have to say before making up your mind – the person will feel valued. It is about building trust and rapport.

People often forget some necessary steps when providing reasonable accommodations. 1. Check Microsoft because it has several accessibility features built into the system. Many people aren’t aware of this: www.microsoft.com/en-us/accessibility

2. Support Funds provides funding for disability-related needs, such as specialised equipment, NZSL interpreters and transport. Check out: https://supportfunds.co.nz/.

3. Make sure the person receives training for specialised equipment or software to let the employee be most productive. Keep licences updated.

4. Make sure you have an effective handover when line managers change so the employee can maintain their reasonable accommodations.

5. Document decisions.

6. Regularly review reasonable accommodations with employees as people’s circumstances change over time.

Retaining existing employees

Within your organisation, you will have disabled people1 who have either a disability that existed at the time they were employed or they acquired during their employment. The most common long-term absences from work are musculoskeletal and mental health issues. What has already been discussed applies to existing staff as well as new employees.

To retain the talent of disabled people, it is important that employees feel appreciated, respected and worthwhile.

Many employers are often unaware of the disabled employees in their workplace. There may be several reasons for this, including a fear by disabled employees that sharing information about their impairment or health condition may affect their chances of promotion or being given professional development opportunities.

Where staff are aware that the organisation is committed to creating an inclusive workplace, and all staff feel valued, employees are more likely to share information about their impairment or health condition.

Research has shown that people with invisible disabilities are less likely to share information about their needs because they feel they won’t be believed or they will have to prove they have a disability.

As the US National Organization on Disability says:

We find anecdotally that sharing information about a disability at work can free up a huge amount of ‘emotional real estate.’ Being one’s self at work, by sharing information about a disability with a disabilityfriendly employer, can increase trust with co-workers, bosses and others, lessening the stress that can come with a disability and allowing the person to freely access needed accommodations.2

Conclusion

What this article highlights is the importance of good people management skills. A good manager gets it right. Remember, the best way to find out what people need and want is to ask. Don’t make assumptions about who should be asked – ask everyone. The following is crucial advice to line managers:

You don’t create a positive workplace or culture just by saying so. You have to nurture it by treating your people well, promoting their health and wellbeing and also by being there to support them when things get them down. Helping people to deal with the pressures in their lives is one of the best investments an employer can make.3

The challenge to all of us is captured in the saying from Lao Tzu, “A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step”.

Anne Hawker is the Principal Disability Adviser at the Ministry of Social Development where I have worked for the past 12 years. Before that, I worked at ACC and the Ministry of Health and as Chief Executive of the Head Injury Society and Director of the Mosgiel Abilities Centre. I have had several leadership positions at a regional, national and international level. These have included President of the Disabled Persons Assembly (NZ) and Vice President of the Multiple Sclerosis New Zealand. In 2008, I was elected as the first women world President of Rehabilitation International.

3 Managing and supporting mental health at work: Disclosure tools for managers. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and Mind UK, p15.