The evidence is indisputable that hiring people with a disability can bring many benefits to an organisation
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When people hear the words ‘diversity and inclusion’, more often than not it’s talked about in terms of gender, race and sexuality.
However, there is another group that is getting more attention than it traditionally has been: people with disabilities.
Zack Alcott, national partnerships manager at Get Skilled Access told HRD that now is a really exciting time because people are finally starting to realise that disability sits within inclusion.
“When we are speaking to HR managers and HR departments we learn that many organisations have an inclusion-based policy and they might also have a disability-based policy - it doesn’t have to be like that.”
Alcott spoke recently at Skillsoft’s Perspectives event in Sydney on D&I and strategies to close the skills gap.
He added that the evidence is indisputable that hiring people with a disability can bring many benefits to an organisation.
Indeed, 89% of organisations who employ people with disability identify positive benefits including: improved morale (61%), filling a skills gap (49%), productivity (42%) and customer loyalty (34%), according to the Disability Confidence Survey Report 2016.
This is particularly significant given around 4.5 million people in Australia have some form of disability (equating to 20% of the total population), according to the ABS.
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Alcott told HRD that companies who are getting disability inclusion right are proactive and haven’t been afraid to be more inclusive - many of whom have been inspired by their own life experiences.
“Some employers have a personal connection to people with disabilities. For example, they might have a child, relative or a close friend with disability,” he said.
“Then it’s about making the workplace as inclusive as possible to accommodate everybody and not make anybody feel uncomfortable.”
Alcott also said that it’s important to educate all staff about disability and debunk any myths or unconscious bias that some people might hang on to.
“Once those myths go away then the organisation becomes a great place to be for people with disability.”
He added that what’s particularly interesting are the statistics around staff loyalty and retention rate.
According to the Human Rights Commission, employees with a disability stayed with a company on average 4.1 years compared to 3.2 years for employees without a disability.
Moreover, research by Telstra Australia showed that over a 15-month period, people with a disability had 11.8 days absent compared to people without a disability who had 19.24 days absent.
“In the HR world a lot of managers will find those statistics very interesting as it could lead to something very beneficial to their workplace.”
Get Skilled Access emphasise that it’s important to keep in mind that effective onboarding is extremely beneficial for employees with disabilities.
“It is important to have everything in place for a new employee. This includes support for adjustments and may only become clear what supports are required once the job has started.”