“Just because someone has disabilities like speech impediments or deafness doesn’t prevent them from delivering great work.”
Diversity and Inclusion should be practiced not because it is the right thing to do but because being inclusive gives you a chance to access a larger talent pool. When the workplace becomes inclusive of differently-abled people there is a thought process change wherein the organization decides to look beyond the disability and foresees the benefits of having the specific person onboard.
While diversity is cited as a top value by almost every organization, people with disabilities often are overlooked or under-supported. Very few organizations include initiatives for hiring people with disabilities. And many don’t consider whether their policies and practices are making it harder than necessary for people with disabilities to fully participate.
As a result, they’re missing out on a great source of talent, and we’re all missing out on the full potential of people whose abilities put them in some way outside the “standard fit” in our workplaces.
In large part, companies haven’t leveraged the talents of persons with disabilities for three reasons:
• A lack of understanding of the scope of the talent available
• A lack of understanding of the potential benefits
• Misconceptions about the cost versus the ROI of disability inclusion
But leading companies that are working successfully toward disability inclusion have also achieved tangible financial benefits. For example, the research shows that leading companies were, on average, twice as likely to have higher total shareholder returns than those of their peer group.
Some companies are not taking advantage of the benefits of disability initiatives. While many are concerned about the costs of accommodating persons with disabilities, these are actually minimal and fruitful investments.
CEOs and investors need to know the strong qualitative and quantitative business case for robust disability inclusion programs. If we make companies aware of the potential gains, share success stories, and demonstrate how to build these programs, we can quickly get more persons with disabilities into the workforce, where they can thrive.
“Being honest about where you stand can be a hard—yet crucial— first step toward becoming a more inclusive company. Accountability and creating an environment of trust where employees feel comfortable self-identifying as having a disability are true measures of inclusion.”
Diversity and inclusion are gradually moving beyond the ambit of social responsibility. Companies now recognize that supporting differently-abled employees with the requisite infrastructure and assistive technology enhances value, lifts productivity, and offers opportunities to diverse people. This results in a new ecosystem that enables fresh ideas and encourages a progressive approach to roadblocks.
How can companies build an inclusive workplace and reap the benefits?
Employ Organizations must ensure that persons with disabilities are represented in their workplace. Beyond hiring, employers should implement practices that encourage and progress persons with disabilities.
Enable Leaders must provide employees with disabilities with accessible tools and technology and/or a formal accommodations program. Consider cultivating greater awareness through formal training programs for those without disabilities to learn about the tools and accommodations available for better integration across teams.
Engage To foster an inclusive culture throughout the organization, companies must generate awareness-building through recruitment efforts, disability education programs, and grass-roots-led efforts and events.
Empower Companies must offer to mentor and coach initiatives and skilling/reskilling programs to ensure that persons with disabilities continue to grow and succeed. Persons with disabilities should occupy roles at all levels, including top leadership positions.
Beyond Revenue: Countless Benefits of Inclusion A large body of previous research shows that disability inclusion efforts are a boon to employers, specifically across six key areas of “inclusion incentives.”
Increased Innovation Persons with disabilities have to be creative to adapt to the world around them. As such, they develop strengths such as problem-solving skills, agility, persistence, forethought, and a willingness to experiment—all of which are essential for innovation.
Having employees with disabilities across departments helps ensure that the products and services that go to market are truly inclusive. And making things more accessible for persons with disabilities can translate into products and services from which everyone benefits— for instance, home devices using natural voice recognition, driving sales and growth.
Improved Shareholder Value Businesses that hire persons with disabilities and foster inclusive cultures report bottom-line benefits that show proven ROI.
Regulators and the investor community increasingly monitor company culture and diversity. Disability inclusion is a key component of these metrics, and mandatory reporting on them will be enforced for some federal contractors starting in 2019.
Improved Productivity All workers benefit from a more diverse workplace. Studies show that working alongside employees with disabilities makes non-disabled individuals more aware of how to make the workplace more inclusive and better for everyone.
Staff turnover is also lower —by up to 30 percent—when a well-run disability community outreach program is in place.
Work environments that are more inclusive of persons with disabilities often see improved productivity levels. For example, Microsoft has built a successful disability hiring program specific to people on the Autism spectrum. More organizations are discovering that employing persons with disabilities is not as expensive or challenging as is often assumed. A DuPont employee survey found that when employees with disabilities are graded on the same scale as other employees, 90 percent of them receive performance ratings of “average” or above average.”
There are no two ways that a diverse workforce will boost the growth of an organization. Leaders and HR professionals will continue to reinvent their strategies to hire and retain valuable talent. An organization, where employees feel satisfied, looked after, and appreciated, will have higher chances of achieving its desired outcomes while contributing to Nation-Building.
Companies will have to rethink their hiring strategies and recruit through an inclusion lens. They must introduce flexible policies that enable adequate work-life balance and allow remote working. While this benefits all employees, it assumes great importance for people with disabilities as it can leverage an untapped talent pool of people, who are physically challenged, to the mainstream workforce.
The current business environment is rapidly evolving and dominated by hyper-competitiveness. People’s talent combined with technological advances will give companies the edge over peers and help them stay relevant. An open mind to hiring a diverse workforce will aid in bridging the talent gap. Organizations can also roll out skilling and training programs to mould hired talent as per their needs.
New-age technologies including artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), automation, edge computing, Internet-of-Things (IoT), and more will not only help companies improve efficiency, reduce workload, and derive accurate results but will support diversity, inclusion, and equality. With the foundation of technology, companies will be better equipped to strengthen their policies for people with disabilities and guide them to “get the future they want”.
Working with people different from yourself isn’t a favor to them. It’s a favor to the people who get to work with creative thinkers, with unique perspectives, and different backgrounds.
An organization that prioritizes and embraces diversity gets to challenge stale ways of thinking and stays ahead of the curve.
Embrace diversity — don’t just tolerate it
As we mentioned, people want to be welcomed, not just tolerated. Your environment should reflect sensitivity, and inclusivity, and celebrate each other’s differences — both visible and invisible. After all, invisible illness is all around us. No matter what, stay transparent, and humble, and keep trying to get better. The goal is not to be beyond reproach. It’s to develop an environment where everyone is treated the way they want to be.
