Moving Past Compliance: 7 Ways to Go Above and Beyond in Disability Inclusion

Posted by Dean Askin | Reading time 7:00 | Filed under Inclusive Hiring, Disability Awareness & Confidence

Photo courtesy Hilary Gauld / One for the Wall Photography and the Canadian Down Syndrome Society

There’s making your business disability inclusive. And there’s fostering disability inclusion in your business. One is not the same as the other. It all depends on the level of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) maturity in your business. Which is determined by your mindset. Because that drives everything.

Research shows approaching disability-inclusive hiring and accessibility strictly from a narrow “compliance” mindset, hinders the ability of employees to achieve their full potential. And thereby hampers your company’s long-term growth, profitability and success.  

In research by two London Business School professors published in a 2023 Harvard Business Review article, 88% of human resources professionals surveyed said disability-inclusive hiring “significantly” improved “the internal culture of their firms.”

And 74% of the human resources executives surveyed, said teams started working better together.

Boosting overall performance with a culture shift

When the corporate culture is one in which everyone feels safe and welcome; when business-unit teams work better together; a company performs better overall.

An Accenture study showed that disability-inclusive companies perform better than businesses that aren’t. They have:

Disability inclusion goes beyond fulfilling legal obligations or ticking boxes.

And it’s much more than an initiative, going by The Cambridge Business English Dictionary definition of the word: “A new plan or process to achieve something or solve a problem.”

It encompasses proactively, intentionally creating an inclusive work environment. One where all employees feel valued and are provided with equitable opportunities to contribute and thrive. It’s about fostering a culture of respect and opportunity.

How to do that? Here are seven essentials for shifting the compliance mindset and transforming your business with intentional disability inclusion.

Going far beyond compliance requires total, intentional, proactive commitment to transforming every facet of your business. Including the culture of it. It’s a long-term, multi-step journey that starts in the C-Suite. Disability inclusion in any organization is driven from the top down.

The CEO must be the primary champion of disability-inclusive hiring. And they need to have a high level of disability awareness and confidence as well as the right attitude. The CEO sets the culture, tone and direction of the company.

The senior leadership team must make sure disability inclusion is an integral part of the company’s core values, and strategic priorities. Disability needs to be part of the internal business conversation about DEI. Too often it’s left out.

With all this in mind, senior leaders can and should actively demonstrate their commitment to championing disability inclusion efforts. Ways can include sponsoring an employee resource group (ERG) or chairing a company committee focused on disability.

Too often, accessibility is an afterthought. In the 2022 Canadian Survey on Disability by Statistics Canada, 72% of people who have a disability said they have faced accessibility barriers in indoor and public spaces.

And not enough businesses show real commitment to accessibility.

A 2023 report by The Return on Disability Group noted this: an analysis of the top 50 Canadian small-to-medium enterprises for 2022 showed that less than half of them are committed to accessibility.

Accessibility should be the first consideration for:

All of these things should be accessible to everyone. Prioritizing accessibility includes making sure:

Following the 7 Principals of Universal Design is good for your business, and your brand reputation.

3. Develop disability-inclusive policies

Create and implement company policies that ensure equitable opportunities for people who have a disability. It can help increase morale and employee engagement.

Here’s what a 2023 Boston Consulting Group global study found: When a company really invests in its people, employees who have a disability are 1.5 times more likely to stay with the company than employees without disabilities. 

Developing disability-inclusive policies also elevates your brand and business in the eyes of consumers.

A 2021 survey by the Angus Reid Institute and The Rick Hansen Foundation survey found, 62% of Canadians are more likely to do business with a company if they know it has policies that support employees who have a disability.

Disability-inclusive company policies should cover the full spectrum: recruitment, hiring, training, career advancement, workplace adjustments.

Astute business leaders are making sure this is happening in their organizations. The 2022 Disability Equality Index report showed this. In all, 79% of businesses surveyed said they have programs focused on the retention and career advancement of employees who have a disability.

Your disability-inclusive policies should include SMART goals for this. But only 29% of American employers surveyed said they have measurable goals for retaining and promoting employees who have a disability.

Make your recruitment and hiring practices disability inclusive

Company practices stem from company policies. Put those disability-inclusive recruitment and hiring policies into practice. Proactively expand your talent searches to include the disability talent pool. It’s a large one: there are almost 645,000 employable Canadians who have a disability.

Consider dedicating one person on your human resources team to recruiting people who have a disability. By doing this, you’re demonstrating commitment to disability-inclusive hiring.

You’d be setting an example for other businesses to follow. A Westat report for the U.S. Office of Disability Employment Policy found, only 4.2% of businesses surveyed have a recruiter dedicated to recruiting job seekers who have a disability.

Connecting with the disability talent pool

If you’re not sure how to reach this hidden talent pool, there are disability sector organizations that can help.

In Canada, these include The Canadian Association for Supported Employment; The Ontario Disability Employment Network; and SARC.

In the U.S., there’s Disability:IN. It has 18 regional affiliates in 16 states.

These organizations can connect you with community-based employment service providers (ESPs) that serve clients who have a disability.

Then it’s a matter of establishing a relationship with a local ESP. They’ll work with you to match a job seeker to your talent needs. And they’ll provide support after the hire to help make sure the outcome is positive and successful for everyone involved.

Audit your application process for inclusivity

A major part of inclusive recruitment practices is making sure your application process is accessible. Online recruitment systems are notoriously inaccessible. This means you’re likely missing out on a lot of qualified talent. Job seekers who have a disability will abandon the application process if it’s too difficult and time consuming.

Here’s what a 2021 study of the “hidden” talent market by Accenture and the Harvard Business School found: Both “high-skilled” (28%) and “middle-skilled” (18%) hidden workers permanently abandon job searches when online application processes are too cumbersome.

There are no winners with this inaccessibility.

Make recruitment interviews inclusive

Your interview processes also should be inclusive. This includes:

This is a big part of going above and beyond with disability inclusion. Everyone at all levels of your business must have the right attitude, awareness and confidence about disability. It’s essential for experiencing all the positive business benefits. And for the reshaping of the company culture that’s needed.

So it’s vital to invest in disability awareness and confidence training (DACT) for everyone in your organization. From front-line staff, to hiring managers, to the business owner or CEO. It should be your first step to making disability-inclusive hiring, “business as usual.”

Check out this post about why disability awareness and confidence training is key to creating an inclusive work environment.

In fact, think differently about them.

Legislation compels employers globally to make reasonable accommodations for employees who have a disability up to the point of undue hardship.

For example, there’s the Canadian Human Rights Act; the Americans with Disabilities Act; and in Australia, the Disability Discrimination Act 1992.

There are better ways to approach workplace accommodations and adjustments than with a compliance mindset.

Usually the onus is put on the employee to request accommodations. And it’s not unheard of for the process to be made difficult, and dragged out. This isn’t good for morale, or employee engagement and retention.

Be proactive. Don’t put the onus on employees to request accommodations. Rather, ask people whether they need accommodations, and what they are, to do their jobs successfully. Proactively offer and provide them.

A study by the Job Accommodation Network shows that providing accommodations helps employers:

Better yet, avoid asking the accommodations question. Instead, ask this: “How can I help you be successful?” It makes for an entirely different perspective and conversation about workplace accommodations.

Until the COVID-19 pandemic, workplace accommodations generally were thought of as something requested or needed only by employees who have a disability.

But the pandemic brought a sea change: adjustments were made for employees at large so everyone could continue to do their jobs successfully.

Making this shift in thinking about accommodations is part of the organizational culture shift needed to be truly disability inclusive.

Get to the point where:

This is Level 3 in the Deloitte four-level model of DEI maturity as explained by Juliet Bourke and Bernadette Dillon in their 2018 Deloitte Review article, The Diversity and Inclusion Evolution: Eight Powerful Truths.

It’s essential to set measurable goals and mileposts so you can effectively and accurately track your progress on disability inclusion. There should be regular reporting on achievements and areas for improvement — to hold everyone in the company accountable.

In part two, we’ll look at key metrics for assessing the success of disability inclusion in your organization or business.

Dean Askin
Dean Askin
is the Communications Strategist for the Ontario Disability Employment Network.