Our FAQ Magazine
F. A. Q. on Disability and recruitment.
part 1
Q. Why should we bother to spend time and
energy on Disability recruitment?
A. Three reasons,
- the Employment Equity act no 55 1998 requires that people with
Disability be given affirmative action status and are therefore a
designated group which along with Race and gender require increased
employment attention.
- another reason is that people with Disabilities are part of our
reality in society, as they are with all other societies around the
world, and have been excluded for to long and it makes economic sense
to include them not exclude them.
- for most business or service providing organizations; Disability
constitutes existing or potential market share, and that in the spirit
of Diversity it makes sense to incorporate as much diversity within
ones organization as exists in society and the market place.
Note: consider this quote by Peter Bonnfield ex CEO of British Telecom
“Companies that fail to embrace Diversity, including Disability,
as a core business issue, are simply missing the point.”
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Q. But my premises are not accessible. We
cannot accommodate them, how are we supposed to comply with the EEA?
A. Firstly it is a mistake to think of Disability
in extremes, people with Disabilities are not just made up of people
in Wheelchairs or the blind, or the Deaf. Disability is very broad,
and encompasses a wide range of issues. Secondly, in this day and age
after more than 20 years of National Building regulations have incorporated
Access into their stipulations, inaccessibility is not a defense and
is probably unlawful to begin with.
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Q. There are so many jobs in our company that
simply cannot be done by Disability, can we target a selected range
of positions for people with Disabilities?
A. Absolutely not. This approach, often called the
shopping list approach is completely wrong. The idea that certain jobs
cannot be done by disability is baseless and inaccurate and is a result
of an old fashioned Medical model approach. The fact is that very, very
few jobs in any industry are “impossible” for Disabled people
to do.
Note: try a little exercise: thinking of the company you work for.
Identify the job that cannot be done by a person with a Disability in
your company.
Very quickly, you have probably come up with several jobs that you are
sure, CERTAIN disabilities cannot do. E.g. a driver cannot be a Blind
person, or a telephonist cannot be a deaf person……
There are two traps to look out for here.
One, just because one disability for instance a blind person cannot
be a driver, does not mean that another person with a different disability
cannot be a driver. Once again we tend to think in extremes and often
exclude all sorts of things as a result.
Second, how many senior level jobs did you think of? It is interesting
how often we think of Disability opportunity as a lower level opportunity
but very rarely do we think of senior or executive positions as potentially
able to be filled by people with Disabilities.
What does this say about our faith in the ability of people with Disabilities
to be able to do whatever job they are skilled/prepared/trained to do.
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Q. But what do I do if a blind guy, say, applies
for a position as a driver?
A. we have an old saying; “people with Disabilities,
are Disabled, not stupid!” what this means of course is that people
with Disabilities are perfectly capable of self selection, you simply
wont get a blind guy applying for a drivers job, or a deaf guy wanting
to be a telephonist, or a chap in a wheelchair applying for a job as
a rigger, etc, etc. its already hard enough as a person with a Disability
in the job market, lets not make it harder by creating additional and
unnecessary barriers.
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Q. What if I can only cater for certain types
of Disabilities, is it ok, to target certain Disabilities only?
A. No, it is definitely not good Equity practice
to do this. Just like with so called “ring fenced” jobs,
one should for the most part always put the intention of inviting ANY
person with ANY kind of Disability to apply for ANY job you have available.
This will not be the embarrassing drama that many might think, for the
reasons stated above.
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Q. Do I have to get my work place completely
accessible before I begin to recruit People with Disabilities?
A. As ideal as this sounds, it is highly unlikely
that you will manage to get it 100% accessible for EVERY kind of Disability.
It would be futile therefore to hold back on hiring people with Disabilities
on the grounds that you were not ready. Certainly, one should as a matter
of law and decency, particularly if you have a fairly public front,
make an effort to be basically accessible especially from a physical
point of view. However as was discussed in the last “Nutshell”
article, access is way more than just a wheel chair consideration. The
fact is that everyone benefits from good access, not just people with
Disabilities.
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Q. But I am frightened that if I have to give
a job to a person with a Disability, it will cost me a fortune with
all the accommodation I will need to make for them.
A. This is definitely not the case as a generalization.
The fact is that on average people with Disabilities cost very little
if anything. It is a myth to assume that all people with Disabilities
“cost a fortune”.
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Q. is it true that people with Disabilities
are less productive than able bodied people?
A. Astonishingly, this has become a rather wide spread
rumour, and speaking even beyond basic political correctness, it is
simply nonsense. It is baseless and spurious and of course damning to
the ideal of increased opportunity. Having said this, however, if one
insists on only targeting entry level positions for people with Disabilities,
then certainly, one will have a certain amount of lower productivity
to deal with as the incumbent learnes the ropes.
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Q. I have several people with disabilities
employed in my call centre and reception . They make up at least 2%
of my workforce. Surely I am now compliant in terms of Equity?
A. Not necessarily. The best way to describe this
is to ask if by employing people of colour or women in such positions
only, would that be equity? Clearly this would not be acceptable equity,
so why then do we feel it is appropriate to mostly employ people with
Disabilities in mostly, lower level jobs?
End of Part one.
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