Hiring people with disabilities isn’t “doing the right thing.” It’s “doing the right thing for business.” The true value for organizations doesn’t come from ticking the right boxes, but from accessing the benefits of an inclusive environment.
There are real, proven advantages to employing people with disabilities. Your business can benefit from:
The business opportunity is irrefutable. Employing people with disabilities means better performance.
There is not one industry in which people with disabilities are unable to work. There are as many opportunities as there are businesses, and you can access work-ready individuals who are prepared to positively contribute to their communities, often without extra costs on accommodations. You can broaden your pool of skilled candidates across all industries by including people with disabilities. Technology. Healthcare. Banking Manufacturing. Retail. Food and Hospitality, Professional services. Transportation. Real Estate. Construction. You won’t have to lower the bar – just open your door a little bit wider.
Anyone can acquire a disability. At any time. That’s worth considering. In most cases, the cost to accommodate and achieve these benefits is negligible:
Business leaders often disregard people with disabilities as “just another small minority group.” Nothing could be further from the truth.
As the largest of all minority groups–affecting 3.8 M Canadians across all demographics–people with disabilities are also a unique population. Unlike other minority groups, any of us can become a part of this group at any given time, whether temporarily or permanently. In fact, more than 75% of people with disabilities acquire their disability as adults.
The benefits of becoming “disability confident” include cost reductions associated with turnover, absenteeism and safety, and improvements in productivity. In addition, companies hiring people with disabilities often discover that they not only have access to an untapped talent pool, but that they can also improve their products and services and expand into new markets.
By the way, the cost of accommodation is low–or nothing at all. In a U.S. study of almost 2000 employers conducted by the Job Accommodation Network between 2004 and 2012, researchers learned that most employers report no or low cost for accommodating employees with disabilities. Of those accommodations having an associated cost, the average one-time expenditure by employers was $500. Anecdotal research conducted in 2012 by the Canadian Panel on Labour Market Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities supports these findings.
Capital markets outperformance The Return on Disability Group review of equity indices, summarized in The Return on Disability Rating Report, demonstrates that companies with a strong record of hiring people with disabilities perform better. In the early 90s, a Harvard study demonstrated that organizations leveraging diversity (“adaptive cultures”) dramatically outperformed non-adaptive ones across many indicators, with 90% posting increased market valuation compared to 74%. Findings from 2012 McKinsey were consistent: for companies ranking in the top quartile of executive-board diversity, ROEs were 53 percent higher, on average, than they were for those in the bottom quartile.
Today, 53% of Canadians either have a disability or have a close connection to someone who does. They are employees, customers, suppliers and vendors, and they represent a $55 billion consumer market in Canada – $1 trillion globally per year. A U.S. National Survey of consumer attitudes towards companies that hire people with disabilities found that 92% of the American public viewed these companies more favourably. Eighty-seven percent said they would prefer to give their business to companies hiring people with disabilities.
Employees with disabilities can offer a unique perspective and insight into products and services that may lead to product innovations and competitive advantage. They can play a key role in identifying elements of accessibility that may not be recognized by product developers who do not have disabilities. They can also help find ways to reach out to new markets that include people with disabilities. As an added benefit, innovations built into products to improve accessibility often lead to enhanced usability for all consumers, not just those with disabilities.
Canadian Business SenseAbility
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