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Contrary to Commonly-held Beliefs,
Employing People with Disabilities Involves Negligible
Cost and High Productivity & Reliability
In January of 2008, the
results of a new study on the economic costs and
benefits of employing people with disabilities was
released. These results have challenged many prevailing
concerns that individuals with disabilities may be
expensive employees. The study was conducted by DePaul
University in Chicago and funded by the Illinois
Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.
Katherine McDonald is an Assistant Professor in the
Department of Psychology at Portland State University
and was a Co-investigator on the study. Katie
enthusiastically agreed to share their findings with our
readers.
OBLN:
Katie, could you explain what prompted this research
project to be conducted?
 Katie
McDonald: In 2002, Chicago’s Mayor Richard Daley put
together a Mayoral Task Force on the Employment of
Individuals with Disabilities. One of the Task Force’s
workgroups was focused on creating partnerships for
economic opportunities – how it is that employers create
employment opportunities for individuals with
disabilities. Repeatedly, members of the workgroup heard
employers’ express concerns about the cost that might be
associated with hiring individuals with disabilities –
expensive accommodations, additional supervisory time
required from managers and supervisors, unreliability,
and issues of a similar nature. While the workgroup
members believed that these concerns weren’t
empirically-supported, there was a lack of good, recent
data that could address those commonly held
perceptions. Given that, the Task Force commissioned a
study to examine the economic bottom line of hiring
individuals with disabilities.
OBLN:
In a nutshell, how would you describe the purpose of the
study?
Katie McDonald: The major
focus was to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of
employing people with disabilities – how workers with
and without disabilities compare on a number of
work-related variables. We also had a qualitative
component to help us understand employers’ experiences
in hiring people with disabilities.
OBLN:
Were employers themselves represented in the development
of the research design?
Katie McDonald: Yes, we
had representatives from companies in each of the three
industry sectors on which we were focusing– health care,
hospitality and retail – serve in advisory groups. We
worked closely with them to find out exactly what
information they wanted collected – that is, what
knowledge or information did they feel would help them
to constructively address beliefs among managers or
other employers that might limit employment
opportunities for individuals with disabilities. They
also helped us to design an effective way to gather the
data that we needed from the employees that participated
in the study.
OBLN:
What were the major findings on the cost-benefit
comparisons between workers with and without
disabilities?
Katie McDonald: Our
findings can be grouped into factors that were positive
about hiring employees with disabilities, factors that
were less favorable – we also examined the extent to
which each finding held true for the three industry
sectors that were represented in the research.
There were three key findings
that, across all sectors, strongly demonstrated that
employees with disabilities make good employees and are
good for a company’s bottom line:
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Employees with and without
disabilities have nearly identical job performance
ratings. In terms of quality of work and ability to
do the work, employees with disabilities in all
three sectors are on par with employees without
disabilities. Based on the larger sample size for
this data, we have relatively greater faith in this
finding.
-
Across all three industry
sectors, very similar levels of supervision are
required by employees with or without disabilities.
This is another very positive finding.
-
Employees with disabilities
have fewer scheduled absences than employees without
disabilities. One of the recurring concerns
expressed by some employers is that employees with
disabilities are going to be more absent from the job.
This finding indicates that employees with
disabilities are more likely to have more reliable
attendance than those without disabilities for
scheduled days away from work.
There were also several findings
related to specific industry sectors that demonstrated
the positive cost-benefit of employing people with
disabilities.
-
In the retail sector
specifically, our findings showed that employees
with disabilities also have significantly fewer
unscheduled absences and employees with disabilities
had identical workers compensation claims.
-
The retail and hospitality
sectors, our findings showed that employees with
disabilities stayed on the job much longer than
employees with disabilities. These lower rates of
turnover can result in considerable savings for the
companies.
-
In the health care and
hospitality sectors, our findings showed that very
few employees with disabilities required
accommodations and, for those who did, the average
cost of accommodation was only $313.
OBLN:
Those findings will be really helpful. They do counter
many of the concerns that employers commonly bring up.
What about the findings that weren’t so positive?
Katie McDonald: There
were some findings that have less favorable implications
for employing people with disabilities.
-
In the health care sector,
our findings indicated that employees with
disabilities stayed on the job for shorter lengths
of time. The average period of employment for people
with disabilities was 114 months while it was 135
months for employees without disabilities. Our
advisors from the health care industry were
surprised by this finding and didn’t really know
what to make of it. We aren’t exactly sure what is
contributing to that finding.
-
Also in the health care
sector, our findings indicated that employees with
disabilities have more unscheduled absences than
employees without disabilities. This was a small
sample size, however, and we are not as confident
with this finding as we are with others.
-
In the hospitality and
health care sectors our findings indicated that
employees with disabilities had more workers
compensation claims. In the health care sector
employers consider the difference to be quite
trivial. The difference between employees with and
without disabilities is more significant in the
hospitality sector, but because of the small sample
size, we don’t have a lot of confidence that those
are truly representative findings.
OBLN:
While every employee has their own strengths and
weaknesses, those cost-benefit findings should certainly
bolster the confidence of any employer in the making a
hiring decision about an applicant with a disability.
What did you discover through your focus groups?
Katie McDonald: We
involved a very select group of employers in focus
groups to explore their experiences with applicants and
employees with disabilities. As major national or
international businesses, all participating companies
were all sizable companies. In general our participants
were high level administrators – sometimes CEOs, more
often vice presidents or directors of human resource
departments. While having different levels of
involvement, all participating employers played a role
in their company’s employment practices.
There were several important
findings that arose from the focus groups:
-
Their relationships with
agencies that serve people with disabilities around
employment issues was really critical. These
relationships helped the employers to find qualified
applicants for their positions, provided them with
any needed supports throughout the
application/interview process, and were a source of
early on-the-job support. Employers also recognized
the need for sustained, ongoing relationships of
this kind.
-
Having someone who acts as
an internal “disability champion” is also really
critical. These are people who regularly bring the
issues to the table, who serve as positive role
models and who really work to create viable
employment opportunities for people with
disabilities within the organization – internal
“change agents”, if you will.
-
Persistence of negative
biases from hiring managers. Focus group
participants reported concerns that they still hear
negative biases from their managers - as expressed
through comments such as: “If I hire someone with a
disability, isn’t it going to cost me a lot?”; “Is
the productivity of my work unit going to go down?”;
and “Would I have to spend a lot of extra time with
that person.”
-
Few promotions happen
for employees with known disabilities. In the world
of disability and employment, so much of the focus
has been focused on securing “a job” and not on
developing a “career”. Our employers felt that many
people with known disabilities seem to be hired into
entry-level positions – and they tend to hold them.
While the employers noted that they haven’t given a
lot of thought to the promotion of employees with
disabilities and they haven’t nourished it, they
wondered if it was, in fact, more risky for an
employee with a disability to take a promotion. For
example, they wondered if employees with
disabilities might be more reluctant to change work
environments to where people may not be as accepting
of them, they might have to renegotiate
accommodations, and where they would have a new
probationary period.
-
Managerial concerns about
the expense of employing people with disabilities.
Focus group participants reported that when they
looked at the actual costs of accommodations, they
were very minimal - and that the benefits were
well-worth the any expense incurred.
-
Employees with disabilities
bring added benefits. Anecdotally, employers
reported that there were a lot of benefits to
employing people with disabilities –for example,
that their companies get really dedicated and
reliable employees. They get to the job and they
stay on the job. They are also an asset to the
company’ broader diversity initiatives as other
employees interpret this as “I am employed in a
company that is willing to create opportunities for
everyone. If they care about people with
disabilities, I am sure that they care about others
from X, Y and Z groups,”
OBLN:
It seems that a major implication of your study is that
hiring managers, who are effectively the threshold for
entering a company’s workforce, are actually blocking
the opportunities for people with disabilities – based
on erroneous information.
Katie McDonald: That is
how we see this study being able to help address the
employment crisis in the disability community – by
making accurate information available to them so they
can make informed decisions about the hiring of
individuals with disabilities.
OBLN:
You must be excited now that the results of your work
have been released. Is it having the kind of impact that
you hoped for?
Katie McDonald: We
consider the study to be really important work. We are
amazed at the interest that it has generated and
grateful for that interest. The whole point of this
project and the larger initiative of which it was a part
was to stimulate social change and action that will
address the employment crisis amongst people with
disabilities. We are just thrilled that it is gaining
attention from people, employers, service providers and
government officials, who are in a position to make real
change and create employment opportunities.
See the Executive Summary, Complete Report and
PowerPoint Summary of the DePaul study at
disabilityworks.org
JUST ANNOUNCED! June
12, 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM (PST) Exploring the Bottom
Line: A Study of the Costs and Benefits of Workers with
Disabilities - OBLN Webinar on the DePaul
study. Katie McDonald and Brigida Hernandez will give a
detailed report on the findings of this study. For more
details, email Lucy Baker
lucy.baker@obln.org,
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"
Employees with and without disabilities have
nearly identical job performance ratings. In
terms of quality of work and ability to do the
work, employees with disabilities...are on par
with employees without disabilities."
The
Advertising Educational Foundation recently featured an
article on the increasing focus on customers with
disabilities and the ins and outs of advertising to that
target group...
2nd
Annual Project SEARCH Conference July 13 - 16,
2007 Seattle, WA.
Based
on the enthusiastically-received session that he
presented at last fall's Tapping Fresh Talent
Career Fair, diversity and leadership consultant
