Many companies across America are reporting hiring shortages, from retail to advanced technology firms. There are more than 10 million job openings in the nation right now, with more openings forming as employees change jobs or consumer demand drives companies to hire.
This demand for workers is considered an opportunity for some disability advocates, who are using the call for workers to highlight often overlooked communities. Employers tend to overlook candidates with disabilities and these groups want to prove that they are able to do the work – and are darn good employees to boot.
Here are a few organizations that are shining a spotlight on workers with disabilities to help them get hired in 2022.
The Stuttering Foundation provides answers for employers
One percent of the population (about three million Americans) stutter. This speech disorder often makes it hard for people to get hired. Employers believe employees who stutter won’t be able to do jobs in positions that require communication, which is part of most positions. Many people with a stutter also have a difficult time in job interviews, as employers can’t look past how the candidate speaks and communicates.
The Stuttering Foundation is using the hiring shortage to highlight how workers who stutter are often a solid hiring choice.
“People who stutter often have a temperament that’s perfectionist because many have to work tirelessly to gain fluency,” says Dr. Barry Guitar, Professor of Speech-language Pathology at the University of Vermont.
The Foundation created a PDF called Stuttering: Answers for Employers amongst other resources for people who are meeting with a candidate with a stutter. This guide can help your business maintain ADA compliance while creating a healthy work environment for stuttering employees.
The Foundation also encourages employers to approach candidates honestly about their stutters. Instead of assuming what they can and cannot do (or what they feel comfortable with) practice open communication about the candidate’s abilities and career interests. This small act can benefit both parties.
Non-profits pair employers and workers with disabilities
Some non-profit organizations have been working for years to place candidates with disabilities in qualified jobs. They are using this current labor shortage to highlight their work and expand upon their abilities to help candidates and companies find each other.
Just recently, the Washington Post profiled Melwood, a 50-year-old non-profit organization that helps people with intellectual disabilities obtain career training and find jobs in the D.C. area. The organization’s goal is two-fold: prepare people for the workforce while also busting myths about hiring candidates with disabilities.
Melwood has placed more than 40 people with intellectual and developmental disabilities at companies like Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase, and Amazon. One employee, Joshua Nelson, learned how employers expect eye contact in job interviews and shared how he practiced speaking up for himself when asking for accommodations. His employer also learned that Nelson needs to decompress at times or work at his own pace, but that the work is still going to get done.
By getting companies to take steps hiring someone with a disability and ensuring it’s a positive experience for both parties, Melwood creates a precedent for hiring in those organizations. Because of this, the next time there is a job opening, candidates with disabilities will experience a more inclusive hiring process in those companies.
Harvard Business school explores hidden workers
Researchers at Harvard Business School recently published a guide called Hidden Workers: Untapped Talent, which looked at people who are outside of the workforce trying to get in. These are people who seek out jobs but often fail to get interviews or get hired because of the HR systems. For example, an inaccessible application process can isolate people with disabilities. Companies that are inflexible with hours isolate parents, caregivers, and other applicants who might need to have control over when they work.
There are multiple charts and analyses in this guide that highlights who hidden workers are and the barriers they face. Many of these barriers are directly because of employers. One example that HBS uses is the growing length of job descriptions, with news tasks added with each opening.
“The more employers add requirements to job postings, the more they narrow the aperture on finding the talent they need,” the researchers write. “Complicated, lengthy job descriptions can discourage or intimidate potential applicants.”
Most employers will pull a job description template and then build on it with new requirements. They will also take previous descriptions used to hire workers in the company and adjust it to their needs. As a result, today’s job descriptions look like a tree trunk with multiple years of add-ons. When an employee with disabilities sees requirements they can’t meet, even if it’s tertiary to the actual job, they are discouraged from applying entirely.
This review highlights how the hiring gap isn’t because of workers, but because of poor hiring practices that leave qualified candidates – especially candidates with disabilities – out of the talent pool.
People with disabilities step up as leaders
Many people with disabilities who have faced discrimination are stepping up to advocate for others in their community. They are sharing what they have faced in hiring and how misconceptions about ability hold both companies and employees back.
Rhonda Partain, CEO of Inspiravate Enterprises LLC, recently shared her experience as a legally blind person in the workplace.
“The main barrier to employment to people with a disability is the attitudes of companies,” says Partain. “It won’t matter if I have technology that will read me text on my computer screen; it won’t matter that I can travel independently with a guide dog if those with hiring authority continue to hold to their negative perceptions of disability.”
Partain looks forward to a day where someone who is blind, deaf, or uses a wheelchair can compete equally in the workforce.
Each of these organizations and people has different specialties and backgrounds, but their messages boil down to one clear idea: employers have candidates available to them, they just need to overcome their own biases. From seriously interviewing candidates who stutter or who are blind to adjusting the company to embrace hidden workers, there are dozens of small steps businesses can take to embrace employees with disabilities.
To learn more about the challenges employees with disabilities have in getting hired, visit our blog. You can also read up on disability laws – like the ADA – to learn about reasonable accommodation in hiring.
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