Do you know the five-syllable word
that sends managers into hiding? It's "accommodation," as in providing an
accommodation for an employee with a disability. It's the term that keeps many
highly qualified people waiting in the unemployment line.
Often, when employers think of
hiring people with disabilities, they believe the costs associated with making
the accommodations are too much to justify the hire.
But W. Roy Grizzard, assistant
secretary for the U.S. Department of Labor (DoL), Office of Disability
Employment Policy, says that in a DoL survey, more than 50 percent of all
employers surveyed said "there is no cost in accommodating a person with a
disability. And out of those that do have a cost, the [one-time] cost is
typically $600."
Managers often are the obstacle,
says Linda Hollinshead, partner in the employment-services division of the
Philadelphia-based law firm Wolf Block. "One of the obstacles is that if
employers get an inkling of a medical issue, they'll assume the person is not
qualified," says Hollinshead. "They should be focusing on the functions of the
job and figure out if the person can do it with or without reasonable
accommodations."
Providing for simple accommodations
can help increase the number of people with disabilities who are employed. In
2006, the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey reported that 37.7
percent of people with disabilities were employed, compared with 79.7 percent of
people who did not have a disability. Also, in 2006, the percentage of
working-age people with a disability working full time for the year was 21.7
percent while the percentage of working-age people without a disability working
full time for the year was 56.6 percent. Furthermore, the poverty rate among
people with disabilities was 25.3 percent in 2006, 16 percent higher than the
poverty rate for those without a disability.
"We haven't made more progress
because we have not had more advocates," says Charles Dey, chairman, national
EmployAbility Partnership for the National Organization on Disability. Advocates
are managers who make it their business to give an applicant with a disability
the same chance they would give an applicant without a disability. Advocates
also are companies that make it part of their mission to hire people with
disabilities.
"That's what's going to change the
hiring of people with disabilities in America … You need the corporate
leadership," says Dey.
"As soon as the word
'accommodations' comes up, employers see visions of large dollar signs when the
reality is that an accommodation can be simple and not expensive at all,
depending on the disability," says Mike Helman, executive director of Learning
Disabilities of America (LDA).
LDA matches employers with qualified
recruits who have learning disabilities. After discussing in which industry the
person with a disability wants to work, Helman and others at LDA cold call the
employer and pitch the person to the company's recruiters.
"When people think of people with
disabilities, they have a predetermined idea of what that means, and a lot of
times that doesn't match reality," says Helman.
For example, he recently helped a
female who had a learning disability get a job at a posh department store's
cosmetics counter. She had a problem with math, though, and part of the job
required that she balance the register at the end of her shift. LDA solved the
problem by redesigning the form the employee used to balance the register. With
the recreated form, she had no problems, says Helman.
"That's an example of an
accommodation that cost the employer nothing," says Helman. "I think there's a
lot of misunderstanding. You don't have to hire someone just because they have a
disability. They have to be able to do the job and the employer has to provide
reasonable accommodations for them to do the job."
Click here to read the entire American Community Survey on
people with disabilities.
