Employers miss opportunities for disabled workers, survey says

More communication with upper management needed, it finds

CONCORD, N.H. Most employers have effective programs for accommodating workers with disabilities, but they often overlook recruiting and training practices that could expand employment opportunities, according to a national survey released Tuesday.

Two-thirds of respondents to the poll of supervising employees said their organizations have policies and procedures to provide requested accommodations to workers with disabilities, and nearly all of them rated those processes as effective.

For example, only 13 percent of supervisors said their organizations offer job sharing, yet more than 90 percent of those who allow it said such policies were effective for people with disabilities and workers overall. And only 27 percent have partnered with a disability organization to recruit workers, even though most supervisors viewed the idea as feasible.

“Many times employers don’t know where to go to find qualified candidates,” said John O’Neill, director of Disability and Employment Research at the Kessler Foundation and the study’s co-investigator.

The University of New Hampshire Institute on Disability conducted the survey for the Kessler Foundation, a New Jersey-based nonprofit that funds research and initiatives aimed at improving the lives of people with neurological disabilities. It questioned 3,085 supervisors in organizations with 25 or more employees about hiring, training and retention practices, and whether those practices were effective both for employees in general and those with disabilities.

People with disabilities make up 3.2 percent of U.S. workers ages 16-64, according to previous UNH research and federal labor statistics. Those 4.6 million workers amount to about 30 percent of the total working age population of people with disabilities, meaning most people with disabilities aren’t employed.

One problem is inconsistent support for helping employees with disabilities learn their jobs, O’Neill said.

The survey found that while supervisors felt that they and upper management were committed to hiring people with disabilities, supervisors view upper management as less committed to training and accommodations.