Does diversity equity and inclusion include disabilities?

If an organization's diversity, equity and inclusion efforts exclude disabilities, then they are doing it wrong.  | Photo Credit: ©Jacob Lund / Adobe Stock

Stephen Friedman, York University, Canada

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives are becoming increasingly commonplace worldwide. However, when it comes to these efforts, disability is often not given the same level of attention as other factors like gender, ethnicity, culture, race or sexuality. This needs to change.

Only four per cent of organizations explicitly consider disability in their inclusion initiatives, and over 50 per cent of global boards and executives report never discussing it. Many organizations leave it out of their DEI efforts altogether.

Despite Canadian legislation prohibiting disability discrimination, disabled people still don’t have equal employment opportunities. Over 50 per cent of discrimination complaints in Canada involve disability.

Additionally, disabled people are more likely to experience low income, unemployment, underemployment and health-related stress than non-disabled people are.

Better-designed DEI efforts can help organizations achieve inclusion outcomes and alleviate stigma that leads to negative employment experiences for people with disabilities.

Organizations’ efforts to market their DEI initiatives are a key part of developing an image of inclusivity.

These DEI efforts — successful or not — can bring increased profitability to businesses and improve access to a broader spectrum of talented job applicants.

However, the current reality of overlooking disabled people as potential employees means missed opportunities for everyone involved. This is especially true considering the prevalence of episodic and invisible disabilities.

To achieve real and lasting disability diversity and inclusion, organizations should move beyond mostly ineffective approaches that rely solely on special accommodations. These approaches put too much onus on disabled people and too little on business leadership.

There must be a focus on improving leaders’ knowledge and understanding regarding how to include disabled people in the workforce.

One interesting approach involves identifying, guiding and mentoring potential leaders who may be overlooked due to their disabilities. One example of this is The Generation Valuable Program, which provides mentorship opportunities to disabled people. The program’s first cohort of 75 is currently in progress.

The growth of the gig economy also holds the potential for addressing the challenges faced by individuals with invisible and episodic disabilities. In the gig economy, flexible working arrangements allow people to manage their work hours and pace of work without having to disclose specific details about their disabilities.

Disabled gig workers could leverage available technologies and services to level the playing field in workplaces. To date, however, the gig economy has not yet had a substantial impact on the underemployment of disabled people. There is a need for much more impactful, profound, systemic change.

Organizational decision-makers should think more in terms of ability rather than disability, and the untapped talent pool. To make inclusion a reality, it’s important for organizations to adopt a social model of disability, where disability is viewed as just another difference, like gender or sexuality.

This stands in contrast to the more common medical model of disability that characterizes disability as a problem that requires accommodation.

A social model of disability involves actively and consistently working towards removing barriers to full participation in employment.

A useful analogy for this approach is a gender-inclusive approach where all bathrooms are designated as gender-neutral, rather than having a single gender-neutral bathroom among a sea of gender-aligned ones.

Ultimately, the responsibility for these types of changes should not rest with disabled people, but with businesses and their leadership.

I recently spoke with social entrepreneur, author and Ted Talk speaker, Gil Winch about his outsourcing call centre business that employs people with disabilities. It creates a supportive working environment for people with disabilities, from recruitment, to training, to physical accommodations.

Winch’s business is an example of a social enterprise that combines social good with market-based, commercial interests. With respect to disability, social enterprises aim to develop businesses “where people with a specific disability will have…the same capacity” as non-disabled workers.

Winch encourages organizations worldwide to reserve employment for people with disabilities. His reasoning is this: “If we can reserve parking for those with disabilities, why not jobs?”

Given the broad skill set of the world’s 1.3 billion disabled people, this idea could help bridge the employment gap.

Why must employment for disabled people be an exception, accommodation or special favour provided by an employer? Why must disabled people feel they have to get permission for flexibility?

Organizations that are serious about DEI must adopt the frame of producing shared value where business and social goods exist side-by-side. Creating real disability inclusion in employment based on ability is what DEI leadership is all about.

Does diversity, equity and inclusion include disabilities? is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.