How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Employed a Person with a Disability

So you have never employed a person with a disability and you’ve always rejected it because you believe:

• That the person will pose a risk at your worksite
• It will take up more of your time in supporting this person
• That it will be too costly to your business in terms of lost productivity
• The person will not fit into your work culture
• The person won’t have the skills and talent to do the job

Did you know that:

One in five Australians has a disability and there is every possibility that you are already employing a person with a disability and you are unaware of this. A disability can involve a mental illness, physical or sensory impairment, intellectual impairment, learning difficulty or acquired brain injury. A disability does not become a handicap if it can be overcome or compensated through technology, modification to work practices or through learning simple strategies. However, the vast majority of disabilities are hidden and many of those disabilities are managed successfully through medication or treatment and do not pose a handicap in the work place.

When you think of employing a person with disability you probably focus on one aspect of that person’s characteristics- their disability- and you overlook the skills and talents that that person can bring to your business. It used to be the same with gender inequality- employers focused on one aspect of that person’s characteristic-the fact that they were female- and ignored all of the skills and talents that that person could bring to the work place. Thankfully with gender equality programs we are correcting that imbalance in the work place. Some of the most successful CEOs are women yet 20 years ago we could not imagine that this would be the case.

It is time to correct the imbalance in disability employment!

There are many benefits to a business employing a person with a disability, including:

Cost reduction:

Deakin University studies have shown the cost of absenteeism amongst workers with a disability to be 66% lower than that of workers without a disability.

Employers may be eligible for wage subsidies of $1500-$10,000 and additional funding of up to $30,000 where required to provide assistive technology and equipment to support a worker with a disability.

There is often support available to assist the employer as well as the jobseeker to settle into the worksite and ensure they understand the requirements of the job.

Inclusiveness:

Studies show that organisations employing people with disability have greater levels of staff morale and an            enhanced image amongst customers and the wider community.

Skills and Talent

Many jobseekers with a disability have the skills and talent to do the job you are trying to fill. 

Diverse Workforce:

A diverse workforce strengthens organisational capability. The Deloitte Diversity, Inclusion and Business Performance Diagnostic survey, undertaken in three Australian organisations in 2012, found that, “where employees believe their workplace is diverse and inclusive, their performance is likely to be higher for indicators such as innovation, customer responsiveness and workplace collaboration”

Many savvy employers are realising the business benefits of employing a person with disability. You don’t do it out of charity- you do it because you are sitting on a goldmine of untapped resources in people with disability who can make a real difference to your organisation’s productivity and competiveness.

If you are finding it hard to find good staff then why don’t you use Toozly to tap into this goldmine of talent of people with a disability and access this largely underutilised pool of job seekers who may very well be the right person for the job.

Go ahead you may be very pleasantly surprised how easy it is to employ a person with a disability! So stop worrying! We at Toozly stopped worrying and we now have 60% of our work force with people with disability who are successfully helping us to drive our product.