How Hiring People With Disabilities Can Revolutionize Your Company

Shortly after Derek Bove joined Indeed as the product manager for accessibility, a former colleague called him. After congratulating him on his new role, Bove’s friend, who is blind, explained that one of the biggest barriers to blind people living a full life is finding a job.

“For many people, myself included, a job can provide purpose,” Bove says. “It can give us stability and help us provide for our families — it is an integral part of who we are as individuals.” Bove scribbled down what his friend said, and he has kept the note as an enduring reminder of his and the company’s mission to help all people get jobs. 

In 2017, 20% of working-age adults aged 25 – 64 in Canada identified as having a disability, a Statistics Canada survey found. Often, these individuals exemplify the qualities that any company would prize in a prospective employee: adaptability, resourcefulness, tenacity, and a capacity to overcome significant challenges. 

Here’s a look at the benefits of hiring people with disabilities — and how doing so can revolutionize your company. 

Reasons to hire people with disabilities

Employees with disabilities help to diversify a workplace, providing valuable new perspectives and demonstrating a company’s commitment to equity, inclusion, and accessibility. And research shows that diverse teams produce better work.

Diversity can also improve your company’s products. Indeed’s commitment to accessibility and the company’s larger Environmental Social Governance efforts help make Indeed more usable — and useful — to job seekers with disabilities.

And yet, people with disabilities are often overlooked

Despite these tangible advantages, people with disabilities experience persistently lower rates of employment than the general population. The Statistics Canada 2017 Canadian Survey on Disability found that the percentage of the population that’s employed was 59% for working-age adult Canadians with disabilities compared to 80% for those without a disability. 

In part, this is because employers fail to understand the scope of available talent and the potential benefits of hiring people with disabilities. Job seekers with a disability are consistently being overlooked by employers, Bove says, since many employers harbour misconceptions about the potential costs of accommodating an individual’s specific needs.

Such concerns are unfounded. Ongoing research in the US by the Job Accommodation Network, conducted across almost two decades, shows that more than half of accommodations for workers with disabilities cost nothing at all, with the remainder having a typical cost of only $500 USD per accommodation. The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act website says the cost is quite similar in Canada, with over half of accommodations costing less than $500 CAD.

In addition, by hiring people with disabilities, a company becomes a better reflection of its consumer base. The Department of Employment and Social Development Canada reports that people with disabilities make up 22% of the market segment in Canada. And hiring people with disabilities is shown to lead to higher revenues, net income, and profit margins. Failing to consider workers with disabilities in hiring practices could mean passing up a critical and highly valuable talent pool. 

For companies convinced of the need to attract talented workers who happen to have a disability, it can be difficult to know what best practices are. 

According to the Canadian Human Rights Commission, employers have a duty to accommodate, in that they have an obligation to adjust their policies or practices to enable potential hires and workers to fully participate. In addition to federal legislation, applicable legislation, including human rights codes and accessibility acts, vary at a provincial level, so it’s important to be aware of the rules for your specific province or territory. According to the British Columbia Human Rights Code, for example, a candidate is not required to disclose information about their disability to a potential employer if they do not require an accommodation, but the potential employer is allowed to ask if a candidate can perform the duties of the job with or without reasonable accommodation. Moreover, workers with disabilities can feel apprehensive about sharing this part of themselves for fear of being discriminated against in the hiring process — facts that complicate communication about needs and accommodations.

According to Donna Bungard, senior marketing accessibility program manager at Indeed, companies can demonstrate that they offer an accessible workplace long before an individual submits their job application.

“At every stage, work to remove ‘otherness,’” she advises. “Include the voice and image of employees with a disability in your website, media, and any other way your organization represents itself — and not simply because of the person’s disability. It’s the difference between showcasing a chef who inspires you because he cooks with a disability and a chef who inspires you with great food, and he happens to be disabled. Hiring is always about focusing on the abilities of the applicants. This doesn’t change because of disability. And if disability is normalized in your company culture, it will show.”

A recent example of this best practice at work comes from Apple, which released an ad campaign celebrating people with disabilities demonstrating their talents. 

Creating a more accessible hiring process

To help ensure your hiring process is inclusive and encourages individuals with disabilities to apply to roles that they might otherwise feel excluded from, it’s important to provide clear language up front, whether that’s in the job posting itself or in advance of an interview.

“When I was interviewing for my current role, I was asked whether I had any requirements for the interview — whether it was okay for us to use Zoom, and so on,” Bove says. “This opened up the conversation about what accommodations might be needed.” When employers list the software needed to carry out a job’s responsibilities, candidates can judge for themselves how accessible those platforms are, which will help inform their application.

According to Bungard, disabilities broadly fit into one or more of six categories: cognitive, mobility, audio, visual, intellectual, and emotional. While hiring managers can be mindful of the needs of each category (and may be required by law to provide baseline accommodations, such as ensuring wheelchair access, providing space for a service animal, enabling live captioning on video calls, and enunciating clearly to accommodate lip-readers), Bungard points out that every human body, regardless of disability status, is different.

“Ask all applicants, regardless of whether they present as having a disability, what their access needs are,” she says. “Be willing to be accommodating and go from there. The idea is to create a welcoming, open space where people feel comfortable disclosing their needs without fearing that doing so will cause them to be passed over for a role.”

Making your onboarding inclusive

Bungard also encourages companies to provide multiple ways for new hires to take in onboarding information.

“Some people learn better with videos, others prefer text content, others would rather talk it out,” she says. “Create multiple pathways to success and let them choose their own adventure.”

Employers must also be mindful of initial interactions between a new hire with a disability and the rest of the team. “Before you introduce an individual, ask them if they’re comfortable saying a few words about themselves first,” she adds. “And, crucially, introduce individuals as you would any other hire, to underscore the message that disability is normal.”

While not everyone identifies as a person with a temporary or permanent disability, Bungard points out that every individual in any organization has needs — working conditions, schedules, or arrangements that enable them to work successfully and efficiently. “The idea is to break down societal barriers so that people can accomplish things for themselves,” Bungard says. “Companies that make meaningful provisions around accessibility show staff and potential employees that they respect them enough not to get in their way.”

Support for people with disabilities will benefit the entire organization

The benefits of becoming a more accessible, inclusive company can be profound. In addition to increasing the pool of competent and qualified talent who will apply to work for you, demonstrating an inclusive culture is attractive to all types of potential employees, as well as consumers.

“Customers take notice and are interested in the brand story,” Bove says. “Knowing that a company is inclusive and cares about diversity enough to ensure access needs are met for all employees — including those who have a disability — may mean as much, or more, to customers as having a bug-free product.” 

Employees with disabilities can offer alternative, creative perspectives on how to tackle challenges. “They’re going to give you perspective on your products and services that others may not have,” Bove says. 

Inclusive workplaces can improve the public perception of a company and impact how employees view their place of work. Employees who perceive their organization to be committed to diversity and who feel included are 80% more likely to believe they work in a “high-performing organization.” 

“As much as people focus on the barriers that stand in the way of the disabled community, it is, in fact, everyone else who is missing out,” Bungard says. “These are creative, dedicated members of the workforce, and if they’re not a part of your company, you’re missing out on all they can contribute.”