While the choice to self-identify as a person with a disability is entirely up to the individual, employers are increasingly interested in fostering an environment that encourages self-identification in order to:
Increase hiring and retention of people with disabilities to capitalize on their unique skillset, talents, experiences and perspectives.
Ensure they are creating and sustaining supportive workplaces.
Achieve compliance with federal regulations such as Section 501 and Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act, which cover federal agencies and federal contractors, respectively.
In order to measure their success in meeting each of these objectives, it is critical that employers create an environment in which employees and applicants are comfortable self-identifying, including when a disability may be non-apparent. But research has shown that many people with disabilities experience fear about doing so. This fear can be based on previous negative experiences and may include concerns that the employer will choose not to hire them, focus on their disability rather than actual work performance, limit opportunities for advancement or terminate them.
However, people with disabilities have reported that they are more likely to self-identify if they see their employer making concerted efforts to recruit and hire candidates with disabilities and react positively to other employees’ self-identification.
Strategies for Creating an Environment that Encourages Self-Identification
Businesses should explore the following practical approaches to support self-identification of disability:
There are a wide range of tactics employers can use to increase the appeal of their organization to jobseekers with disabilities, including:
Posting positions on online disability-affiliated job boards.
Partnering with local agencies and service providers who assist jobseekers with disabilities (i.e., state vocational rehabilitation offices, community-based providers and local job centers).
Tapping into local colleges and universities to recruit college interns or graduates with disabilities.
Including an invitation to people with disabilities to apply as part of your standard equal employment opportunity statements in recruitment materials.
Indicating through recruitment materials your willingness to provide accommodations during the hiring and interviewing processes.
Advertising the existence of employee resource, particularly any geared toward employees with a disability interest, as part of your company’s benefits and professional development opportunities.
Evaluating applicant screening processes to ensure that those practices do not unintentionally exclude people with disabilities.
Ensuring hiring staff are aware of appropriate and legal interview practices and guidelines.
You should routinely assess the level of physical, programmatic and social access of your workplace and make needed improvements. Conducting these assessments and improvements, and proactively sharing this information with staff, will increase comfort levels, encourage disclosure, and heighten sensitivity and awareness among workers without disabilities. This should be done whether you have been asked to make an accommodation or not. This should include assessing your organization’s:
Website accessibility.
Online application system.
Physical spaces, including break rooms, cafeterias and public areas.
Locations for offsite work functions.
Emergency plans to ensure they include evacuation and safety procedures for employees with sensory, mobility and cognitive disabilities.
Offering all employees the ability to work remotely or from home, or to modify schedules as needed to adjust to personal, family or medical situations, sends a message that you will accommodate disability related needs in the same manner that you will accommodate other personal needs.
You should clearly communicate policies regarding behavioral expectations, performance standards, and how to report disparate treatment or discrimination. Remember to hold all employees to the same performance standards and expectations and communicate those clearly. Employees with disabilities should not be held to either higher or lower expectations than others and their performance successes and challenges should be responded to and addressed in same manner as other employees.
Employees often make the decision to disclose their disability based on need for an accommodation. You should have a clear process in place and communicated to supervisors, HR personnel and employees regarding how applicants and employees should request disability-related accommodations and the process and timeline by which HR/supervisors will consider and respond to the request. Consider providing the accommodation policies and procedures on the organization’s intranet and in any online or printed materials related to orientation, onboarding, or employee handbooks.
For many supervisors, disability may be an uncomfortable topic, or an area where they have very little knowledge or experience. Training in management practices and disability awareness and etiquette can increase supervisors’ comfort in discussing disability issues and help foster supportive supervisor-employee relationships that encourage disclosure.
Organizations should include employees with disabilities in mentoring or other training programs that have been offered to employees to support career development.
Employers have considerable opportunity to be creative in their efforts to build and sustain a workplace that encourages employees to share information about their apparent or non-apparent disability with one another. For example, encouraging company leadership to share their stories with employees can be a model to others within the organization. This openness will ultimately lead to a more supportive and productive workforce.
Creating a welcoming workplace culture that encourages self-identification can help organizations ensure they are creating a supportive workplace.
