It’s an undisputed fact that diversity continues to be a key area of discussion in HR circles. And for good reason – having a workforce that reflects your customer base makes both perfect business and economic sense. Yet often when firms are faced with time constraints they refer back to the same talent pool and hire candidates like themselves.
In recent years significant progress has been made by many businesses to recognise the importance of retaining female talent and to ensure that their workforce represents a wide range of cultures, ethnicities and religions. However there remains one largely untapped pool of talent, one that holds a great deal of potential – that of people with disabilities.
Becoming disability confident
Often it’s not that companies don’t want to hire disabled candidates, but rather a case of a hesitation with regard to the barriers that they might encounter or simply a fear of getting things wrong. Recent statistics indicate that only 46% of adults with a disability are in employment, compared to 76% of people without a disability. It’s as a result of these reservations that disabled talent is being under represented in the work place.
APSCo recently collaborated with the Business Disability Forum (BDF), a membership body which brings together around 300 businesses and public sector members helping to create disability aware companies, to produce a best practice guide for disability confidence. The guide provides expert advice on how to engage with disabled talent and outlines six simple steps which can be taken to make your business more disability confident.
Closing the skills gap
According to new statistics 36% of employers report a global talent shortage, and our clients are telling us that there is a substantial shortage of candidates with a broad enough range of skills. Yet in shying away from recruiting from the disabled talent pool, businesses are ruling out 16% of the adult working population.
This isn’t just about ‘ticking boxes’ – disabled talent represents a real business opportunity. With 5.8 million disabled working age adults it’s about tapping into a severely under-utilised work force. EY, who sponsored the guide, are a recruitment firm that champion diversity and make reference to the wide variety of skills people with different disabilities possess.
For example people with autism are often exceptionally good at problem solving as well as being great at working to deadlines. People with hearing impairments often also have superior concentration skills while individuals with speech impediments are great at listening. We shouldn’t be focusing on why we haven’t hired people with disabilities in the past, but rather the changes we can make moving forward to allow us to access this pool of talent and help fill the skills gaps in our business.
Catalysing change
In shying away from disability confidence, businesses are overlooking a significant proportion of the adult working demographic. And while all companies have to ensure they are compliant with the equal opportunities act, we should want to give ourselves the competitive advantage by tapping into a pool that is full of exceptional candidates.
