Perspectives: NDEAM and the Role of Employers (Part 2 of 2)

Every October is National Disability Employment awareness month (NDEAM)—a month to focus on the value of hiring people with disabilities in competitive integrated employment. To wrap up this year’s NDEAM, we bring you Part 2 of our blog series on improving employment supports for people with disabilities.

Part 1 focused on actions that employment support professionals and vocational rehabilitation (VR) counselors can take to better support people with disabilities. In Part 2, we focus on the actions that employers can take to improve the hiring, retention, and advancement of people with disabilities in careers.

People with disabilities can experience challenges to hiring from their first interactions with hiring managers, but they can also face obstacles with direct supervisors who have the appropriate training and experience managing people with disabilities. To support people with disabilities to have better employment outcomes, our society needs to move away from the culture of “low expectation syndrome” that often prevents people with developmental disabilities from achieving real jobs for real pay and meaningful employment.

We need to train employers on the benefits of hiring people with disabilities. This is especially important for workers without HCBS access to long-term job coaching. Further, disability must be a major part of all company diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Too often, disability is left out from DEI initiatives.

Following are more ways employers can support hiring, retention, and advancement of people with disabilities:

Real jobs for real pay

When advocates talk about competitive integrated employment (CIE) and ending 14(c) subminimum wage laws, we’re not saying “everyone must now work 40 hours.” Even if a state hasn’t phased out regulations that allow subminimum wages, employers should pay the same wages to people with the same job duties and experience level, regardless of disability status. Creating jobs at real wages can be as simple as using customized employment to create a business or position shredding documents at offices, delivering paper, doing data entry, working on a grant, research resources on certain topics, and so forth.

ABLE accounts

We must also showcase the benefits of ABLE accounts to employers who hire people with disabilities.  ABLE Accounts are a great tool to allow workers with disabilities to save for retirement with jeopardizing public benefits. For instance, in 2023, the first $17,000 in ABLE contributions can come from anyone-family, friends and employers. So, someone with an ABLE account can have their employer make retirement contributions to their account.

Inclusive recruiting

When it comes to advertising for jobs, we must invest in making all job applications accessible for all levels of disability by using accessible platforms, large print and plain language, braille, audio reading, and so forth. In addition, we must draft job descriptions that invite a diverse pool of candidates to apply—not just white, non-disabled, middle-class folks. In the area of online job applications, it is best to avoid PDF files if the document needs to be filled out given that many of us don’t have access to printers or the money to pay for software that can convert PDF to word processing document or allow us to fill it out manually.

Inclusive hiring

With respect to interviewing, we must move away from the typical interview processes when it comes to hiring people with disabilities, especially those in autism world who may be more comfortable showcasing an employment portfolio or work samples than answering the situational interview questions. Getting past the first interview or even getting picked for interviews is a never-ending challenge in this population. It is important to train HR hiring managers in eliminating bias and ableism in hiring practices and business as a whole.

Workforce disability inclusion 101

Employers need to be educated on the fact that most disability accommodations or support needs are not very expensive. HR managers know the letter of the law, but when it comes to figuring out accommodations or support needs they are sometimes not as helpful. Managers need to better understand how to provide accommodations and equitable opportunities for advancement. Equity means not treating all employees the same, which may mean that you have different standards for success. Some accommodations that can support better employment outcomes for people with disabilities are flexible work arrangements and access to assistive technology. Check out resources like JAN-Job Accommodations Network for guidance on best practices for supporting employees with disabilities.

In addition, it is also vital that employers embrace cultural responsiveness as the population becomes more diverse and people of color and disability community become the “new majority.” Employers and managers should normalize talking about accommodations with all staff. Zoom fatigue may be particularly pronounced for neurodiverse individuals— supporting employees to be off camera if they need a break can improve long-term morale and engagement. There may be staff who have not disclosed a disability but would benefit from understanding the accommodations their employers offer. Further, as employers develop and refine their mission statements, it is especially important to use inclusive accessible language and a commitment to address disability harassment.

Conclusion

Taking these actions may be a major step forward for improving disability employment. Some additional systems-level changes that will complement the actions of employers include widespread advertisement of workforce information and education offices and improved connections between state developmental disability systems and VR systems. Improving awareness about resources and facilitating improved service coordination can help people with disabilities to start planning for employment early in the development of transition plans.

However, without changes to federal policies that require people with disabilities to have limited assets in order to qualify for federal benefits such as SSI, SSDI, and Medicaid, these actions will only fix one part of these complex set of barriers. The world of work has changed significantly since these programs were created in the 1950s and 1970s. It is long past time for our social safety net programs to be flexible to reflect today’s current challenges and realities of being disabled in the 21st century. Above all, employers should remember that hiring people with disabilities is a hand up, not a handout. A diverse workforce is great for a company’s great for a company’s bottom-line, retention, and morale.

Authors note: For instance, if someone goes over by only $1 a month after SSDI impairment related work expenses, SSDI subsidy or special conditions are take into consideration they lose that entire SSDI. In my case, and for many others, the majority of our SSDI or SSI goes towards rent and medical costs, especially for those of us who live on their own with no family support or formal support system. Having to live on the edge financially and always being at risk of a financial emergency is not person-centered. Further, it can be traumatizing, especially for those without  backup income sources to pay for rent and other basic living expenses in this era where wages don’t often match the cost of living.

In the area of work incentives on a more modest level we can take steps to promote person centered employment by moving the SSDI program from an all of nothing cash cliff to a $1 for $2 benefit offset like we currently have in the SSI-Supplemental Security Income Program. How this would work is your SSDI check will go down $1 for every $2 you earn above Substantial Gainful Activity (SGA). The current SGA limit in 2022 for blind is $2,260 and $1,350 for non-blind. A policy like this could increase the numbers of people with disabilities working in real jobs for real pay because it would lessen the anxiety that comes with just making enough to go off benefits but not enough to be self-supporting. Under this model, people with disabilities, like me, would make out better and be able to get ahead in today’s economy.

Another major initiative would be to expand work incentives for all people with disabilities and give people who are not blind equal access to the same allowable deductions for impairment related work expenses. The disability community would also greatly benefit from eliminating asset limits in all forms of public assistance. Changes like this could greatly benefit our society right now given the workforce shortage due to long covid, less immigrants coming into country and baby boomers retiring. Hiring people with disabilities is a great way to boost morale and foster community inclusion and economic independence in our society.  

In the area of removing barriers to saving money for people with disabilities, removing the age limit for the ABLE Act would greatly increase the numbers of account holders in order to make this program sustainable and keep fees low. Right now, we successfully persuaded Congress to raise the age limit to 46. Given that so many people with disabilities have low income, developing a way to have state or federal match for the first $5,000 a person deposits into an ABLE account would greatly benefit our community. This is one of many ways to increase the use of ABLE Accounts among people with disabilities and their families.