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Jacquie Brennan: Our podcast today is about employer perspectives on employment of people with disabilities. In the first survey of its magnitude, 3,797 business representing 2.4 million companies across twelve industry sectors and various company sizes reported on their beliefs about and their strategies for recruiting, hiring, retaining and advancing employees with disabilities.

They had four big areas of concerns, the employers did, in this survey, and I have to say, in my work with employers over my twelve years as a lawyer who does just disability law I can say I have definitely seen these also as the four big concerns that employers have. The first one is can an employee with a disability get the job done? Number two is how will supervisors manage employees with disabilities? Number three is are accommodations expensive and how expensive are they? Number four is will my organization’s workers compensation and health care costs increase?

So looking at these one by one, the first one, can an employee with a disability get the job done? Well, of course they can and every day employees with disabilities are getting the job done. The employers in this survey indicated that the nature of the work or the skills and abilities of people with disabilities are an issue. It’s of course well known that not every person is right for every job, but many employers don’t realize that people with disabilities represent a really diverse labor pool with a wide range of backgrounds and experience capable of meeting or exceeding performance standards.

In another study, a Virginia Commonwealth University survey of two hundred fifty supervisors in forty-three businesses indicated that supervisors were satisfied with the performance of their employees with disabilities, rating their performance similar to that of non-disabled peers. I think that’s true, in large part, once people hire people with disabilities, but it’s that fear that a person with a disability will not be able to do the job that really does screen people with disabilities out early in the process.

Okay, the second question: how will supervisors manage employees with disabilities? Managing employees with disabilities is really no different than managing any other employee. You provide them with the tools and the procedures they need to get the job done and then evaluate and reward them based on performance to expected standards. Disability awareness training and other learning experiences can help to alleviate this concern.

Although they put the question, how will supervisors manage employees with disabilities, I think that behind that is just this fear of if we go ahead and hire someone with a disability and they’re not good at doing their job, will we be able to get rid of them or will we be stuck with them and of course we’ve had other podcasts on this issue, about conduct and performance issues, but of course employees with disabilities can be held to the same conduct and performance standards that other employees are held to. So, if the person cannot do the job, even with a reasonable accommodation, then they are not qualified to do the job and the employer is not going to be sort of under any obligation to keep them on the job. It’s important for supervisors to know that, I think.

Also, I think supervisors are apprehensive if, especially if they have never worked with people with disabilities or have maybe never even known people with disabilities very well. That also is a problem because supervisors may really worry about that like, what if the person is in a wheelchair at a meeting and I say, “let’s all stand up and give this employee a hand” or what if the employee is blind and I say, “Do you see what I mean?” People are very worried about the sensitivity instead of just treating the person like any other employee who might just need some help leveling the playing field to get the job done but doesn’t need to be treated differently as a supervisor to an employee.

And of course they’re worried about are accommodations expensive because the bottom line is something to worry about. JAN, which is the Job Accommodations Network, which is a free and confidential service, which is funded by ODEP, which is the Office of Disability Employment Policy, did a survey, as well. This one was really of employers who contacted JAN for a two-year period between 2204 and 2006. They interviewed 1,182 employers and they represented a wide range of industry sectors and sizes. They had four findings.

One was employers want to provide accommodations so they retain valued and qualified employees. Of the employers who called JAN for accommodation information, most of them were doing so to keep or even promote a current employee. That was about eighty-three percent of the calls that they got. On average, even if you include those who had just gotten their job offer or were newly hired, the employees had been with the company for seven years with an average wage of .70 for those who were paid by the hour or an average annual salary of about forty-seven thousand dollars. In addition, the individuals tended to be well educated with fifty-three percent having a college degree or more than a college degree.

The second finding of this survey was that most employers report no cost or low cost for accommodating employees with disabilities. Of employers who gave cost information related to accommodations that they had provided, forty-six percent said the accommodations needed by employees and job applicants with disabilities cost nothing at all. Another forty-five percent said there was a one-time cost but it wasn’t a continuing cost. Only seven percent said that the accommodation resulted in an ongoing cost to the company and about two percent said that the accommodation required a combination of a one-time cost and then an annual cost.

Of those accommodations that did have a cost, the typical one-time expenditure by employers was five hundred dollars. When asked what they paid for an accommodation beyond what they would have paid for an employee without a disability who was in the same position, employers typically answered around three hundred dollars.

Another finding of the JAN survey was that employers report that accommodations are effective. Employers who had implemented accommodations at the point that they were interviewed were asked to rank the effectiveness of the accommodations on a scale of one to five with five being extremely effective. Of those responding, seventy-five percent reported that the accommodations were either effective or extremely effective.

Another finding of the JAN survey was that employers experienced multiple direct and indirect benefits after making accommodations. Employers who had made accommodations for employees with disabilities reported multiple benefits as a result. The most frequently mentioned direct benefits were the accommodation allowed the company to retain a qualified employee, the accommodation increased the worker’s productivity and the accommodation eliminated the cost of training a new employee. The most widely mentioned indirect benefits that an employer received were providing the accommodation ultimately improved interactions with coworkers, the accommodation increased overall company morale and the accommodation increased overall company productivity. Also, a significant number of employers said the accommodation helped to improve workplace safety.

The bottom line to that whole JAN survey was, according to the employers, the benefits of making accommodations for individuals in the workplace far outweigh the cost, specifically they found that on average for every dollar they put into making an accommodation, they got back a little over ten dollars in benefits. There probably are few other changes an employer can make that would result in such a return on investment. Making accommodations is clearly just good business sense.

Lastly, on the just completed large employer survey, the last concern was will my organization’s workers compensation and health care costs increase? Most large and even mid-sized businesses reported no significant increase in cost just because employees with disabilities were now on their workers comp plans or on their health care insurance plans. Employers also reported that any increased costs they may have seen were outweighed by the value that the workers with disabilities bring into the workplace.

There are lots of tools and resources that employers can use to hire, to retain and to advance employees with disabilities: employer tax credits and incentives, they can use disability awareness training, visible top management commitment, mentoring, assistive technology which can really help people with disabilities do jobs they wouldn’t be able to do without the technology, using a specialized recruiting source, using flexible work schedules which is a very big help to some people with disabilities, training existing staff, onsite training or technical assistance, disability-targeted internship programs, short-term job assistance through a job coach, developing a targeted recruiting program, and a centralized accommodations fund.

If you’re interested in finding out more ways to recruit talented employees with disabilities, some of the things they suggest are postings are job service or work force employment centers, contacting college and university career centers, partnership with disability related advocacy organizations, including people with disabilities in diversity recruiting goals, postings at disability related publications or disability related websites, postings or tables are disability related job fairs, postings at vocational rehabilitation centers, establishing summer internship and mentoring programs, and postings at independent living centers.

There are some good cost-free programs and organizations that assist employers to better understand the value and capabilities of people with disabilities, to develop pragmatic strategies to expand employment of people with disabilities, and to help navigate the resources that might be available in your own community. The Employer Assistance and Resource Network, which is called EARN, provides assistance to recruit, hire, retain and advance employees with disabilities including students and veterans with disabilities. Their website is earnworks.com or they can be reached by phone at 1-866-earn-now which is 1-866-327-6669 and that’s voice or TTY.

And of course JAN, that’s the Job Accommodation Network, provides free, confidential consultation on cost-effective accommodations, on the ADA and assistive technologies. Their website is jan.wvu.edu and their phone number is 1-877-781-9403, again voice or TTY.

There is the US Business Leadership Network, which brings businesses together to learn about and share disability hiring initiatives. You can find out more about them at usbln.org.

And of course, disability.gov provides information about national, state and local disability oriented programs. And of course there’s us, the Disability Business Technical Assistance Centers. Our website nationally is ADATA.org and the toll-free number for voice and TTY is 1-800-949-4232.

If you would like to get a copy of the survey I was talking about today, you can look for the document at dol (that’s for the Department of Labor) dol.gov/odep/categories/research. I know that’s a lot of slashes, so I‘ll go over it one more time. dol.gov/odep/categories/research.

I hope you’ve learned a little something today on this podcast, and please join us again next time. Jacquie Brennan: Our podcast today is about employer perspectives on employment of people with disabilities. In the first survey of its magnitude, 3,797 business representing 2.4 million companies across twelve industry sectors and various company sizes reported on their beliefs about and their strategies for recruiting, hiring, retaining and advancing employees with disabilities.

They had four big areas of concerns, the employers did, in this survey, and I have to say, in my work with employers over my twelve years as a lawyer who does just disability law I can say I have definitely seen these also as the four big concerns that employers have. The first one is can an employee with a disability get the job done? Number two is how will supervisors manage employees with disabilities? Number three is are accommodations expensive and how expensive are they? Number four is will my organization’s workers compensation and health care costs increase?

So looking at these one by one, the first one, can an employee with a disability get the job done? Well, of course they can and every day employees with disabilities are getting the job done. The employers in this survey indicated that the nature of the work or the skills and abilities of people with disabilities are an issue. It’s of course well known that not every person is right for every job, but many employers don’t realize that people with disabilities represent a really diverse labor pool with a wide range of backgrounds and experience capable of meeting or exceeding performance standards.

In another study, a Virginia Commonwealth University survey of two hundred fifty supervisors in forty-three businesses indicated that supervisors were satisfied with the performance of their employees with disabilities, rating their performance similar to that of non-disabled peers. I think that’s true, in large part, once people hire people with disabilities, but it’s that fear that a person with a disability will not be able to do the job that really does screen people with disabilities out early in the process.

Okay, the second question: how will supervisors manage employees with disabilities? Managing employees with disabilities is really no different than managing any other employee. You provide them with the tools and the procedures they need to get the job done and then evaluate and reward them based on performance to expected standards. Disability awareness training and other learning experiences can help to alleviate this concern.

Although they put the question, how will supervisors manage employees with disabilities, I think that behind that is just this fear of if we go ahead and hire someone with a disability and they’re not good at doing their job, will we be able to get rid of them or will we be stuck with them and of course we’ve had other podcasts on this issue, about conduct and performance issues, but of course employees with disabilities can be held to the same conduct and performance standards that other employees are held to. So, if the person cannot do the job, even with a reasonable accommodation, then they are not qualified to do the job and the employer is not going to be sort of under any obligation to keep them on the job. It’s important for supervisors to know that, I think.

Also, I think supervisors are apprehensive if, especially if they have never worked with people with disabilities or have maybe never even known people with disabilities very well. That also is a problem because supervisors may really worry about that like, what if the person is in a wheelchair at a meeting and I say, “let’s all stand up and give this employee a hand” or what if the employee is blind and I say, “Do you see what I mean?” People are very worried about the sensitivity instead of just treating the person like any other employee who might just need some help leveling the playing field to get the job done but doesn’t need to be treated differently as a supervisor to an employee.

And of course they’re worried about are accommodations expensive because the bottom line is something to worry about. JAN, which is the Job Accommodations Network, which is a free and confidential service, which is funded by ODEP, which is the Office of Disability Employment Policy, did a survey, as well. This one was really of employers who contacted JAN for a two-year period between 2204 and 2006. They interviewed 1,182 employers and they represented a wide range of industry sectors and sizes. They had four findings.

One was employers want to provide accommodations so they retain valued and qualified employees. Of the employers who called JAN for accommodation information, most of them were doing so to keep or even promote a current employee. That was about eighty-three percent of the calls that they got. On average, even if you include those who had just gotten their job offer or were newly hired, the employees had been with the company for seven years with an average wage of .70 for those who were paid by the hour or an average annual salary of about forty-seven thousand dollars. In addition, the individuals tended to be well educated with fifty-three percent having a college degree or more than a college degree.

The second finding of this survey was that most employers report no cost or low cost for accommodating employees with disabilities. Of employers who gave cost information related to accommodations that they had provided, forty-six percent said the accommodations needed by employees and job applicants with disabilities cost nothing at all. Another forty-five percent said there was a one-time cost but it wasn’t a continuing cost. Only seven percent said that the accommodation resulted in an ongoing cost to the company and about two percent said that the accommodation required a combination of a one-time cost and then an annual cost.

Of those accommodations that did have a cost, the typical one-time expenditure by employers was five hundred dollars. When asked what they paid for an accommodation beyond what they would have paid for an employee without a disability who was in the same position, employers typically answered around three hundred dollars.

Another finding of the JAN survey was that employers report that accommodations are effective. Employers who had implemented accommodations at the point that they were interviewed were asked to rank the effectiveness of the accommodations on a scale of one to five with five being extremely effective. Of those responding, seventy-five percent reported that the accommodations were either effective or extremely effective.

Another finding of the JAN survey was that employers experienced multiple direct and indirect benefits after making accommodations. Employers who had made accommodations for employees with disabilities reported multiple benefits as a result. The most frequently mentioned direct benefits were the accommodation allowed the company to retain a qualified employee, the accommodation increased the worker’s productivity and the accommodation eliminated the cost of training a new employee. The most widely mentioned indirect benefits that an employer received were providing the accommodation ultimately improved interactions with coworkers, the accommodation increased overall company morale and the accommodation increased overall company productivity. Also, a significant number of employers said the accommodation helped to improve workplace safety.

The bottom line to that whole JAN survey was, according to the employers, the benefits of making accommodations for individuals in the workplace far outweigh the cost, specifically they found that on average for every dollar they put into making an accommodation, they got back a little over ten dollars in benefits. There probably are few other changes an employer can make that would result in such a return on investment. Making accommodations is clearly just good business sense.

Lastly, on the just completed large employer survey, the last concern was will my organization’s workers compensation and health care costs increase? Most large and even mid-sized businesses reported no significant increase in cost just because employees with disabilities were now on their workers comp plans or on their health care insurance plans. Employers also reported that any increased costs they may have seen were outweighed by the value that the workers with disabilities bring into the workplace.

There are lots of tools and resources that employers can use to hire, to retain and to advance employees with disabilities: employer tax credits and incentives, they can use disability awareness training, visible top management commitment, mentoring, assistive technology which can really help people with disabilities do jobs they wouldn’t be able to do without the technology, using a specialized recruiting source, using flexible work schedules which is a very big help to some people with disabilities, training existing staff, onsite training or technical assistance, disability-targeted internship programs, short-term job assistance through a job coach, developing a targeted recruiting program, and a centralized accommodations fund.

If you’re interested in finding out more ways to recruit talented employees with disabilities, some of the things they suggest are postings are job service or work force employment centers, contacting college and university career centers, partnership with disability related advocacy organizations, including people with disabilities in diversity recruiting goals, postings at disability related publications or disability related websites, postings or tables are disability related job fairs, postings at vocational rehabilitation centers, establishing summer internship and mentoring programs, and postings at independent living centers.

There are some good cost-free programs and organizations that assist employers to better understand the value and capabilities of people with disabilities, to develop pragmatic strategies to expand employment of people with disabilities, and to help navigate the resources that might be available in your own community. The Employer Assistance and Resource Network, which is called EARN, provides assistance to recruit, hire, retain and advance employees with disabilities including students and veterans with disabilities. Their website is earnworks.com or they can be reached by phone at 1-866-earn-now which is 1-866-327-6669 and that’s voice or TTY.

And of course JAN, that’s the Job Accommodation Network, provides free, confidential consultation on cost-effective accommodations, on the ADA and assistive technologies. Their website is jan.wvu.edu and their phone number is 1-877-781-9403, again voice or TTY.

There is the US Business Leadership Network, which brings businesses together to learn about and share disability hiring initiatives. You can find out more about them at usbln.org.

And of course, disability.gov provides information about national, state and local disability oriented programs. And of course there’s us, the Disability Business Technical Assistance Centers. Our website nationally is ADATA.org and the toll-free number for voice and TTY is 1-800-949-4232.

If you would like to get a copy of the survey I was talking about today, you can look for the document at dol (that’s for the Department of Labor) dol.gov/odep/categories/research. I know that’s a lot of slashes, so I‘ll go over it one more time. dol.gov/odep/categories/research.

I hope you’ve learned a little something today on this podcast, and please join us again next time.

The Disability Law Lowdown is brought to you by the Disability Business Technical Assistance Centers which are a network of ADA centers that provide training, technical assistance and materials on the ADA and other disability related laws. Funding for the Centers is provided by a grant from NIDRR, the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research. You can subscribe to the Disability Law Lowdown at our website at disabilitylawlowdown.com or on iTunes.



The Southwest and Rocky Mountain ADA Centers are part of a program of Independent Living Research Utilization at TIRR - Memorial Hermann in Houston, Texas, and is funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research. If you have questions about disability law or would like to request materials or training, please call 1-800-949-4232. This podcast is protected by the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No-Derivative-Works 2.5 License. For more information and transcripts, visit www.ada-podcast.com.