Mindset Matters: Arguing For A New Strategy On Disability Employment

This October marks 75 years of National Disability Employment Awareness Month highlighting the significance of workers with disabilities. The idea was designed to educate the public about numerous disability employment issues while celebrating the contributions of American workers with disabilities. National Disability Employment Awareness Month can trace its origins back to 1945 at the end of World War II when Congress enacted a law declaring that the first week of October to be National Handicapped Week. It was later expanded and changed its name to the one we currently use today. 

Over the years this month has become a touchpoint for disability organizations and others in the community to come together with corporate America to espouse the value of hiring persons with disabilities. During these past 75 years, the very concept of disability has become more sophisticated bringing in corporate stakeholders from areas of diversity and inclusion, talent management, to human resources. Cultivating these relationships is fundamental to the continual social participation of persons with disabilities within the larger economic milieu of American business. However, even before the coronavirus pandemic, there was a sense of groupthink that was creeping into how disability employment was talked about in the context of corporate life. While companies like Microsoft, General Motors, Ernst and Young, and others were contributing new ideas to the space, particularly as it pertained to autism, there is still a traditionally held attitude that persons with disabilities are valued, and they deserved to be considered as a powerful talent pool that is overlooked within corporate America. First of all, no one should dispute this idea, while this has been the driving force behind employment strategies for persons with disabilities, we must take a moment to see what areas in the disability space should be reexamined in the context of corporate culture and how companies should reassess their true value. 

As horrible as the coronavirus has been, it has offered a silver lining in reimagining the culture of work. Companies of all sizes are learning how to adapt quickly. While there are certainly tremendous growing pains, this moment in time should be a wake-up call for both American industry and disability organizations to recognize that it is time for a reset. The rules of the game are changing right before our eyes, and persons with disabilities should be the mix not only as a valuable pool of human capital, but key drivers for shaping what the future of work can look like. This could potentially be the dawn of a new power dynamic, a shift in thinking where disability organizations are not only bolstering a pool of human capital but utilizing the power of ideas from the lived experience of disability to shape the new economy of the 21st century. This futurist approach offers a glimpse into how society needs to reassess the larger implications of workers with disabilities in American business?

As the coronavirus pandemic has illustrated for numerous businesses, we are in a moment of transformation where day to day corporate life has become decentralized, we are relying on technology to be the connective tissue that glues us all together. For many workers with disabilities, this can be a blessing in disguise in the sense that management practitioners are forced to have everyone working within their own space, using personal devices, or perhaps technology provided by the organization. The focus is shifted squarely on productivity. However, this type of structure also allows workers to find their pacing and develop a style where one can get things done. For persons with disabilities being able to adapt and develop coping strategies have been a necessity in one’s daily life. This type of structure only bodes well for greater success. This should be a key lesson that companies need to embrace. Human resource and talent management executives ought to take this into account that persons with disabilities provide a new paradigmatic model that can be extracted from their own lived experience. This can then be directly translated into the companies changing the business model that is being modified for a post-pandemic world.  Companies need to be ready so that employees with disabilities status within the world of work can be seen through a new lens. 

In arguing a new strategy for disability employment, we must move the conversation beyond just the traditional environment of Fortune 500 and 1000 companies. We must look closely at the role of entrepreneurship and demonstrate how this new approach will once again characterize the culture of work through a lens of innovation. The next Mindset Matters column will focus further on entrepreneurship and the role it plays in shaping the relationship of persons with disabilities in the modern world of work.