Disability Training: Making the Complex, Compelling

By Rebecca Witonsky

Disability training for employers is necessary because employers are often not aware of the complex issues involved in hiring people with disabilities. Hiring people with disabilities often requires making accommodations for people with disabilities. Disability training can help make employers understand what accommodations are necessary for a person with disabilities. For example, if a person has autism, they may need to rely upon written instructions rather than oral instructions because they cannot read social cues. If a person has a physical disability, then the employer may need to re-think the workplace flow, or access to make it easier for the person to navigate the office. Accommodations can include modified equipment, flexible work hours, and as simple as the opportunity to work at home.


Employers may assume that accommodations are expensive and difficult to overcome. But in fact one study Disability awareness training for employers can help employers understand that the cost of accommodations is much less than they believe. Between 1992 and 1998 found that 80% of accommodations cost less than $1,000.

In addition, disability awareness training can help all overcome the stereotypes and biases concerning people with disabilities. Some stereotypes are based on incorrect assumptions about the capabilities of people with disabilities, leading to a worry that people with disabilities will be less productive and less likely to complete the tasks on time, or even that people with disabilities will require more expensive healthcare benefits. Social competence is an especially important component of the workplace and represents a particular barrier for people with autism. Clearly, disability training for employers is necessary in challenging such stereotypes about people with disabilities.
 
Disability training is more than just information. Training includes role-playing, which helps employers to understand the perspectives of people with disabilities. Hands on experiences and role-playing can cover visual impairment, hearing impairment, cognitive disabilities, and hidden disabilities. Spending time in a wheelchair for a person with a physical disability or a visual impairment exercise that simulates blindness. If employers better appreciate the perspectives of people with disabilities, then they can be more likely to hire, promote, and sustain employment for people with disabilities.


Co-workers may be concerned about the increased workload associated with having a co-worker with a disability and how to relate to the co-workers with a disability. Disability training can also improve the relationships that co-workers may have with their colleagues with disabilities.


Customers with disabilities are also better understood and better served after training. One study found that the 50 million people with disabilities have aggregate incomes of $360.5 billion as of 2000. Employers such as Publix which have a record of hiring and promoting people with disabilities also are known for their ability to accommodate customers with disabilities. Customers with disabilities may have creative reactions and solutions to customer service issues, and disability training for employers can help employers to find these opportunities.


People with disabilities face a very high unemployment rate. According to U.S. Department of Labor statistics, only 18.2% of people with disabilities were employed in May 2012, compared with 64.3% of people with no disability. Clearly unemployment for people with disabilities remains rampant in spite of the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Disability training can help employers harness the tremendous untapped potential of people with disabilities.

 
About the Author:

[Rebecca Witonsky discovered that she was autistic in early 2011 when she was 35 years old. Rebecca serves as a member of the Florida Rehabilitation Council. Ms. Rebecca Witonsky earned a B.A. in international relations at Brown University in 1997. She also received a masters degree in taxation from Florida Atlantic University (FAU) in 2007.]

  
 

Corporate Inclusion Training 

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INCLUSION - a word we take seriously. It is more than just accepting or introducing persons with disabilities into your workforce make-up.

Picasso Einstein assists companies to better understand disabilities, trains on how to strategize, raise awareness and embrace diversified employment. We assist corporations in providing support systems through HR Policy and Standard Operating Procedures, and set up models that celebrate the value-proposition of hiring persons with disabilities and build upon intrinsic sustainability.