Employment: A Group Effort and an Attitudinal Shift May Be Required
Hello All,
Welcome to Week 2 in my Series on Disability. This time I’m talking about Employment. Don’t know if you’ve heard much about the job market prospects for people with disabilities but the numbers do not lie, it’s pretty low.
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While I’ve been gainfully employed since I was sixteen years old, it’s only because of the programs that were in place to ensure diversity and inclusion for all in the employment sector.
Did you see/hear what I said, programs in place? The sad reality is, many a person with a disability has been given the opportunity to work simply because there was a federal mandate to make it happen. I wish employers did things on their own and some are, NOW, but that wasn’t the case when I was coming up.
And truthfully, that’s what worries me most about turning over everything to the states so they could “govern themselves”. Well, what are national policies for? To help bring you to another’s way of thinking. Tangent alert: Forget about the fact that many states would run out of money leaving many of us out in the cold but it’s a lot of federal mandates that have made us as inclusive as we are, for some reason we can’t seem to get there on our own. We need a higher standard to pull and push (and incentive) employer behavior and open up the offering letters and doors to groups of people they would otherwise overlook. And though there are mandates and “programs”, sometimes that still (numbers show) does not seem to be enough to bleed more into private sector jobs.
Alas, I’m not really here to talk about politics so much, what I wanted to address was the two sets (really three) of people and groups involved in helping more people with disabilities get and KEEP gainful employment! I wanted to outline what each of us (whatever group you are in) SHOULD be doing to make it happen.
Here are my three “sets” or groups of folks:
Employers / Small business owners – that’s ANY kind of business large or small, public/private/federal that is in a position to make a hiring decision
Services Providers and Parents of youth and young adults with Disabilities
I added a group just last night as I was thinking about this post, to separate doctors/medical health professionals from general service providers, and finally, the last group but equally important are
YOU/ME as people with disabilities and our approach to employment opportunity and employer
Employers / Small Business Owners
It’s pretty simple, or it seems to be, but if you say that people with disabilities aren’t “out there” you need to think about where you are looking. That’s like saying that all the Deaf people didn’t heed any flood and recent hurricane warnings and all you did was put the information the radio. Really, get with organizations that serve these folks and ensure you are putting information the right place.
Expand Your Search Pool – If you are in a position to hire, you should see if there is someone in the pool of applicants with disabilities that can do what you need. I’m not saying to overlook any other qualified person, I’m simply encouraging to expand where you look and your own prejudice you bring to what you believe people with disabilities can do. You can call the nonprofits and other service professionals directly and you can say simply: “I’d like to
Keep an Open Mind – It’s important those that in a position to hire, challenge their own notions. This may be related to the chronically ill person you knew as a kid and the equipment and help you may have seen administered to them by others but you can’t allow yourself to then blanket the abilities of every single person with a disability that you meet. And admitted or not, this is what happens. You’ve been watching too much television that’s really met to dramatize and entertain. I mean the movies are FULL of inaccuracies about our abilities. Sure they do good at portraying the way we get around and even how we may feel and act, but they fall short in depicting us in more realistic situations and further fail to show how much technology has played in our lives to help us be more active and adapt to any potential working environment. A movie is but a snippet of life, not the totality of who we are and should be viewed like we view our astrological readings in magazines and papers: “For entertainment purposes only.”
Ask the Applicant – I worked at a daycare center in my 20’s. When I went for the interview I was nervous, I knew already that I would have to be put with the “big kids”, and everyone wants the big kids, they are the oldest group in the center that could move out of the way, take instruction and walk of their own recognizance. I couldn’t lift any kids and I couldn’t have grubby little hands reaching for my wheelchair console and taking out the ten other elementary pupils on my first day.
I’m thankful for the employer then that simply came out and said, “We do have concerns about your wheelchair but you seem to be pretty efficient with that thing…” – I didn’t tell her my wheelchair has a name and I love it very much and I never ever refer to it as “that thing” – but alas didn’t seem professional or relevant to reveal this at the time – but they came out and asked and I had a ready answer. Whatever I said, the most important thing was going to be for me to portray an air of confidence and to allay her concerns about the ultimate safety and well-being of the children she was in charge of for the better part of the days. I didn’t think I’d run over any little person, visions of myself on the local evening news with Lester Holt might have come to my mind but I didn’t tell her that, but regardless of my active imagination, I was still certain I could plan a few activities, give instruction, have an authoritative voice, and hand out Cheeze-Its and apple slices with the best of them. I could also caution kids against playing with my equipment and other things that were important. I was hired on the spot and it was awesome. I loved my classroom and my kids. The only thing that kept me from working longer than the two years I was there was the constant germ thing called Strep. I was sick every other month but I tried and it was great while it lasted. Yes, part of acing the interview was about my lovely disposition but I’ve been in situations where that doesn’t always work and so it was our collective response to one another that I credit as the reason for both our successes.
I’m forever grateful to the employer that saw past what she may felt were a kind of limitation, and not only a limitation but what she saw as a possible danger just because of the vital assistive technology I use, and gave me a job anyway. She didn’t dismiss me thinking this would be impossible, dangerous and this was twenty years ago, mind you. I got a chance because of someone’s open mind and that’s more than half the battle.
Next, regarding employers, one of the biggest hurdles I see, especially in the federal sector is a supervisor so stringent on governing their small group of subordinates that they pull teleworking completely off the table. If your concern is that people won’t work when they are home, you can keep that concern because it happens even when people are AT work. Sorry. Holidays are coming up too?
