Report examines views on hiring people with disabilities
Courtesy | Flickr/Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism
The Massachusetts State House
There is a strong business case to be made for hiring people with disabilities but a "general discomfort" among some employers and other significant barriers contribute to the ongoing underemployment of people with disabilities, a group of lawmakers concluded.
The WorkAbility subcommittee of the Joint Committee on Children, Families and Persons with Disabilities spent nearly two years studying workforce development for people with disabilities and earlier this month filed its findings and recommendations in a 33-page report.
When the subcommittee led by Rep. Josh Cutler got to work in 2019, the Massachusetts economy was humming. About 80 percent of individuals without disabilities were employed, the subcommittee found, while just 38.2 percent of people with disabilities were employed.
But through meetings with more than 40 stakeholder groups and 100 advocates, visits to a dozen disability service providers and businesses, and testimony at a public hearing, the subcommittee heard that companies making deliberate efforts to include people with disabilities in their hiring practices view it as "a business imperative" that "yields a competitive advantage over companies that do not hire from this talent pool" in the form of higher retention rates, reduced personnel costs and stronger customer loyalty.
"A recurring, and encouraging, theme in our conversations with Bay State business leaders is the extent to which many have embraced disability inclusive hiring practices into their business models, not just for altruistic or public relations purposes, but as a tangible boost to their bottom line," Cutler wrote in a letter that accompanied the subcommittee's report. "Spreading this message to smaller and mid-sized businesses that do not necessarily have the same institutional knowledge or advantages is paramount. And some nudges and nurturing from the Commonwealth can help."
But despite hearing from some businesses about why hiring people with disabilities is a smart practice, the WorkAbility subcommittee said it also heard frequently "that employers are often uncomfortable or do not know how to approach employing individuals with disabilities."
"Whether it be concerns about high accommodation costs, fear that managing performance will lead to legal action, lack of awareness of available services, or misconceptions about individuals with disabilities, a general sense of discomfort or unfamiliarity regarding people with disabilities can create barriers to successful employment," the report said.
Other barriers to employment for people with disabilities include access to and accessibility of transportation, physical barriers to getting into and around the workplace, and a concern among some that disclosing a disability could imperil their chances at securing a job.
The subcommittee made more than 10 recommendations to encourage workforce opportunities for people with disabilities in Massachusetts, but listed first was that the state should establish a permanent Commission on the Status of Persons with Disabilities. Between the end of the subcommittee's research and the filing of its report, the Legislature included the requirement for the permanent commission in the policing reform law passed and signed late last year.
"This Commission will be better situated to continue the work of this ad-hoc subcommittee in a broader way and ensure a strong platform for communication amongst the diverse, public-private set of stakeholders who do so much to advocate for individuals with disabilities," Cutler wrote in his letter.
The group also recommended that Massachusetts expand the reach of regional employment collaboratives that have been successful but right now do not cover large parts of western and central Massachusetts, the South Coast and Cape Cod; develop partnerships with rideshare companies to alleviate some transportation barriers; set new disability hiring goals in state contracting; work with the Mass. Rehabilitation Commission to establish a pipeline to internship opportunities at the State House, and create state tax incentives for promoting disability hiring by private businesses.
"As a whole they offer a broad spectrum of achievable goals to remove barriers and create more opportunities for persons with disabilities to participate and succeed in the workforce," the subcommittee wrote in its report.
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