In the modern world, companies are trying to be as progressive as possible, which applies not only to innovations for customers. This also applies to working conditions and hiring employees for work. The most rated companies will be those who support diversity in the workplace, for example, they engage both women and men, light-skinned and dark-skinned, Asians, and generally support national variety. In addition, some companies tend to employ disabled people. Although some companies offer vacancies for disabled people, other companies do not agree to allocate a position for them.
With the onset of the pandemic, more and more organizations began to switch to the remote work format. In this regard, human resources managers were tasked with hiring people for remote positions in many companies that have opened vacancies for disabled people. Often people with disabilities are hired for such vacancies as call center operators, recruiters, and remote sales managers. These activities are not physically complicated or inaccessible, and thus people with disabilities can work, earn and develop.
Hiring employees with disabilities gives a large number of advantages to managers. The main advantage for employers, naturally, is the economic benefits. Aichner (2021) claims that people with disabilities are more motivated than people without health restrictions. In addition, people with disabilities are more likely to have a permanent job, which significantly reduces staff turnover. The employer is ready to invest financial resources in the training of disabled people and improve their skills, based on the fact that they are trying to keep their jobs.
Employees with disabilities increase the number of clients of the company precisely because they attract customers with disabilities. Employees with disabilities who take part in product development provide an opportunity to understand better customers with disabilities, who make up one-seventh of the people living on the planet (Aichner, 2021). The exclusion of disabled employees when hiring can mean losing this part of people, which subsequently causes a loss of profit for the company.
Even though employees with disabilities have many advantages over healthy employees and can also carry financial benefits, some employers still do not want to hire them. Employers are often not aware of the needs of employees with disabilities and do not know how to meet them at work and in the working environment (Vornholt et al., 2018). In addition, some employers believe that it is pretty challenging to teach a disabled person the necessary skills or requires too much staff attention and time costs.
Some employers tend to think that the amount of work performed by disabled employees is not comparable to the amount of work performed by a healthy employee. Employers have the same opinion about the quality of work. Employers may also worry about the atmosphere in the team, which will be present if there is a disabled employee on the staff. Although in many countries, the employment of people with disabilities is established at the legislative level, employees still do not risk this kind of hiring.
In conclusion, some employers are willing to hire disabled people, as they believe that this can be beneficial. People with disabilities are not inclined to change jobs frequently, which means that employers can invest in their development and training. In addition, they attract a specific part of the population, which brings economic benefits to the company. There are also those employers who do not seek to hire disabled employees. This is since they believe that disabled people have lower indicators of the quality of work, a low level of motivation, and also that they are prone to negative situations in the team.
References
Aichner, T. (2021). The economic argument for hiring people with disabilities. Humanities And Social Sciences Communications, 8(22), 1-4.
Vornholt, K., Villotti, P., Muschalla, B., Bauer, J., Colella, A., Zijlstra, F., Van Ruitenbeek, G., Uitdewilligen, S. & Corbière, M. (2018). Disability and employment – overview and highlights. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 27(1), 40-55.