National Disability Employment Awareness Month – Moving Beyond the Tagline

2010 NDEAM Poster

The theme for this year’s National Disability Employment Awareness Month is “Profit by Investing in Workers with Disabilities”. Not necessarily catchy or bleeding edge, but certainly makes its point. On October 1, 2010 President Obama signed a presidential proclamation emphasizing the significance of the  effort in that, the 20th year after the passage of the seminel ADA. In 2009 the slogan was “Expectation + Opportunity = Full Participation”. In 2008 it emphatically exclaimed “America’s People, America’s Talent, America’s Strength!”. And the beat goes on.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics now provides month-to-month analytics for the disability workforce as well as side-by-side comparisons to the general workforce. The most recent numbers available are for March  and would suggest that this theme has certainly not been widely adopted to this point. The percentage of people with disabilities in the workforce was 21 vs nearly 70 for those without disabilities. Further, the unemployment rate for those with disabilities was 15.6% vs. 8.9% for those without disabilities. Both reflect the decades long underrepresentation of PWD in the labor force and the evident challenge that the hiring community has in seeing the profitability of such an investment.

The Time to Act is Today

My fear is that as we continue to inch forward and out of the shadow of the extended recession, this underrecognized and undervalued pool of candidates will sink still further into the abyss of unemployment or underemployment. I don’t think it’s hyperbole to suggest that if there isn’t a collective, protracted effort by both government and private sector employers to actively engage this community, the true spirit of the ADA will fail to be met. Namely, the complete and meaningful integration of  people with disabilities into our nation’s fabric. Distilled to its essence, that means meaningful and life-long employment for millions in this highly diverse, complex and mischaracterized segment of our potential labor force. Gary Karp, a former colleague of mine and respected voice for the evolving nature of disability in our nation emphasizes this collective misunderstanding and its implications in his e-newsletter Modern Disability.

In research that we commissioned to consider some of these prevailing challenges in the hiring community, Professors Fong Chan and David Strauser elicited input in deep focus groups as well as through an in-depth on line survey from hiring managers and IT executives in the Midwest on their perceptions of professionals with evident disabilities (hearing, vision, mobility). Two conclusions were clear; there are persistent perceptions of lower productivity associated with disability and there is clear lack of knowledge of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and its implications for the hiring and employment process. The abstract and conclusions of the research are noted in the National Library of Medicine online library.

This research bears out an unsubstantiated, yet persistent belief on the part of executives and hiring managers that a candidate with a disability is likely to be less productive than one without a recognized disability. Accounting for similar education, background and other key attributes, candidates with disabilities continue to lag noticeably behind their peers without disabilities in getting the job.

What About an Edgier Theme for NDEAM?

One of the core principles for a strategic effort is an intended outcome. Whether in sales forecasting, event planning, fundraising or any other endeavor of significant effort, if you don’t have a vision of success that can be quantified or made tangible in some clear way, how do you know if you’ve succeeded? I am beginning to feel that way about the yearly National Disability Employment Awareness Month. It’s a great “notion”, a promising vision, but it doesn’t drive change in the way the business and hiring community engages around employing qualified candidates with disabilities. Maybe introducing a target for hiring into the theme, poster, campaign launch, and all of the associated festivities and efforts would make an impact. 

Mayor Daley had it Right

Some years ago I served on a committee as part of  Chicago’s newly retired Mayor Richard M. Daley’s Task Force on the Employment of People with Disabilities. I will never forget the Mayor’s terse and direct comments to the large audience of business executives, service providers, the task force and some media gathered at McCormick Place (as I recall) for a progress report on the task force’s findings. The mayor appeared harried that morning, and after he was introduced he quickly thanked the chair of the task force and one or two others for their efforts and then, while wagging his finger indictingly at one after another audience member, stated very plainly “If you would just hire two of these people this year we’d be over this problem”. One of the things that I’ve always appreciated about Mayor Daley, whether he’s discussing international trade or trash pickup, is his directness. It’s vintage Chicago. While the challenge goes a bit deeper than that, I’d settle for the business community heeding the mayor’s admonishment.  Candidates with disabilities continue to be unemployed at the same or nearly the same sky-high rate as they did 10 and 20 years ago. Maybe I’ll be proven wrong and this year’s NDEAM theme will be the one that our nation’s business community takes to heart and acts upon. As it suggests, they would certainly profit by doing so.