Disability campaigners say their cause is being drowned out by a cacophony of more popular diversity issues like race and gender. Matt Henkes investigates whether this is the case and how they can make themselves heard within organisations.

Diversity is in danger of becoming such an ominous and unwieldy term that some facets may be in jeopardy of slipping below the radar. And with disability arguably the most complicated and least publicised of such issues, is it surprising lobbyists complain it is losing out to more straightforward targets like race and gender?

Around 7 million people of working age in the UK have some kind of disability – that’s almost one in five, though only half of these are in work. In 2006, the Office of National Statistics reported that up to 1.2m disabled people were available and wanting to work. So why aren’t they?

Diversity used in employment terms came about in America following affirmative action on rights for black and Hispanic employees and the resulting backlash from their white colleagues.

Business leaders wanted their workforce to know they valued contributions from people who, in the context of the agitation around women’s rights and Hispanic and black afro-Caribbean action at work, were feeling devalued.

Nowadays, it has come to be associated with activities that help business employ staff from a wider pool than it otherwise would. However, this assumes that a company already delivers equal opportunities for all.

One thing at a time

The Employers Forum on Disability (EFD) argues this is rarely the case and warns that disabled workers are being failed by employers who are distracted by the lower hanging diversity fruit. “We’re doing women this year,” EFD founder and CEO Susan Scott-Parker was recently told by one corporate director when she asked about his company’s diversity activities.

So why is disability slipping through? Paul Avis, corporate development manager at HR consultancy Ceridian, agrees that race and gender are much easier issues to deal with, so tend to be viewed as softer targets.

“How many employers still use ill health retirements to manage out people with disabilities?” he says. “Imagine the outcry if someone were managed out by an employer because they were female or from an ethnic minority. Put systemic issues such as this alongside the fact many employees become disabled, rather than are born disabled, and you can see why disability diversity is that much more complicated.”

Dealing with disability (or becoming “disability confident”, as EFD chief Scott-Parker calls it), requires a very specific but wide-ranging set of competencies that include managing attitudes and behaviours as much as systems and processes.

For instance, can blind people complete your firm’s online application? Could someone with a speech impediment get through your panel interview process? Does your training department ensure that all training videos are subtitled?

All these things are easily ignored or forgotten. The law requires that a firm considers what ‘reasonable adaptations’ can be made in order for a disabled person to function as an employee. However, Avis believes line managers directly responsible for recruiting would often prefer to hire employees without a disability, or replace staff rather than make such adaptations.

“As well as legislative compliance, the killer question is what would happen to you should you become sick or disabled?” he remarks. “Once the manager and supervisor understand the implications behind their actions they become far more willing to both recruit and retain employees with disabilities.”

There will always be barriers for disabled people if employers are not skilled at making adjustments for individuals and incorporating disabled-friendly policies.

However, argues Scott-Parker, somehow it has come to be regarded as “old hat or passé” to focus on one group in the world of diversity. “It’s as if somehow you are working to the detriment of the rest,” she adds.

Stats don’t back

There’s no argument against the fact that many UK companies could probably do more in areas of diversity, but research from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) suggests that, among those that try, disability is not as neglected as the EFD believes.

In its 2007 Diversity in Business report, the institute found that legal requirements were by far the biggest factor in motivating companies to take action on diversity issues. And, startlingly, the number one issue respondents claimed to be acting upon was disability (see graph below).

“I think there is a feeling that disability hasn’t really been on organisations’ agenda regarding equal opportunities and that race and gender (race in particular) have dominated the discourse,” says CIPD diversity expert Dianah Worman. “But I don’t know that it really holds true according to the statistics we’ve got.”

It could be the timing of their work, she concedes, but adds that it certainly seemed disability isn’t “way behind at all”. Admittedly, while disability may not lag behind, life is still pretty tough for disabled people seeking employment. The same report also showed that almost two-thirds of organisations didn’t have any specialised diversity or equal opportunities function and 70 per cent didn’t allocate a budget to diversity.

Graph: Diversity categories covered by company policies (click image for larger version)

Source: CIPD

As the gate-keepers expected to know all there is to know on the subject, HR is left in a position where its job is to help management have the difficult conversations it inevitably will need to have about disability.

HR needs to make sure it is inclusive in its thinking, not focusing too much on legal compliance and being more proactive on the agenda. The talent argument has also created the need to be far more innovative when looking for the skills and abilities needed in the organisation.

“You can forget traditional approaches because you’re not going to get what you need by being very old-fashioned,” cautions Worman. Instead, HR needs to be very proactive about recognising that labour market characteristics are diverse in themselves.

“What you need to do is contextualise that business case to individual organisations,” she adds. “Yes, there are generic reasons for disability diversity, but you need to be smart and identify which ones particularly relate to your organisation and where it wants to be.”

Ultimately, the problem stems from labelling people as black and white or disabled, rather than perceiving them as a person with particular characteristics or needs. “We need a different approach,” says Scott-Parker. “My prediction is that the language of diversity is going to need to change if the objectives of everyone working within the process are going to be delivered.”