At businesses across Yorkton, employers are hiring people with disabilities. Disability Employment Awareness Month (DEAM) is meant to celebrate these businesses and their support for diversity in the workplace, and encourage more employers to have a more diverse workforce and give people with disabilities the chance to help their business.
Claire Maddison, Employment Services senior supervisor at Partners in Employment, said they want to recognize employers they work with, but they also want to use it as a ‘call to action’ to get more employers on board.
Staples, Value Village, and the Town of Saltcoats each worked with Partners in Employment to produce videos about the inclusion in their workplace that they shared on social media. Maddison said the videos show how the diversity in those businesses help them.
“It’s providing value to them, hiring individuals with disabilities, and they’ve been doing it for a number of years.”
Another thing they are doing to support the businesses is something called a “cash mob,” explained Maddison. They pop up in retail businesses that are part of the program and tell people the business is an inclusive employer and encourage them to spend more money at that store.
The end goal of the month is to encourage people to employ more people with disabilities. Maddison said there are many advantages to doing so. Disabled employees are often more loyal than other employees for example – 72 per cent higher employee retention according to the Canadian Association of Supported Employment (CASE) –and their productivity is at the same rate as their non-disabled coworkers – according to CASE, 90 per cent of disabled employees are equally productive.
“A lot of employers have misconceptions... Often, when we talk to employers, individuals with disabilities will end up out-performing some of the other individuals because, you know what, they want to prove a point, that they are just as valuable.”
While a disability might affect the employee’s life, they work with Partners in Employment to find out what they can do, so it doesn’t affect their job performance. Maddison said many employers call Partners in Employment because they’ve had successful work placements in the past.
She also notes that many employees have hidden disabilities, such as mental illness.
“We still deal with that stigma that a disability is a very visual thing, if you’re in a wheelchair you definitely have a disability. Really we’re dealing with people in all walks of like with an array of different disabilities.”
Partners in Employment works with clients and businesses to help make the job placements work, looking at the workplace to see how their potential employees could fit. They also assist with training the new employee.
While there may be accommodation necessary for employees with a disability, the changes are often a benefit to all employees at the business. Sometimes it just means adjusting job descriptions, which can make a business more efficient overall as jobs are re-assigned. Sometimes it just means re-arranging an office to make it easier to move around.
She used the example of a young man with cerebral palsy who had difficulty walking. The main change the business had to make involved moving around some furniture and getting wires off of the floor, effectively free changes that also made the business safer for existing employees after a tripping hazard was removed.
“That benefitted not only him, but the other people who were accessing that space too. We do get involved in more complicated things as well... But, to be honest with you, it’s very seldom that we have to do that. It speaks to how few accommodations people actually need in the workplace.”
