Building Inclusive Organizations for Employees with Disabilities

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Building Inclusive Organizations for Employees
with Disabilities

• Lisa Schur
• School of Management and Labor Relations
• Rutgers University
• June 24, 2008

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Outline of presentation

• What difference does corporate culture make?
• 2. What are the employer best practices in the
  area of disability?
• 3. What direction should future research take?

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What difference does corporate culture make?

• Study based on surveys of 30,000 employees in 131
  worksites in 14 companies.
• ("Is Disability Disabling in All Workplaces?
  Schur, Kruse, Blasi, and Blanck, 2008)

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• Finding 1 Employees with disabilities on
  average have lower pay, job security, training,
  and participation in decisions, and have higher
  turnover intentions and rate companies lower on
  several measures.

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• But corporate culture and practices make a big
  difference.
• Finding 2 There are no disability gaps in
  attitudes and turnover intention in worksites
  rated highly by all employees for fairness and
  responsiveness.

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• Conclusion Companies that are viewed as fair
  and responsive by all employees appear to be
  especially beneficial for employees with
  disabilities.

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• This supports the idea that corporate culture and
  practices can make a big difference in creating a
  welcoming environment where employees with
  disabilities can thrive.

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What are employer best practices in the area of
disability?

• Following information is from case studies of 28
  companies in a range of industries
• 8 of the companies won the DOLs New Freedom
  Initiative Award

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• Three categories of best practices
• A. Recruitment and training
• B. Accommodations
• C. Corporate culture

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A. Recruitment and training

• Targeted recruiting of people with disabilities
  (e.g., Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft)
• Developing pipeline to recruit employees with
  disabilities (e.g., IBM, SunTrust, Marriott)

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A. Recruitment and training (cont.)

• Partnerships with public and non-profit
  organizations (e.g., IBM, MBNA, Hyatt)
• Disability etiquette training for recruiters
  (e.g., Microsoft, Giant Eagle, SunTrust)

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B. Accommodations

• Leveraging expertise (e.g., Marriott, IBM, Alaska
  Airlines)
• Centralized source of funding for accommodations
  (e.g., Bank of America, Microsoft, IBM)

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B. Accommodations (cont.)

• Structured accommodations process (e.g., HP, IBM,
  Microsoft)
• Department providing disability information and
  advocacy (e.g., SunTrust, HP)

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C. Corporate culture

• Disability networks/affinity groups
• (e.g., IBM)
• Co-worker education and training
• (e.g., Hyatt)
• Manager education and training
• (e.g., Bank of America)

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C. Corporate culture (cont.)

• Community and public outreach (e.g., Nike)
• Global standards (e.g., Dow)
• Data collection (e.g., Dow)
• Top management commitment (e.g., Microsoft, IBM,
  HP)

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Directions for Research

• Need for more study of corporate culture and
  practices in order to
• identify barriers and facilitators to employment
  for people with disabilities,
• 2) work with companies to develop, implement, and
  spread best practices.

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• Current research, sponsored by Office of
  Disability Employment Policy, is creating
  template for case studies of disability,
  corporate culture, and practices.
• Research is led by Syracuse, Rutgers, and Cornell
  Universities

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• Methods are both quantitative (surveys) and
  qualitative (interviews, focus groups, archival
  data)
• Measures include
• 1. attitudes and behaviors (e.g., perceptions of
  fairness, company treatment, loyalty, turnover
  intention)

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• Measures also include
• perceptions of disability policies and how
  employees with disabilities are treated
• accommodation requests, costs, benefits, and
  procedures
• 4. attitudes of co-workers and managers

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• One preliminary finding accommodations to meet
  personal needs were requested by
• about half of employees with disabilities
• about one-third of employees without disabilities
  
• Accommodations are granted in equal proportions
  (over 80).

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• Also, both employees with and without
  disabilities strongly agree that When
  accommodations are made, people with disabilities
  can be just as productive as people without
  disabilities.

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Summary points

• Employees with disabilities face disparities
  within companies (e.g., pay, training, job
  security)
• Corporate culture appears to matter employees
  with disabilities fare much better in worksites
  viewed as fair and responsive by all employees

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Summary points (cont.)

• A variety of best practices exist to make
  companies more responsive and improve employment
  opportunities for people with disabilities
• The current ODEP-sponsored study will establish a
  template for systematically studying corporate
  culture and practices

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Key questions

• Whats the best way to study the role of
  corporate culture and practices?
• 2. How can we increase knowledge and adoption of
  best practices, in both large and small firms?

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Key questions (cont.)

• 3. How can we combine research on corporate
  culture and practices with a focus on supply-side
  factors influencing employment of people with
  disabilities?