Walk the Talk: Support employment of persons with disabilities (PWDs) in private sector

The United Nations, since the year 1992, has marked 3 December as the International Day for Persons with Disabilities (IDPD) and the theme for this year’s IDPD is “Transformative solutions for inclusive development: The role of innovation in fuelling an accessible and equitable world.”

Disability is a globally emerging issue because, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), approximately 16% of the global population has some type of disability, which makes them the largest minority in the world (WHO, 2023). Disability-related trends also predict that the number of PWDs would further increase due to chronic diseases, a rising ageing population, accidents due to terrorist attacks, and natural disasters.

Moreover, the sustainable development goals (SDG) developed by the United Nations (UN) ensure a sustainable future for all which should be achieved by 2030. The eighth SDG is about decent work and economic growth, which emphasises the importance of promoting inclusiveness and employment for all, and also covers disability.

Against this backdrop, many employers are giving importance to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) strategies to expand their talent pool that covers broader dimensions such as, religion, age, gender, ethnicity and disability. Yet, disability research studies have found that HR practices for PWDs need improvements within their DEI initiatives to ensure decent work. 

The disability movement has repeatedly emphasised the importance of a “rights-based approach” to disability management, where a PWD is considered as a person with equal rights and not a ‘half-human’ who is an object of charity. Disability studies also revealed that countries that adopt a rights-based approach to disability were able to increase employment opportunities, and it is useful to examine “disabling environments”. Thus, there are many interventions at the international level to ensure equal opportunity and treatment of the abilities of PWDs based on a “rights-based approach”.

The Sri Lankan context

Concerning the Sri Lankan context, disability-related statistics are not updated frequently in the country. However, some of the statistics that were based on the study conducted by the Census of Population and Housing (CPH), found that among the total population (5 years and over), approximately 1.6 million (or 87 for every 1,000 SL population) are living with either a partial or full ‘difficulty’ which denotes a disability (CPH, 2012).

Although the private sector in Sri Lanka has contributed immensely to increasing employment opportunities compared to other employment sectors, the highest number of PWDs aged 15 and above were employed as own account workers (45.7%) followed by private sector employment (32.8%) and government sector employment (8.9%) (CPH, 2012). Thus, PWDs employed in the private sector are still very low. 

Further, in the recent past, widespread attention has been given to examining the provisions given for PWDs about vocational rehabilitation and employment promotion through quota schemes, and anti-discrimination laws. For instance, over the past 25 years, Sri Lanka has enacted and amended many policies and legislation to support PWDs. Some of the notable contributions are, the Protection of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, No.28 of 1996, and the National Policy on Disability for SL of 2003. 

Why does employing PWDs matter to private sector employers?

Research shows that disability legislative initiatives would impact most of the employers’ core work concerning compliance with inclusive employment practices. Many academics have undertaken several studies concerning the disability legislature’s impact on different aspects of employers’ responsibilities, especially, on human resources practices supporting the above argument.

Likewise, employers need to make additional efforts to study the legislature and code of good practice in employing PWDs and managing workers with disabilities to avoid serious litigation and other detrimental repercussions. Consequently, globally, many employers have introduced disability policies or revised those already in use, as a response to disability legislation. However, many researchers argue that employers are still adapting to the law and are not clear on how to strategically integrate PWDs.

Furthermore, many studies also revealed that employing PWDs would result in achieving competitive advantage as the employers will be considered as an Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) provider who values diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Hence, it makes good business sense to provide more employment opportunities for PWDs, especially, in the private sector as they are also concerned about profit maximisation and achieving sustainable competitive advantage. 

Meanwhile, past disability empirical studies also found that PWDs perform better compared with their non-disabled colleagues, on productivity, safety measures, loyalty, and attendance. Therefore, private sector employers must consider new ways to promote employment opportunities for PWDs, as they can immensely benefit from this untapped pool of unique talent that consists of people with unique competencies. It would also benefit PWDs as they can stop being part of the dependency ratio. From a national perspective, more employment opportunities for PWDs will impact economic growth, facilitate the empowerment of PWDs, and support the eighth SDG stated by the UN which focuses on decent work and economic growth..  

It is high time to “walk the talk” to promote employment opportunities for PWDs. How long can we neglect a group that possesses unique skills? All the hard work of past researchers and stakeholders to identify possible strategies to improve employment opportunities for PWDs would be a waste if not implemented. It would merely be just another collection of good articles on disability management.

Private sector employers can play a critical role in absorbing the skills of many unemployed PWDs into their organisations strategically, while ensuring that PWDs’ skills are not under-utilised or wasted, which would eventually support SDG 8. Hence, I would like to conclude with a challenge for all private sector employers to implement the identified private sector employer-recommended strategies in Sri Lanka. (Based on the key findings of my MBA dissertation titled “HR Managers’ perspectives on promoting employment opportunities for persons with disabilities: Multiple case study analysis of private sector organisations in Sri Lanka”) 

Employer-recommended strategies to promote employment opportunities for PWDs

1 Increase disability-friendly infrastructure and mental makeup

a) Allow children with disabilities to enter a school with inclusive education.

b) Ensure that socio-economic conditions of PWDs are uplifted.

2 Increase employable skills among PWDs

a) Focus on PWDs’ vital learning needs (employable skills); increase PWDs’ orientation to the corporate world, emotional intelligence, self-esteem and passion for work, personal grooming, and interpersonal skills

b) Integrate PWDs with organisations that provide training on the above learning needs for PWDs 

3 Increase sensitizing non-disabled society and organisational members

a) Conduct regular disability awareness training to reduce unconscious bias and negative attitudes of non-disabled employees against PWDs

b) Inculcate positive attitudes among future HR managers by grooming undergraduates

c) Advocacy with other employers: Even if it’s just one PWD that is employed in a private company and if that employee is doing well, share it as a success story with those companies that have not yet employed PWDs

d) The Employers Federation of Ceylon, NGOs, and government organisations that are dedicated to supporting the employment of PWDs need to showcase and recognise employers who have employed even one PWD and motivate other private companies to employ PWDs

4 Increase support of Government, top management, and other stakeholders

a) Formulate one common national disability policy and strategy starting from childhood, adolescence and all age groups of PWDs

b) Increase co-ordination and uniformity on the monitoring of initiatives taken at the national level to empower PWDs 

c) Recommend trained and suitable PWDs by the Ministry of Social Services for private sector vacancies

d) Continuously fill the skills gap and create awareness with the corporate regarding the abilities of the trained PWDs and how they can fit in a corporate environment

e) Training programs offered by the Government for PWDs must be updated and customised with input from private sector employers and other stakeholders.

f) Provide financial support such as tax reduction and incentives to boost start-ups and SMEs that employ PWDs

g) Increase senior management support to establish a disability-friendly organisational culture and climate.

Source: R.S.G. Chinnaiyah, (2023).

(The writer is a freelance senior HR professional with exposure in conducting in-depth disability research combining human resources management. She holds a first-class honours degree from the University of Colombo with three Gold medals and an MBA from Cardiff Metropolitan University, UK. She can be reached at [email protected] or https://www.linkedin.com/in/soniachinnaiyah/)