Hiring of people with disabilities: Perceptions of Hispanic small business owners

Employers’ Perceptions of Challenges and Strategies in Hiring, Retaining, and Promoting Employees With Physical Disabilities

Disability is a common component of human diversity, yet people with disabilities (PWD) are underrepresented in the workplace despite known benefits to PWD and companies alike. There is an urgent need to promote inclusion of PWD in the workplace. The purpose of this study was to explore employer-perceived challenges and strategies for employing, retaining, and promoting people with physical disabilities (PWPD) and to describe the policies, supports, and job accommodations they provide to PWPD. We administered a cross-sectional, online survey to employers in the Midwestern United States ( n = 53). Employers had an average of 8.5 years of experience in their job roles and represented diverse industries and company sizes. Employers provide a range of job accommodations; however, many reported lacking comprehensive disability policies such as training managers on how to support PWPD, providing employee resource groups for PWPD, and having a specific job accommodation fund. Major challenges reported by employers were related to lacking competencies in supporting employees with physical disabilities. However, employers endorsed the utility of strategies to address these challenges, including providing education and training and increasing buy-in from leadership. Study findings inform employers on ways to best support PWPD and improve diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace.

Structural relationships among predictors of employer attitudes toward blind employees

BACKGROUND: Negative employer attitudes are a primary factor associated with low employment rates and high unemployment rates of people with blindness and low vision (B/LV). Research has identified correlates of employer attitudes, but no investigations of the structural relationships between variables have been published. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to extend the current research regarding employer attitudes toward people with B/LV by assessing the structural relationship between variables associated with employer attitudes. METHODS: Participants were 387 hiring managers employed by organizations across the country who completed an online survey. We utilized structural equation modeling to confirm our measurement model and evaluate structural models of predicted relationships between variables. RESULTS: Five variables significantly predicted employer attitudes: awareness of people with disabilities at the worksite, knowledge, inaccurate belief in knowledge, previous hiring of someone with B/LV, and having a personal relationship with someone with B/LV. Previous communication with vocational rehabilitation (VR), having a company policy about hiring people with disabilities, and personal relationship predicted having hired someone with B/LV. CONCLUSIONS: Findings support the value of VR professionals providing education about how people with B/LV perform work tasks while communicating with employers and providing trial work experiences to encourage hiring.

Ambassador of People with Disabilities in the Workplace-Conducive Demographic and Professional Characteristics

This paper introduces into the analysis the concept of the ambassador of people with disability in the workplace. A kind and friendly person in the workplace, who creates a positive atmosphere around people with disabilities, may play a crucial role in their adaptation on the open labor market. Presence of such a person is especially important in entities that did not previously employ people with disabilities. It is vital that employers who would like to employ people with disability possess knowledge about demographic and professional characteristics that predispose employees to perform this special role. On the one hand, in this article we attempted to evaluate the differentiation in the perception of the issue of disability due to demographic and professional characteristics of respondents, and, on the other hand, to identify features that favor being an "ambassador of people with disabilities" in the workplace. The study was conducted in 2019 on the representative samples of Internet users from 8 European countries using Computer-Assisted Internet Interviews. For the purposes of the study, we used the Attitudes to Disability Scale WHOQOL Group test and a proprietary questionnaire. As for the methods of analysis, we relied on the classical analysis of variance and logistic regression. The conducted study showed that the perception of the issue of disability is significantly related to demographic and professional characteristics of respondents, and that the role of the ambassador is the most appropriate for a middle-aged woman with a good knowledge of disability issues, indecisive in the workplace.

The Impact of a Brief Meeting on Employer Attitudes, Knowledge, and Intent to Hire

We evaluated the ability of an intervention that consisted of a one-on-one meeting between a vocational rehabilitation (VR) professional and an employer to improve employer attitudes, knowledge, and intent to hire people who are blind or visually impaired. We evaluated the relative effectiveness of two approaches (dual customer vs. educational) and the impact of the VR professionals’ vision status (blind or sighted) on our primary outcome measures and on interest in follow-up. Participants were 59 hiring managers employed by a large company who completed measures at three time points: pre, post, and 4-month follow-up. We found that, regardless of approach used or vision status of the VR professional, the intervention was successful at improving employers’ attitudes, knowledge, and intent to hire. The educational approach resulted in increases in knowledge that were retained at follow-up, while the dual customer approach did not. Improvements in intent to hire were not retained at follow-up, suggesting that ongoing contact with employers will be beneficial to positively impact the hiring of people who are blind or visually impaired. These findings are particularly relevant given the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act’s focus on employer engagement for VR agencies.

A Second Look at Factors Associated with Employer Hiring Behavior Regarding People Who Are Blind or Have Low Vision

Introduction:

Although negative employer attitudes and reasons that employers do not hire people with disabilities have both been investigated, little research has focused on why employers do hire people with disabilities. The purpose of this study was to investigate factors associated with employer hiring behavior regarding people with visual impairments, including the opportunity to hire (i.e., application receipt).

Method:

Participants were a national sample of 388 hiring managers who completed an online survey that assessed their hiring experiences concerning people with visual impairments. Two logistic regression models were analyzed, one that included nine independent variables thought to be associated with hiring (Model 1) and one that included these nine variables plus application receipt (Model 2).

Results:

Variables that were significantly associated with hiring behavior in Model 1 were prior communication with vocational rehabilitation (VR) professionals, employer attitudes, company size, company policy, and personal relationship with someone with a visual impairment. Significant variables in Model 2 were received application, employer attitudes, and personal relationship.

Discussion:

As expected, application receipt was the most important predictor of hiring behavior, with odds of hiring increasing by more than 40 with receipt of an application. Despite this exceptionally strong relationship, employer attitudes and having a personal relationship remained significant predictors, indicating the robustness of attitudes as a determinant of why employers hire and the importance of personal connections to hiring behavior.

Implications for practice:

Employers cannot hire unless given the opportunity, and the first step to being hired is typically submitting an application. VR professionals should both encourage consumers to submit applications, providing support in this process as needed, and communicate with employers to encourage their consideration of these applications.

Professionals’ Implicit Attitudes about the Competence of People Who are Blind

Introduction:

The purpose of this study was to measure blindness professionals’ implicit attitudes about the competence of people who are blind, compare implicit attitudes of blindness professionals with those of employers in hiring positions, and examine blindness professionals’ implicit attitudes by type of profession and work tenure.

Methods:

The study included 322 blindness professionals and 450 employers. Participants completed a brief online survey and the Implicit Association Test–Blind/Visually Impaired, which measures implicit attitudes regarding the competence of blind people.

Results:

On average, blindness professionals exhibited a slight association, whereas employers exhibited a strong association, for sighted with competence and blind with incompetence. Blindness professionals and employers had large, statistically significant differences in implicit attitudes. Blindness professionals’ implicit attitudes did not differ by type of profession, but they differed slightly by work tenure.

Discussion:

Employers’ strong implicit bias toward sighted and competence may reflect their limited knowledge about blindness and lack of opportunities to interact with blind people. Compared to employers, blindness professionals exhibited a much smaller implicit bias, which may relate to their knowledge about blindness, exposure to successful blind people, and meaningful interactions with blind people across social contexts.

Implications for practitioners:

Blindness professionals may benefit from increased exposure to highly successful blind role models throughout their professional preparation programs and their careers. Blindness professionals can promote positive attitudes about blindness to the general public and to consumers and their families. During educational opportunities, they could incorporate information about how blind people perform work tasks, which has the potential to improve attitudes about the competence of blind people.

Employers' attitudes toward hiring individuals with visual impairments

Purpose: This study examines: (a) the attitudes of 196 private sector employers toward hiring individuals with visual impairments and (b) the impact of the employers' individual characteristics (age, gender, and educational level), attitudes toward visual impairment, social contact with them, and the form of business entity on their attitudes toward hiring such individuals.Materials and methods: The research tool used is a questionnaire of 15 closed-type questions.Results: The results of this research verify that the examined variables are significant individual predictors of the employers' attitudes that are expressed in 7 out of 15 questions.Conclusions: The majority of the participants provided negative or neutral answers for most of the questions and exhibited the same attitudes with regard to the employment of individuals with visual impairments. Only two variables from the examined ones - "frequency of social contact" and "attitudes toward visual impairment" - appear to affect the employers' intentions to hire people with visual impairments.Implications for rehabilitationThe target should be more favorable employer attitudes toward individuals with visual impairments.The target should be more informative employers in regard to individuals with visual impairments and their skills and capabilitiesVocational rehabilitation professionals should be aware that employers' individual factors, age, gender and educational level are factors shown to affect their attitudes toward the vocational integration of people with disabilities.Informative seminars can be based on the variables and the factors shown to affect employers' attitudes.

Effectiveness of a Business Development Training for Rehabilitation Counselors Who Work With Consumers Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired

The passage of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act has placed increased emphasis on business engagement for vocational rehabilitation agencies, yet many rehabilitation counselors are not prepared to work with businesses. The primary purpose of this study was to evaluate the initial effectiveness of a business development training for rehabilitation counselors who work with consumers who are blind or visually impaired. A secondary purpose was to report on the sample’s pretraining status on variables associated with business development. Participants were 80 counselors and counselor supervisors employed by four separate agencies who completed the 19-h in-person training. Data were collected from participants prior to and immediately following the training. Outcome variables were self-perceived knowledge, skills, and comfort level with business development activities and measured business development knowledge and self-efficacy. Prior to the training, participants recognized the importance of, and a personal need for training in, business development and perceived moderate levels of comfort, knowledge, and skills. Participants demonstrated statistically significant increases on all outcome measures, with effect sizes ranging from medium to large. These results provide support for the effectiveness of the training in improving business development outcomes in the short term. Additional research is needed to evaluate its long-term effectiveness.