Perception and Acceptance of People with Disabilities by Employers and Co-Workers

Disability, recruitment and job retention: Identifying barriers and facilitators from the employers' point of view

BACKGROUND

Despite increased public awareness of the professional, integration of people with disabilities, they encounter more difficulties than their non-disabled counterparts in accessing employment.

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this study was to gain a better understanding of the barriers and facilitators to hiring and retaining people with disabilities from the perspective of employers in the private and public sector in France.

METHODS

This was a qualitative study using semi-structured interviews with forty-two employers from public structures or private companies. The Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research was used as a guideline to secure accurate and complete reporting of the study.

RESULTS

Among barriers we found that 1. Stereotypes persist about disability, still associated with lower productivity and dangerous behaviour; 2. Disabilities were associated with costs that were considered too high; 3. Disabilities management was seen as an administrative burden. 4. The bumps of inclusion. We also highlighted facilitators such as 1. A public sector is a more favourable environment 2. Employer's personal motivation to hire people with disabilities; 3. The support by Job Coaches was seen as a powerful facilitator.

CONCLUSIONS

The decision to hire people with disabilities depends on many personal, societal and organisational factors. This study has contributed to a better understanding of their interrelationships and could be useful in developing more effective strategies for the inclusion of people with disabilities.

People with Disabilities in the Workplace: Results of a Survey Conducted among Polish and Finnish Employers

The key aspect of the inclusion of people with disabilities (PwD) in the workplace is how they are perceived by employers who make decisions on hiring employees. The article presents the results of CAWI (Computer Assisted Web Interview) research conducted among Polish and Finnish employers (n = 414) in 2021 using a proprietary questionnaire. Employers were asked to assess the state policy in the field of PwD’s inclusion, the social atmosphere in this respect, the level of acceptance of privileges/special solutions dedicated to PwD in the workplace and the knowledge of the specificity of disability. When analysing the obtained data, we verified the differentiation of Polish and Finnish employers’ assessments, the impact of respondents’ characteristics on their assessment and the relations between the assessments of various aspects of PwD’s inclusion. For the analysis, we used the t-test of independent samples for equality of means and the Pearson correlation coefficient. The results showed that Finnish respondents assess the conditions for the full inclusion of PwD much better than Polish ones. The characteristics most differentiating employers’ assessments is gender and the fact of employing PwD. There were also correlations between the responses of respondents in both countries to three out of four analysed questions from the questionnaire. The differences found in this study indicate that it would be worth extending the research to other European countries to generalize conclusions about the influence of cultural determinants on the situation of PwD on the labour market.