Hiring Practices
I was recently interviewed by an English teacher in a small college in Baton Rouge, LA who writes blog post-style articles for the Human Resource Certification Institute (HRCI). She was interested in my views regarding hiring practices vis-a-vis people with disabilities. I began by introducing myself as someone who after 29 years of working at Wells Fargo, retired as a Sr. Vice President to start a disability-focused employment company that specializes in consulting on staffing and placement issues. I explained that I am a person with Cerebral Palsy. I have a significant speech impairment. I use a powered wheelchair, and I use personal assistant services for many of my activities of daily living.
I prefaced my answers by saying that my experience at Wells Fargo leads me to believe that corporations are more ready for people with disabilities than we are for them. Focusing on making a profit can be a very equalizing activity. Concentrating on doing a great job rather than focusing on one's disability can be liberating. At the Bank, I found that if you did a good job and added to the Bank's bottom line, it didn't matter what color you were or what religion you practiced or what disability you had. Focusing on the bottom line also leads to creativity. There were many nights when there were system problems. Support personnel from the Bank's computer centers would call me and inevitably find a way to understand what I was saying – because they needed to! One of my favorite stories happened near the beginning of my career before there was online computing, The system crashed at 1AM. My van was in the shop, Trains in the Bay Area don’t run all night. Wells Fargo sent an armored van to transport me, and my 300 -pound powered wheelchair to the data center.
Fear is the biggest obstacle that is preventing companies from having recruitment processes that are inclusive of people with disabilities. Fear of the unknown. Fear of differences. Fear of doing or saying something wrong. Fear of high expenses and fear of legal liabilities. Current regulations and media stoke these fears. Employers and hiring personnel very often believe they are prohibited from asking applicants about their disabilities. This too often creates a veil of concerns that can't be openly discussed. The media too often portrays people with disabilities as hopeless and helpless or as super people. Rarely are people with disabilities portrayed as just being part of a team.
The first thing employers should do to create recruitment processes that are inclusive of people with disabilities is to ensure all their websites and their vendor's websites, conform with standards set forth by the W3C Web Accessibility Initiatives, Web Accessibility Standards.
If the company issues diversity reports to hiring managers, ensure people with disabilities are included. This is especially true if the results reported affects managers performance reviews and/or bonuses.
Most importantly, ensure that hiring managers and staff understand their true criteria for hiring and how the criteria may be affected by different cultures, backgrounds, and disabilities. At Wells Fargo, most of the people I hired were highly skilled IT professionals. When I interviewed applicants, I was much more interested in finding people who were engaging, inquisitive, excited about their work, actively involved with the family, community, hobbies, causes etc. My experience has shown me that with these traits a person can learn anything and be successful. Knowing that these traits can be influenced by different cultures, backgrounds, and disabilities, when I didn't find the traits, I ask how the applicant learns new skills, how they succeed, how they work with coworkers, managers, subordinates and other team members.
If there is an elephant in the room, find a way to name it and discuss it. Solicit the assistance of the applicant in squelching any fears or perceived difficulties.
Spread the word, and encourage your staff to spread the word that you are open to hiring people with disabilities.
To assess or ensure that their recruitment processes and hiring practices are inclusive employers and hiring staff should seek feedback from people they hire and some people they didn't hire as to their experience with the hiring process.
The big mistake I see employers make when it comes to creating inclusive recruitment processes for individuals with disabilities is focusing on the disability more than the job. As with any applicant, try to find out if they want to do the job, how they will do the job and how they will fit into the work environment. Let applicants own their disabilities and know what they need to succeed. Assess their request as you would any employees request. If the request will enable the person to do the job, there's almost always a way to fulfill the request.
- Why is having recruitment and hiring processes that are inclusive important for employers in terms of legal and ethical obligations, employee retention and/or company brand and values?
A company's recruitment and hiring processes are the front doors of the company. They set the tone and the atmosphere of the entire company. Inclusive recruitment and hiring processes help ensure that staff has diverse backgrounds and experiences. This inevitably leads to better products and services which in turn leads to bigger and happier customers. There are no downsides.
The first and most important first 'small' step employers can take to be more inclusive is to want to be more inclusive. After that ask for assistance. There are great people and agencies very eager and able to help.
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