Well Begun Is Half Done
Acting Affirmatively
What You Are Missing
Related Content
Well Begun Is Half Done
"Well begun is half done." This familiar rhyme means
that getting started is a major step towards a goal.
But, in the case of diversity awareness programs, it
can also be a caution. Employers, schools,
organizations and government offices have all seen the
rewards of creating better understanding among people
of different races, ethnicity, religions, gender and
gender preference. But this rainbow only goes part of
the way across the sky. If you leave out disability in
your diversity program, the rainbow is not complete.
And you will never reach the pot of gold.
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Acting Affirmatively
The purpose of diversity awareness training is not
only to avoid overt and unintentional discrimination
against minority employees. Diversity in the workplace
enhances the bottom line. It goes beyond helping
people work harmoniously in spite of different work
and communication styles and experiences. It shows
that an organization's leaders embrace the multitude
of approaches diversity brings to each task. That
encourages everyone to work as a productive team.
Nicole Gant, the disabilities expert in the Western
Washington University (WWU) Affirmative Action
Program, states it simply: "Affirmative Action is
a requirement." And, while a recent vote to limit the
scope of Affirmative Action requirements in Washington
State has eliminated some tools that can be used in
hiring people on the basis of race and gender, she
says, full-fledged Affirmative Action still exists for
people with disabilities.
When Gant's office surveyed the university's
hiring record, she discovered disabled employees were
heavily underrepresented. University officials
realized they needed to learn why and find ways to
eliminate the gap. They added improved outreach
efforts and disability awareness training to the
existing disabilities programs within their Affirmative
Action efforts. Their outreach efforts are now
focused on more direct contact with job seekers who
have disabilities and on state and non-profit programs
which help them find work, learn about the hiring
process and use Affirmative Action to their benefit.
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What You Are Missing
In a time when unemployment is low in the United
States and employers are fighting to recruit and
retain skilled and loyal workers, one group of
potential job candidates goes virtually untapped.
According to the President's Committee on Employment
of Disabled Persons, approximately 75 percent of
people with disabilities are able to work and
interested in joining the workforce but are
unemployed. With today's tools for making nearly any
work situation possible for these job seekers,
statements among employers that they can't fill empty
positions are hollow. Such assertions demonstrate
employers continue to be misinformed about the
opportunities they have to recruit qualified job
candidates with disabilities.
People with disabilities bring unique benefits to a
workplace, and those benefits outweigh the simple
requirement that they receive equal opportunity to
join and advance in it.
As employees, people with disabilities have great
records. According to studies dating back to the 1950s
at DuPont, "employees with disabilities equal or
exceed coworkers without disabilities in job
performance, attendance and attention to safety." In
addition to considerable commitment and enthusiasm for
work, disabled people have superior experience in one
vital area of any job: problem solving. This is why
some use the term "challenged" to describe a person
with a disability. People with disabilities face and
overcome challenges on a daily basis. They have a
lifetime of practice doing just what your best
employees need to do.
In an interview on DiversityInc.com, Duke University
Diversity expert Dr. Benjamin Reese Jr. asserts the
double importance of enhancing available skills as
well as avoiding misunderstanding through diversity
training. "Issues such as the development of a shared
vision is challenging in most businesses, but what's
equally critical is understanding and utilizing the
differing work styles, perspectives and communication
styles of the growing numbers of cultural groups in
today's workforce," he says. "In today's work
environment, there is not only opportunity for
leveraging diversity for organizational growth but
fertile ground for cultural misunderstanding and
conflict."
Treating disability as part of building an awareness
of diversity of cultural behavior can help you avoid
disciplining or dismissing a person because their
particular behavior is mischaracterized as a
performance problem. Aileen McFadzean, speaking at
the Workplace Diversity: Innovation and Performance
Conference in Canberra, Australia, in 1998 gives this
example: "In one case involving a vision-impaired
employee, her mode of interacting with colleagues
involved peering, standing very close to gauge
expressions and calling out. These are traits
exhibited by many people who are vision impaired.
Because this was not understood, the characteristics
were taken to be personality traits, and her
colleagues responded negatively to her."
Nicole Gant identifies another benefit WWU received
from advancing opportunities for students and
employees with disabilities: an increased
understanding of the diverse nature of their skills.
By making the effort to be inclusive, Gant says, the
school found it was being more thorough in serving its
community. Other students, faculty and staff learned
from their disabled counterparts as readily as the
latter did from them. "The disabled students, faculty
and staff became role models for others, making it
harder for people to say 'I can't do this,'" reports
Gant.
By leaving disability awareness out of your diversity
program, you are short changing your company and
your employees. Your other employees, including
supervisors, will no doubt lack the knowledge and
enlightenment they need not only to give opportunities
to and assist but also simply not to stand in a
disabled employee's way as he or she strives to
succeed. By demanding balanced and well-informed
disability awareness training from a diversity
trainer, you ensure that all your employees will have
the tools to put together all the pieces of the
teamwork puzzle. The picture? A full rainbow -
complete with pot of gold.
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