What are the benefits of diversity management with workers with intellectual disabilities?
- External benefits for the company
- Internal benefits for the company
- The benefits for the employee with intellectual disabilities
How to ensure companies support workers with intellectual disabilities?
How do people with intellectual disabilities contribute to diversity management?
“My worker with intellectual disabilities is very active and dedicated. I would like 30 more workers like him.”
“New assignments are presented to the colleague with intellectual disabilities and learned step-by-step. Last-minute changes in his daily planning remain difficult for him. We all know that. His supervisor gives him time and space to adapt to the new and unforeseen situation.”
“An agency presented a worker with intellectual disability to me. I did the interview as I would do with any other candidate: look for skills, drive and motivation not search for limitations. I was willing to find out what this candidate’s skills were and match tasks to these skills. So, I looked for repetitive, structured tasks weighing on other staff members. I combined them into a job with a clear description for the worker with intellectual disability. We tackled communication more thoroughly and slower. We repeated a lot. We should
have done the same before with all other staff members.”“We went through a careful process of ‘job carving’, supported by the worker’s job coach and his school. They established his key strengths and matched these with roles
and tasks that needed to be completed in our hotel. It involved a totally new way of looking at our recruitment and challenged us to be more flexible with our job descriptions and job scopes. In addition, we worked to be flexible with our application process to ensure it was fully accessible to the candidate with ID. Instead of having a standard interview for the role
he made a video with his job coach that showed him demonstrating all the jobs he could do and the skills he has.”
Recommendations
- Creation of a network of inclusive companies and entrepreneurs to exchange among peers, to find workers with intellectual disabilities to grow awareness on talents and skills of people with intellectual disabilities.
- Better accompany people with intellectual disabilities in creating CV’s, applying for jobs and connecting with potential employers.
- Create partnerships between schools and the industry.
- Re-think hiring processes and procedures.
- Creation of easy to read documents needed to onboard the new employee starting with the agreement.
Read the full report here (.pdf)
Learn more:
- Better job opportunities for people with intellectual disabilities
- Employment and legal capacity
- Employ campaign
The research was done as part of the My talents for diversity project.