Disability actors to employers: Use homework to get more people into the labour market

_{By Liselotte Hyveled, President, Central Disability Council, Business Manager, Novo Nordisk, Marianne Kofoed, Director, Bevica Gruppen, member of the Fondenes Knowledge Centre and Thomas Bredgaard, Professor, Aalborg University}

Corona makes it harder for people with disabilities to get or keep a job, but the prospect of more homework on the other side of the crisis could make the labor market more inclusive. If employers see the opportunities.

35-year-old Sarah Glerup, who lives with muscle wasting, had never felt as included as during the shutdown. Now the communications worker, who is in a wheelchair and uses a respirator, was on a par with his colleagues. Everyone had to work digitally from home. The story brought Politiken in December as a light in the darkness into which economic crises in particular throw people with disabilities.

In crises, they are usually the first to be fired and the last to be hired. Many learned that the hard way during and after the financial crisis.

More people are living with disability than we think

Corona confirms the rule. But perhaps Sarah Gleerup's story and our experiences with digital homework can make the pandemic the much-needed exception. However, it requires two things.

First, that leaders break with notions of who people with disabilities are and what they can contribute. Living in Denmark a fifth in age 16 to 64 years old with disabilities and long-term health problems, and almost all Danes suffer some disability during their lifetime. There are many more people than we think, and there is a need for us to get a more true-to-life picture. For this reason, we can see the great potential in retaining more people with disabilities in the labour market.

Secondly, it requires managers to change their views on the physical workplace and how they can organise tasks. Fortunately, that process is well under way.

Increasing Homework May Be Key to Inclusion

Right now, we need special efforts if unemployment among people with disabilities is not to rise. Here, the virtual workplace at home can remove some of the barriers that workplaces cite as reasons why they do not hire people with disabilities.

Workplace attitudes have been studied by Disability and Employment Research Centre, and the homework partially nullifies the two main barriers. This applies to poor accessibility and lack of job functions for people with disabilities. Up to half of employers indicate that their workplace is unavailable. In other words, it can be difficult to access in a wheelchair. Other studies showthat companies have good experiences with homework and want to offer more of it on the other side of the pandemic.

This also applies to companies that include people with disabilities. Novo Nordisk, for example, has good experience with a project where people with autism are recruited from a different perspective on talent. Most people are happy with their homework. They don't have to spend energy on transportation and social relations, but can focus 100 percent on their jobs. In turn, it often requires more contact with the manager who helps plan the work.

Use the corona crisis as a stepping stone for new opportunities in the labour market

The physical workplace is not given the same importance after the pandemic, and many employers can save on office expenses. Nor do studies suggest that homemakers are less productive. That discovery evens out the physical differences, and that should benefit people with disabilities.

Up to half of employers say in our surveysthat they do not have job functions for people with, for example, physical disabilities. This can be a real explanation, but also an explanation based on stereotyped notions about the ability to work in people with disabilities. However, the corona crisis has shown a unique creativity on the part of Danish companies to rearrange production and work tasks.

Like Sarah Glerup, we want to encourage employers to also use that creativity when it comes to jobs for people with disabilities. There is a lot of valuable learning that we should pick up and use as a path towards the UN Global Goals and the promise of “leave no one behind” by 2030.

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