Overlooked and Underutilized: Meeting the talent shortage

The fact that there is a talent shortage surely has not gone unnoticed and will surely not be surprising to any readers of this blog. Over at 'Perfect Labor Storm' the labor shortage is a central focus of the discussion. In particular, blogger Dr. Ira Wolf cites a recent Manpower survey which claims "22% of the 2,000 employers participating in the survey indicated they were having difficulty filling positions even in a slowing economy."

A recent study by Mark Lengnick Hall, Philip Gaunt and Mukta Kulkarni draws attention to an oft' overlooked segment of the workforce which you may want to reconsider. Their study, just published in Human Resource Management, entitled 'Overlooked and underutilized: People with disabilities are an untapped human resource.' I want to point out some highlights.

• In the US, 12.6% of working age individuals report one or more disabilities (thats 21, 455,000).
• The unemployment rate of this group is 60% in comparison to 20% of those without disabilities.
• While 56% of non-disabled people are employed in full-time employment, only 23% of persons with disabilities are. (source for all these data are American Community Survey, cited in the article)

The questions driving the study are simply:
1. If employers are short-handed, and people with disabilities are available to work, what is the problem?
2. What can be done in practice to bring these two groups together and solve both problems at once.

What is interesting and new here is that the authors are asking an old question in a new way. Instead of focusing on whether people with disabilities are available to work, the ask: what factors drive employer demand for people with disabilities?

The answers are enlightening. The study interviews 38 corporate executives. There are three categories of concern that employers have when it comes to hiring people with disabilities:

1. People with disabilities may not be qualified, or may not be able to perform the job, or, may be less productive.
2. The cost of hiring people with disabilities will be higher due to absenteeism, health care costs, legal liability, or making reasonable accommodations.
3. Stakeholders - customers, or coworkers - may react negatively or even feel resentment.

The authors then go to some lengths to evaluate the extent to which these concerns are supported by the facts. While there are certainly some areas we do not yet know much about (e.g., comparisons of attitudes and motivation of people with and without disabilities), there is a lot of empirical data that refute the major concerns of employers.

1. In terms of dependability and performance there are no differences
2. The costs of accommodations tend to be low and there are no differences in terms of accidents or insurance costs
3. There is little evidence that coworkers or customers react negatively to the employment of people with disabilities.

One area where improvements can be made is with respect to institutional qualifications. When people with disabilities have institutional qualifications it increases employer confidence in hiring, according to the authors.

One executive is quoted as saying:

"There has to be an economic reason for people in management to put their heart in action"

If the talent shortage is not a good economic reason, then what is? The costs of failing to hire the right people for the job can be significant for any organization - why forgo this opportunity?