People with disabilities have long faced stigmatization including judgment, exclusion and damaging stereotypes. However, more recognition for inclusivity and resources has come to the forefront in recent years.
Employers are increasingly looking to market themselves as inclusive, which has shifted the way they interact with people with disabilities and others who are part of marginalized populations. Unfortunately, efforts to be inclusive are not always made for the right reasons (for instance, public pressure), and there continue to be many obstacles for individuals with disabilities.
While many career services and work-integrated learning programs have been incentivized to include more people with disabilities, this begs the question of whether career decisions made by the employer and individual are based on one characteristic or the person as a whole. Individuals with disabilities may feel this way underneath and interpret it as employers’ focus gravitating toward one area of their life, while discrediting their skills and other attributes.
When employers and services have a tunnel-vision focus on a candidate’s disability, this can shape the individual’s perception of their identity and their career development decisions. It can breed an atmosphere of condescension and surface-level advocation on the part of the employer that lacks any depth.
Disclosure – the ongoing struggle
Disability disclosure is a difficult part of the job search and can be more challenging for jobseekers with invisible disabilities; visible disabilities often receive more acknowledgment. While honesty is always a good policy, jobseekers need to employ a degree of tact in what they disclose about their disability and how they disclose it, since what is said or not said can greatly influence the employer’s thinking and the applicant. For instance, jobseekers may want to consider, do they want to disclose their diagnosis or just relevant symptoms? Do they need to disclose if their disability could affect their job performance?
Societal shifts are helping people to be more and more transparent about their disabilities, but candidates may worry that they are being hired to fill a quota or that they will not be fully recognized for who they are more broadly, including the skills they bring to the job. They may be also concerned that an employer will share information about their disability with others or expect them to act as a talking piece for the employer’s inclusive hiring efforts.
“When employers and services have a tunnel-vision focus on a candidate’s disability, this can shape the individual’s perception of their identity and their career development decisions.”
While some people tirelessly advocate on behalf of people with disabilities, many others may not want to act as an official or unofficial spokesperson; employers need to equally respect both choices. A person may view one part of their identity in a positive, negative or neutral light. They may want to have their disability acknowledged (or managed according to their terms) but let other aspects of them such as their skills speak for themselves. Employers also need to understand the spectrum of disability and diagnoses and that the severity of conditions can change over time and circumstances.
Career development can be challenging for any individual, and since personal identity can be greatly affected by our overall career, one sphere can influence the other. Employers’ efforts to be more inclusive must be respectful of individuals’ autonomy in how they view their condition and how they choose to present to the world.
How to navigate the complicated landscape
The biggest factor in helping someone understand their overall identity and career development decisions is with the most controllable factor: how they view themselves. Often, individuals from any demographic will not carve out the space to do in-depth self-reflection in relation to career development. Self-reflection includes assessing values, work preferences, purpose, personality traits and other pieces of the puzzle that make a person. This can help determine how the individual sees themselves in relation to the outside world and ultimately shape conversations with employers.
Self-reflection can help individuals indirectly dissect outside messaging that can damage their self-image, while helping them find out what they value in the career development cycle. A career is defined as experiences that are unpaid and paid, including leisure, hobbies, training and certification. Understanding the many facets that make up a career is helpful to dispel the idea that has been shown to individuals with disabilities that there is one ideal type of worker and work mentality.
Necessary conversations
Honest conversations with employers and employees who fall under the spectrum of disabilities will still need to happen whether a person needs to disclose their disability, ask for accommodation or assistance or communicate changes in the spectrum of their disability. However, their individual boundaries also need to be respected, including what information they share and whether they want to play a role in educating others or speaking on behalf of their community.
Although an employer can recognize how one characteristic of an individual might influence other parts of them, we need to look at people from a holistic lens and be open to feedback. As a society, we have begun to realize there are other ways of being, thinking and doing (especially in relation to the idea of career and work); we cannot just zone in on one area and neglect the other branches.
More importantly than just resources and recognition of disability inclusion, employers need to be willing to hold space for complex and ongoing conversations with continuing input. There does not need to be a perfect answer but intentions to move forward while thinking as broadly as possible, which blends into the whole philosophy of true career development and finding a meaningful lifelong career.
