december 2014 BCBusiness 29 pete ryan
intel
M
ost of us go to work every
day secure in the knowledge
that skills and personality
will determine our
employment success. But
for some 330,000 British Columbians,
there's an added challenge: convincing
employers to look beyond a disability.
Attitudes toward people with
disabilities have improved a lot in
the past few years, according to
Faith Bondar, executive director of
Inclusion B.C., an organization that
advocates for the rights of people with
developmental disabilities. But Bondar
argues that to translate those attitudes
into higher employment rates, higher
profile is required: "It's a vastly
untapped part of our labour market,
and what we want to do here in B.C.
is open the doors to employers who
aren't currently employing them."
With only three out of 10 small
businesses nationwide hiring someone
with a disability, according to a
BMO
2013 survey, and a B.C. unemployment
rate for people with disabilities 18
points higher than the provincial
average, there is plenty of room for
improvement. As Bondar notes,
"These are people with talents and
capacities and contributions to make,
and at a fiscal level and a growth level
we need to make sure we capitalize on
them—it's a loss for us not to."
To address the problem, the
provincial government unveiled
Accessibility 2024 in June, a 10-year
strategy to make B.C. the most
progressive place in Canada for
people with disabilities. Among the
advantages cited by the government
in hiring such employees: they're five
times more likely to stay on the job
than able-bodied employees. A 2013
report by the federal government's
Panel on Labour Market Opportunities
for Persons with Disabilities also found
that employees with disabilities rated
average or better in comparison to
their co-workers 95 per cent of the
time on work safety, 86 per cent on
attendance and 90 per cent on job
performance.
While some small-business owners
express concern about the perceived
challenges in hiring a person with
disabilities, the reality is that most, if
not all, of those obstacles don't exist.
As the federal government's panel
report put it: "Stop thinking charity,
I t ' s y o u r
b u s I n e s s
Finding
the Will
How employers can make
better use of employees
with disabilities, a hugely
loyal, largely untapped
part of the labour market
by Alix Drabek
w o r k p l a c e
12/14
y
3 0 v i s u a l l e a r n i n g
3 2 i n t e r n at i o n a l
B u s i n e s s
W
