Working for a change? The same as you?
LEVEL THREE: Inclusive employment practices
Inclusive employment practices include the way jobs are defined, the way people are recruited, the way people are trained and supported in jobs, adjustments that are made, the provision of special equipment, and flexibility in working hours.
The evidence is positive. Once employers first employ a person with learning disabilities, they are willing to do it again and again. Weston (2002) found that:
'The benefits of supported employment mentioned by employers showed a strongly positive experience of supported employment. All (20) employers said they would employ another person with complex needs, were a suitable job and person available, and would recommend the experience to other employers.'
And in a wide-ranging literature review, Weston (2002a, 87) also found that most employers, while having fears about the use of natural support from
co-workers in the workplace, 'subsequently found that natural supports could effectively support all people, regardless of the level of impairment'.
Inclusive employment practices mean employers thinking not just about recruitment but also about retention and promotion. When people with a learning disability do leave their job it is often because of bullying, harassment or isolation. Equally they may stay in their job despite unequal treatment. Both of these are unacceptable in an equal opportunities world. But this doesn't have to happen.
David is 27 years old. He received his primary education at mainstream school and completed his secondary years at a school for special needs. David said that he was often subject to bullying resulting in a generally unpleasant school life. After school, he took a Skillseekers course and after several work placements received an offer of employment at a Council-run leisure centre. He worked there for the last seven years as a leisure attendant, cleaning the saunas and swimming pool, setting up the rooms and equipment, and monitoring the access/exit points at the slides during busy periods. David experiences high levels of stress and anxiety with interpersonal actions, particularly when he is required to deal with customers who are disregarding health and safety regulations. The employer reported that a number of incidents have occurred where he had been verbally abusive towards customers and staff. As a result he was at risk of losing his job. However, rather than taking the disciplinary route, the employer approached the Disability Service for guidance and support on steps that could be taken to help David manage his difficulties more effectively. David told the Disability Service that he found unanticipated changes to his routine and the immediate work environment hard to manage. The Disability Service identified that in addition to his learning disability, David may benefit from help from an organisation skilled in the area of Asperger's syndrome. This specialist organisation agreed to work with David, his employer and Jobcentre Plus to provide in-work support. The Disability Service also identified that Disability Awareness Training would be useful in helping David's manager and colleagues understand his disability. As a result of this, they became better able to identify what activities/tasks he might require support with, and have set up a system of natural supports to help David. Simple changes, such as providing a list to help him remember his daily duties, have made a huge difference. As a result, David is coping well, enjoys working and his employers are delighted with his performance. |
Employers, together with trade unions, have to pay far more attention to workplace culture to ensure that people with learning disabilities are valued and included along with every other group. People with learning disabilities need ordinary rights to access lifelong learning opportunities so they too can gain further skills and qualifications and have opportunities for promotion and changing jobs.
We want to see more support for employers to enable them to develop their capacity to increasingly employ people with learning disabilities. While external input from people such as skilled job coaches employed by supported employment agencies can be essential, it is equally important for employers and people at work to learn to support colleagues with learning disabilities in-house - what is known as 'natural support'. It is also helpful if employers maintain a record of adjustments made, as these can provide good examples for other employers as well as making sure that good practice is sustained when a particular employee leaves. The ability to maintain supported employment means that it must be sustainable regardless of workplace personnel changes either at the strategic level or at the practical day-to-day level.
Physical access in the workplace is important, but is only one factor. A 2002 Disability Rights Commission survey of businesses providing services again shows the invisibility of learning disability. The survey found that 36% of employers had made changes to make premises more accessible; 54% thought their premises were fully accessible. However, 'The main change planned by those who do not think they are fully accessible is to get a ramp'. Enabling employment for people with learning disabilities demands that employers start to think about disability in all its diversity and about the 'soft skills' that will facilitate true cultural change.
But the evidence is that employers often simply do not know about supported employment as a concept or as a service (Mason, 1996; Bass and Velangi, 1995; in Weston, 2002). The Beattie Report, set up to review the needs of young people who require additional support in transition from school to post-school, noted (13.33 - 13.41) that many employers do not know about the range of assistance potentially available to them to support people with learning disabilities.
There is a clear need for far more sophisticated and co-ordinated marketing of the support that already exists for employers in Scotland. But supported employment is mostly provided by relatively small, autonomous organisations, tending to operate locally rather than nationally. The difficulty of co-ordination was a problem strongly recognised in our PiP survey. Joint development of a supported employment promotion strategy between Jobcentre Plus, Scottish Enterprise and supported employment agencies in Scotland could make a real difference to employers' awareness.
Given the forthcoming changes in the Disability Discrimination Act, together with the moves towards a single Equality Commission in 2006, it may also be timely to explore the scope for a recognised Scottish core qualification for employers and managers in excellence in sustaining workplace diversity. This would allow people to demonstrate competence in inclusive employment practice, backing up the inclusive business case and the improved marketing of supported employment.
Many employers in both the public and private sector already have expertise and experience in employing people with a learning disability. Employer champions can be highly effective here, and there are already examples of this working in practice in North Lanarkshire and the Highlands. Increasingly organised efforts are needed to share supported employment knowledge on a sectoral and geographical basis through employers' organisations, trades unions, less formal groups such as Rotary, and networks of human resource professionals, the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development (CIPD) and so on.
Finally, employers need both in-house skills and access to good external advice to achieve and sustain employment for people with learning disabilities. Scotland is in the advantageous position of having many experienced supported employment workers who offer this upskilling and we have already noted the need for improving employers' awareness of these services. But other disciplines such as occupational therapy, ergonomics and occupational psychology also have considerable expertise in adaptations and job redesign. There is also no focal point in Scotland for gathering this expertise, co-ordinating it and making it available in the field.
This leads us to a recommendation which both helps to nurture the new business culture required, and helps employers with the new practicalities of employing inclusively.
Recommendation 5: Working with employers to promote a new Scottish 'all means all' inclusive business culture
We recommend that the Scottish Executive works with Scottish employers and representative organisations, to develop the capacity of all Scottish employers to include all in the workplace, including people with the most significant learning disabilities. Representatives should include the Federation of Small Businesses, the Scottish Trades Union Council, the Scottish CBI, NHS and COSLA representatives, the Equality Commission and representatives of people with learning disabilities. This work should address options for providing practical support to help Scottish employers include all at work, including implementation of inclusive practices, advice on individual situations, links with specialist and mainstream employment agencies.