Why this is an opportune time to reflect on corporate disability inclusion

By providing economic opportunities to PWDs when they need them the most, companies can make a huge contribution towards integrating this historically underrepresented community in the workforce

7 min read Last Updated : Aug 04 2020 | 3:08 PM IST

A study published by Business Standard last year highlighted that persons with disabilities (PWDs) constitute less than 0.5 per cent of employees in India’s top companies. This provides a sobering, yet unsurprising, reminder of the abysmally low employment rates of PWDs in the corporate sector.

The Covid-19 crisis has further exacerbated the plight of PWDs. Social isolation coupled with a lack of employment opportunities and financial insecurity have made a majority of them increasingly vulnerable during the pandemic.

Amongst NGOs that deal with the welfare of PWDs, there is growing trepidation that corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds from companies will dwindle in the near term due to an exclusive focus on funding Covid-related relief activities. Aman Sharma, the founder of TEACH, which trains hearing impaired individuals, says, “Even in the pre-Covid era, it was difficult for NGOs such as ours to attract sufficient funding. This pandemic has pushed many of us to the brink of closure. Unemployment rates among my students have also risen sharply since the lockdown.”

Legal landscape

April 19, 2017 marked a watershed for PWDs. This was when the Rights of PWDs Act, 2016 came into effect. The Act defined a PWD as “a person with long term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairment which, in interaction with barriers, hinders his full and effective participation in society equally with others”. While government measures for improving the welfare of PWDs were the primary focus of the Act, certain obligations were also imposed on the private sector.

In a nutshell, under the Act and the accompanying rules, every company is now required to frame, publicly display and register with the designated authorities an equal opportunity policy. Compliance with certain building, technology and transport accessibility standards is also made mandatory. Companies with more than 20 employees are required to go a few steps further: they must appoint a liaison officer for overseeing the recruitment of PWDs, maintain employment-related records of PWDs and insert specific inclusivity provisions in their equal opportunity policies.

Importantly, the Act confers vital rights upon PWDs in the workforce such as non-discrimination on the grounds of disability and reasonable accommodation rights. While the Act does not explicitly guarantee reservations for PWDs in the private sector, it requires government authorities to incentivise private sector employers to ensure that at least 5 per cent of their workforce is composed of persons with benchmark disabilities. By way of incentives, the government granted certain provident fund, state insurance and gratuity benefits to employers hiring PWDs in the private sector.

Ground realities

Today, three years after the enactment of the Rights of PWDs Act, awareness of the law in the corporate sector remains low and compliance inadequate. The high unemployment rates among PWDs bear testament to that. Rama Chari, director of the Diversity and Equal Opportunity Centre, an inclusivity consultancy, points out, “In practice, very few organisations have equal opportunity policies and even fewer implement such policies in their true spirit. Moreover, accessibility norms are observed more in the breach than in practice.”

While there are notable outliers, particularly in the IT, hospitality, e-commerce, retail and banking sectors, who take inclusivity seriously, disability rights activists agree upon one thing: there is tremendous scope for improvement. Patchy implementation of the laws aside, there are inherent social and attitudinal barriers that dissuade PWDs from participating in employment opportunities. Low literacy levels among PWDs keep a majority of them out of the corporate sector. “Now more than ever, there is a need for companies to partner with organisations training PWDs in order to boost their employability,” says Sharma.

A compelling business case for disability inclusion

There is a common perception in the corporate sector that hiring PWDs entails considerable costs and lowers productivity. However, a 2015 report titled “The Road to Inclusion – Integrating PWDs in Organizations” published by the Boston Consulting Group and Youth4Jobs attempted to scotch that claim. The report demonstrated how certain companies hiring PWDs witnessed improved productivity, lower attrition rates and reduced absenteeism, which in turn led to better bottom lines, higher customer satisfaction levels and the creation of a positive corporate brand image. And that’s not all: the report also noted that in most cases, companies had to make only minor and cost-effective infrastructure changes for accommodating PWDs in the workplace.

Crucially, PWDs can contribute towards developing products and services that can reach a wider market, through accessibility testing. Meera Shenoy, founder of Youth4Jobs, an enterprise skilling PWDs for the industry, cites an example of this: “If a new app is designed in a manner that is accessible to PWDs, it automatically opens up the market for the app to a wider audience consisting of PWDs and their families.”

Covid-19 and the road ahead

The Covid-19 crisis has taught us a valuable lesson: flexible and inclusive work policies benefit employees across board and boost an organisation’s resilience.

Shenoy sees a silver lining in the current crisis. “Organisations will be very conscious of the bottom line in the months to come and will focus on increasing the reach and profitability of their products and services. In the current economic climate, PWDs could prove to be an extremely valuable resource in the corporate sector, given the strong business case for hiring them.” Shenoy adds, “Even if companies were to adhere to the basic requirements laid down under the Rights of PWDs Act, there would be a sea change in disability inclusion.”

The need to minimise contact with surfaces due to Covid-19 has prompted organisations to adopt remote working and touchless technology: measures that certain groups of PWDs have long demanded as reasonable accommodations. “Having witnessed the accelerated pace of technological adoption by some companies since the lockdown, the future for disability inclusion looks promising. However, it is critical that such technology is accessible to PWDs,” says Ankit Jindal, an MBA who ascended the corporate ladder swiftly despite having retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative visual impairment.

Chari is also cautiously optimistic: “In the wake of the pandemic, some companies have started installing foot pedal sanitisers in their premises, but how will these be accessible to persons with locomotor disabilities? If companies use online platforms for team meetings that are inaccessible to their employees with communication disabilities, how can such employees be expected to contribute productively? Companies should, therefore, not lose sight of universal design principles.”

It is crucial for companies to reach out to individual PWDs in their workforce to ensure that they have all the facilities they need to operate with dignity, especially during this pandemic. Recognising that social distancing is an anomaly for those PWDs who rely heavily on caregivers, “some companies like Wipro, Deutsche Bank and Hindustan Unilever have taken measures for safeguarding PWDs in their workforce by organising groceries and other essentials for them,” notes Chari.

By providing economic opportunities to PWDs at a time when they need them the most, companies can make a significant contribution towards integrating this historically underrepresented community in the workforce. As companies recalibrate their business models and work environments to adapt to the pandemic, it is imperative that disability inclusion is not left out of the agenda. After all, as the International Labour Organization’s Director-General recently declared, “A disability-inclusive response means a better response for us all”.