It’s all well and good to talk about being inclusive. But it’s another to actually include people. The group of people in Australia that is most often left out in the cold are people with disabilities. This is despite the fact that the largest under-represented group in the country is people with disabilities.
So, let’s see what businesses that fail to be inclusive are missing out on and what the costs of that could be.
Meijer
Meijer is an American firm which is regularly named as the best place to work if you’re a person with disabilities. That means the firm gets free publicity each year thanks to their inclusive nature.
Seth Major of Meijer told Rapid Growth Media that, “Diversity and inclusion and working with the disability community has always been important to Meijer, so we look for leaders who value that. Any team member that comes in who’s eager to work, who’s engaged, is a joy for us. We sure appreciate having these jobseekers work with us. It’s been a great experience.”
Eric Thomas Of Genesys
Eric Thomas of the call center business Genesys told Eric L Pines for Medium that Genesys wasn’t in the business of inclusivity because it was nice, but because it was profitable.
He said that with nearly 1 in 4 people having some form of disability, that’s a huge market that you’re not tapping into.
He illustrated the point with a service they launched to help people with visual disabilities access call centers, a market of 2.2 million people!
He says, “By helping visually impaired customers navigate the sight-biased world, brands can revisit their entire customer experience to be more inclusive and accessible. More importantly, consumers no longer need to wrestle with a product that doesn’t work for them.”
Lauren Winans Of Next Level Benefits
An HR manager, Winans says that one of the key benefits of including people with disabilities is propelling an attitude change within the business.
She told Medium, “The most impactful example is that of a more inclusive hiring process. People with disabilities and neurodiversities have been commonly passed over for positions and have a much higher unemployment rate overall (like 30 to 40 percent higher). When the hiring process was revamped at one of my past workplaces, it was amazing to see how the workforce and the environment changed for the better — more kindness, more support, and greater sense of being connected as one team.”
Leo, Costa Verde Landscaping
Another example is Leo Costa, who works distributing fliers, for a landscaping firm. He was the company’s very first teenager who was hired with special needs.
He quickly became so good at his job, that even athletes can’t keep up with him.
The company owner Dan Milbrath told WorkBC, “Once you give Leo a task and teach him how it should be done, he really puts his head down and gets it done as fast as possible.” Now, Dan says, “Leo delivers more flyers than anyone else. Using a map to orient himself, he flyers almost every home in Victoria twice per year. Leo also records his hours, the roads he has covered and the approximate number of flyers he has delivered, so he can report by email after each shift.”
Martin McKay and Texthelp
Martin has gone beyond inclusive in his business. Texthelp is a business that he founded in 1996 to help people suffering from communication difficulties.
He estimates that by 2030, his business will have served a billion customers improving literacy and understanding around the world!
Final Thoughts On The Cost Of Ignoring Folk With Disabilities
So, we have businesses gaining millions or even a billion customers, obtaining global publicity for free, becoming nice places to work and landing their most productive employees by being inclusive.
The cost of ignoring people with disabilities is thus clearly limitless. You’re losing potential customers, productive workers and the benefits of being a better organisation. Can you really afford that in these economic times?