With over 100,000 vacancies in adult social care and health at any one given time, it’s never been more important to recruit and retain the right workers.
Creating an inclusive workplace can help you do this, including making sure you have disabled-friendly recruitment and retention policies. Disabled people represent a wide pool of talent that might have the right values to work in social care and health.
There are lots of myths about employing disabled people. Some employers worry about “getting it wrong”. Some are fearful of the perceived cost, while others may believe that disabled people can’t perform the job. The truth is that many disabled people have lots to offer our workforce.
Making relatively small changes in your workplace can make a real difference to the employment prospects of disabled people, and a massive difference to the positive contributions that they can make to your business. Employing disabled workers in adult social care: a guide for employers (pdf) has practical advice to help you attract, recruit and develop disabled workers in your organisation.
Busting the myths
Myth one: It costs a lot to employ someone who’s disabled.
Truth: There may be changes that you need to make when you employ a disabled worker (these are called reasonable adjustments), however a lot of disabled people don’t need them, and the average cost of a reasonable adjustment is less than £80. There’s also funding available to help disabled people with these changes.
Myth two: Disabled people have a higher absentee rate than their colleagues.
Truth: In a study by Disability Rights UK and Reed (pdf), almost 90% of employers said they didn’t think disabled people were any more likely to take time off work than non-disabled colleagues.
Myth three: If I employ a disabled worker, someone will always have to help them.
Truth: With dedicated training and support, especially during induction, many disabled workers (as with all workers) adjust to their job roles, and their disability doesn’t affect their ability to work unaided.
Myth four: I can’t fire or discipline an employee with a disability.
Truth: While there are laws in place, such as the Human Rights Act and the Equality Act that serve to protect the rights of all workers, there are no special procedures for firing or disciplining disabled workers. You must ensure you have effective people management processes in place to manage all of your workforce.
Myth five: Social care and health workers need to be physically strong with good mobility.
Truth: Not all disabilities are physical; less than 2% of disabled people are wheelchair users. There are lots of different disabilities, many of which have no impact on an individual’s strength or mobility. There are also lots of different job roles, and not all are physically demanding; think about recruiting people based on, or carving roles to, their abilities.
Employing disabled workers in adult social care and health: busting the myths (pdf) tackles more myths and has practical tips to help you get the most out of all your workers, not just those with disabilities.
The business case for employing disabled workers
Having disabled-friendly recruitment and retention practices can help you to:
- increase your talent pool – there are around 7 million disabled people of working age in the UK, 3.8 million of whom are out of work. Many of these people are able to and want to work
- find staff who deliver high quality care and support through lived experience and new insight
- retain your workforce – the working age population is getting older and a significant percentage of the social care and health workforce is over 55. With health conditions and disabilities more prevalent in this group, you’ll increasingly need to support your employees to stay healthy and manage conditions
- enhance team performance – diversity increases the overall knowledge and experience within a staff team.
Skills for Care has lots more resources to help you find and keep more workers, including disabled workers. To find out more, visit our finding and keeping workers resource.
Content on this page is produced and controlled by Skills for Care, sponsor of the Guardian Social Care Network leadership, learning and development hub
