Debunking 4 myths about inclusive employment
Myth #1: There aren’t enough qualified candidates
Reality Check: According to Statistics Canada, in 2024, there were 740,000 unemployed working-age adults (ages 25-64) living with disabilities in the country. Despite this figure, individuals with disabilities remain underrepresented in the workforce, raising questions about the inclusivity of the recruitment practices. By implementing inclusive recruitment practices and building intentional pipelines, businesses can access an untapped pool of talent and foster a more equitable workforce.
To mitigate bias in traditional hiring methods, employers could consider the following recruitment strategies:
• Blind recruitment: remove names and other identifiers from resumes or competency tests
• Provide unconscious bias training for hiring managers.
• Hold third-party recruitment agencies accountable for delivering diverse candidate pools, or partner with employment support service providers that specialize in inclusive hiring.
Build a pipeline of diverse candidates:
• Distribute job postings through inclusive job boards such as Ready, Willing and Able (RWA), Canadian Council on Rehabilitation and Work (CCWC), and other employment support agencies.
• Join efforts with the accessibility offices at colleges and universities for campus recruitment.
• Partner with professional or community organizations that represent or are affiliated with people with disabilities.
Inclusive job postings:
• Communicate the commitment to accessibility and accommodations throughout the recruitment and selection process – including in job postings, on career pages, and during interview invitations.
• Craft job descriptions that define the essential functions of the role rather than emphasizing on secondary or non-critical tasks.
Myth #2: Recruitment is only HR’s job
Reality Check: Creating an inclusive workplace is not the sole responsibility of the human resources or hiring team. Building an inclusive and psychologically safe workplace requires organization-wide involvement, especially from senior leadership and management. Everyone—leaders, managers and employees—plays a role in cultivating an inclusive organizational culture.
Key strategies for organization-wide engagement could include plans to:
Empower leaders to be change agents:
• Train leaders and managers to champion inclusion and model inclusive behaviours.
• Train managers in empathy, emotional intelligence, and psychologically safe leadership.
• Conduct individual interviews with upper management before group DEIA (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Accessibility) training sessions to tailor the intervention effectively.
Foster psychologically safe workplaces:
• Create organizational cultures where underrepresented groups and people of difference feel visible, safe, and heard.
• Develop structured initiatives such as allyship training, mentorship and leadership development programs, and positive action programs to support the advancement and inclusion of marginalized employees.
• Integrate employee feedback mechanisms, such as affinity groups and open channels for feedback at all levels.
Policies and processes:
• Include DEIA metrics in manager performance reviews.
• Review and update workplace policies and procedures to reflect DEIA benchmarks.
Myth #3: Hiring is expensive
Reality check: Hiring individuals with disabilities has proven to be cost-effective and can even lead to long-term savings for employers.
Reasonable accommodation costs are low:
• According to multiple studies, including the Job Accommodation Network (JAN), the majority of workplace accommodations cost nothing—and if there’s a cost, the average cost is under $500.
• Some hard accommodations such as adapted equipment and specialized chairs, are already owned by the employee, and therefore are free of charge to the employer.
• There are government-funded programs and non-profit agencies that help employers hire inclusively with services such as job coaching, training for teams and managers, etc.
Untapped talent pool:
• Research shows that employees with disabilities have better retention rates and lower absenteeism than their counterparts, which translates into lower recruitment, training and productivity loss costs for the employer.
• Individuals with disabilities represent an underutilized workforce, and with an aging population and increasing disability rates, tapping into this talent pool is business imperative.
Myth #4: Hiring inclusively is just a moral case
Reality check: Inclusive hiring is not about compromising qualifications or standards to check a moral or corporate values boxes—it’s about removing workplace biases and barriers to productivity to support and empower employees living with disabilities to perform optimally and produce their best work.
Inclusive hiring goes beyond ethics; it’s business imperative. Here’s why.
Publicly stating the commitment to equity and inclusion makes employers more attractive to candidates. According to CCRW, 76% of job seekers—both with and without disabilities—consider a company’s DEIA practices when evaluating job prospects. Research also shows that diverse teams, varied backgrounds, lived experiences, competencies, and ways of thinking, foster innovation. This diversity enables businesses to enter untapped markets and gain a competitive advantage. It also leads to a company’s development of accessible products and services that expands market reach and diversifies the customer base. In addition, reasonable accommodations can benefit all employees and create a more holistic productive work environment.
Claudia Cavallaro, CRHA, CWHP-A, GBA is a human resources professional and a concussion survivor based in Quebec, Canada.
Photo: iStock
