‘Invisible’ no more: States move to hire people with disabilities

“Obviously, the public sector in general has had a difficult time attracting and retaining people over the last few years,” says Leslie Scott, executive director of the National Association of State Personnel Executives. “There’s a pool of people out there with disabilities, who can help to deal with that problem, but who over the years have found that there were impediments to joining the public sector workforce.”

Recognizing the opportunity, “a growing number of states are trying to consider ways in which a workplace can be adapted so that individuals with disabilities can thrive,” reports Lindsay Lucas, project manager at the Council of State Governments.

Like mental health funding, it’s a nonpartisan issue. “We’ve got states that are on the right and on the left and in the middle participating in these efforts,” says Eve Hill, policy and legislative counsel to the State Exchange on Employment and Disability, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy. “People with disabilities have traditionally been unemployed and underemployed at disproportionate rates, and so they're out there, they're looking to work, they want to work. They're prepared and qualified to work.”

Efforts to create accommodations for people with so-called apparent conditions, such as hearing, seeing and mobility issues, are far from new. But in recent years, there’s been a significant advancement made by states, counties and cities to support a huge group of potentially strong employees who have been stymied in their access to the government workforce by a variety of “non-apparent” issues, including autism, attention deficit disorders, chronic depression and more.

“The idea of accessibility for wheelchairs or people with sight issues that require reading software is pretty typical, pretty run of the mill,” says Sarah Kerley, chief administrative officer at the Illinois Department of Central Management Services. “But now we’re recognizing the types of things you might encounter with someone who is on the autism spectrum. How might that impact how they interview? How might that affect the way they work? I think this is going to be the next big issue.”  

For some time now, these conditions have been described as invisible. But as states and localities confront them even the nomenclature is changing. Instead of being called “invisible” problems, according to Lucas, the phrase “non-apparent” is much more accurate. “People may use the phrases interchangeably, but we want people to understand that these problems aren’t invisible. They’re just not recognized,” she says.

North Carolina has been taking steps to ensure it is open to people with disabilities and it’s “been emphasizing a wide variety of learning disabilities as well as mental and emotional impairments,” says Nancy Astrike, director of Diversity and Workforce Services in that state. “We have really thrown the door wide open and are working diligently to encourage our employees to self-identify their disability so we can ensure that we’re creating a work environment that is inclusive and engaging for folks that have different impairments. We want them to feel comfortable and productive being here.”

But long-entrenched biases and stigmas around mental health, autism and other conditions can dissuade people with non-apparent disabilities from disclosing them. Similarly, there can be a reticence to hiring people who don’t look and act in ways aligned with preconceived notions. Indeed, “employees with disabilities significantly under-disclosed to their employers, perhaps fearing stigma or a negative impact on their job security or promotion prospects,” the Boston Consulting Group found.

The interview process in its traditional face-to-face format can represent a significant challenge. People with autism, for example, may struggle to respond to interview questions in the way that supervisors have grown accustomed to.

But that need not stand in the way of their being hired as long as they have the skills to do the job. In Illinois, according to Kerley, “we can let a candidate demonstrate the ability to perform work by providing samples of other work they’ve done for other employers. Or we can allow written answers versus spoken answers to interview questions.”

Illinois is currently embarking on an ambitious effort to confront the issues involved in hiring people with non-apparent disabilities. Though this effort was slowed down by the pandemic, it is gaining traction now. One element of the initiative, according to Kerley, includes implementing a disabled worker’s training program that allows people with disabilities to be selected for a training period of six to 24 months, after which they could be promoted to a full-time position.

In addition, the state is collaborating with advocacy groups to provide more expansive inclusion practices and using technology to analyze how people with disabilities move through the hiring process and through the employee life cycle.

Just recruiting people with disabilities is only half of the equation. Once someone has gotten a job in the public sector, it’s critical to create an environment that will help them to succeed in the workforce.

In Alaska, for instance, “we’ve had state troopers with mental health issues. And these are terribly hard jobs to fill,” says Kate Sheehan, director of the Division of Personnel and Labor Relations in the Alaska Department of Administration. “So, we make accommodations so that we don’t lose awesome state troopers. For example, we might give them time off to get periodic treatments. Or if they want to get assistance directly from a provider [instead of online], we might have them assigned to a place where that’s available, so they can receive the treatment they want. It’s a different way of looking at mental health issues and taking away implicit or even explicit bias over those conditions.”

Back in North Carolina, one of the efforts the state has undertaken has been to implement a program called NCCares for state employees who have been diagnosed with autism. They are eligible for up to five hours of coaching support done through two partners: The Raleigh Society of Autism and a program at the University of North Carolina called UNC Teach. 

Beyond that, North Carolina is also focused on making certain that its supervisors and managers are sensitive to the needs of people with non-apparent disabilities and fighting the stigma against hiring them. “We’re very intentional about making sure folks understand that there are many kinds of disabilities,” says Astrike. “And it’s my guess that the vast majority of people that we should be working with probably don’t have visible difficulties, but mental or emotional impairments.”

The effort to expand the public sector workforce isn’t just a good thing from a humanitarian point of view. It’s also just good business for states, counties and cities. Not only do they open the doors to highly motivated employees who might have been excluded in the past, but also people with disabilities “have high retention rates,” reports the Connecticut Bureau of Rehabilitation Services. “According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, businesses who have diversified their workforce to include people with disabilities reported a 90% increase in retention of valued employees and a 72% increase in employee productivity. One reason is people with disabilities tend to seek stable and reliable work when searching for jobs.”