The Value of Accommodating Employees with Disabilities

In these innovative times, some business practices may seem extremely obvious to corporate America. With high education levels for the majority of today's business executives, it may be assumed that the management of a company's workforce includes implementing basic Human Resource practices. For example, poor treatment of disabled employees is one issue that many may feel has been erased by better education and government policies. However, many businesses have not instituted programs that accommodate employees with disabilities. This may not be intentional, but rather an unfortunate oversight. Nevertheless, businesses can learn from other corporations how valuable accommodating disabled employees can be.

A good example of how a corporation can benefit and prosper by accommodating disabled employees is the Sears, Roebuck and Company. Even before the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) was enacted, Sears had an internal history of pro-active accommodations for their employees. However, a 1996 follow-up report showed a number of surprising and interesting statistics:

·The average cost per accommodation per case post-ADA was only $45.

· Almost half (47 percent) of the disabilities from 1993-1996 were orthopedic related.

·89% of requested accommodations where requested by current employees.

·11% of requested accommodations where requested by job applicants.

·44% of requested accommodations where requested by retail sales work force.

(Blanck, 1996).

What this data points out is that the cost associated with accommodations did not have an overwhelming cost associated with them. Rather, the costs are surprisingly low and the majority came from orthopedic injuries and from the retail sales work force. By understanding these statistics like these, we can go further than just accommodating disabilities. For example, Sears can help lower the need for accommodations by implementing programs to lower the incidents of orthopedic injuries and lessen the stress on their retail sales divisions. For NL&C, we can begin to understand the needs of our disabled employees and begin to accommodate them and provide training that will be more cost-efficient in the long run.

There is also the matter of employees feeling that they are not being treated fairly. In Human Resources, there is an HR Scorecard that that helps judge the value of employees and whether they are contributing to the company's strategic goals. By having a percentage of employees feel disrespected or ignored, the chance that these employees are not creating more value for the company is increased. Therefore, regardless of the size of the company, companies will benefit from accommodating disabled employees in the workforce. The value of accommodating employees rather than ignoring their situations is in the best overall interest to the entire corporation (Dessler, 2008).

Resources

Blanck, P. (1996). Communicating the Americans with disabilities act. Transcending compliance: A case report on Sears Roebuck and Co., (pp. 8-28). Iowa City, IA.

Dessler, G. (2008). Human Resources Management. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education Inc.