How To Foster a Work Environment That Values Employees With Disabilities

Summary:
As a manager, supervisor or proprietor, you share the responsibility for fostering the acceptance of disability in your workplace. Here's how to gain that acceptance.

Harmony Yields Productivity

Frank Acceptance of Differences Is the Key

Awareness Honors All Employees

What You Can Do to Create a Welcoming Work Environment


Harmony Yields Productivity

The central goal of creating a positive environment for a diverse workplace is harmony, and harmony fosters productivity. Period. While the normally stated goal of "Doing the Right Thing" is all well and good -- and, Doing Right, by the way, often results in greater harmony -- your responsibility is to your company's bottom line. When people get along and act like a team, they produce more, stay longer, and have fewer gripes -- all of which favor effective and efficient work.

When, on the other hand, staff members harbor resentments or perceive inequities, they can build an obstructionist interplay that handicaps everyone involved. No one can perform at a peak level. Time is wasted in foot dragging, absenteeism and higher turnover. And time is money.

As a manager, supervisor or proprietor, you are responsible for ensuring that your work environment is amicable. If your department has poor performance due to interpersonal friction, this performance deficit will be attributed to you.

Further, you can personally be held responsible for creating a "hostile work environment" or simply not preventing it. Consider this:

"On occasion, reasonable accommodation of one employee entails some inconvenience to that employee's supervisor or to his co-workers, which, in turn, may lead to resentment on the part of the inconvenienced supervisor or co-worker. In some instances, the unfortunate result of this resentment is harassment of the disabled employee... The ADA, like Title VII, creates a cause of action for hostile work environment harassment".
- Fox vs. General Motors

There is no upside to ignoring tensions and no downside to preventing or resolving them.

In fact, neglecting to give conflict its due attention will most certainly result in a greater negative impact than that of any time taken to prevent that tension. Observes Kriza Jennings, program officer for Diversity and Minority Recruitment for the Association of Research Libraries:

"What do we have to do to create and foster a workplace climate where everyone feels welcomed, valued and respected. The response centers on becoming more aware that each individual's behavior towards others contributes to the climate or atmosphere. The most common reason offered for why more attention is not paid to these issues is that 'we're too busy.' To implement a successful diversity program, however, these three practices--welcoming, valuing, and respecting -- must receive regular and deliberate attention."

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Frank Acceptance of Differences Is the Key

Another underlying reason for inattention to fostering a harmoniously diverse workplace, perhaps especially in the case of disabilities, is discomfort about discussing the differences between individuals and between groups. It is natural to feel awkward about a person's disability, but, in fact, that awkward reluctance is what you must dispel in your employees. One unique characteristic of disabilities (compared to differences in terms to race, ethnicity or gender) is that there is an obvious mechanical difference between someone who is, say, blind, and others who are all functionally sighted. Glossing over this fact can only result in an uneasy atmosphere. Your staff will conclude that open discussion about disability is forbidden.

The key to fostering a friendly and, therefore, productive work environment is recognizing but not magnifying differences. Many supervisors unwittingly cast a disabled worker in the role of child or sacred cow by communicating to him and to other staff that he is somehow "special" or better or to be protected. An employee who has a disability is really no different than others who are not disabled. He just has to do his work with different tools or techniques. He is not more emotionally vulnerable, not unable to do quality work, not somehow more admirable nor is he more heroic because he is disabled.

You set the tone. If you coddle a disabled worker, so will other employees -- and still others will resent the special treatment. If you are hypersensitive about the individual's disability, you will make everyone uncomfortable. If you treat the disabled worker as a burden, that will be the view throughout your department.

Instead, you must foster the recognition that every staff member is equal but has individual roles, responsibilities and work styles. The difference with a disabled worker falls under work methods only and refers entirely to what tools he uses to do the work he shares with his peers.

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Awareness Honors All Employees

One benefit that has been cited for bringing employees back quickly after they become disabled is the positive impact it has on morale. Other workers see that the individual's contribution is valued, that he is not disposable and that they can count on being similarly valued. Ultimately fostering harmony for a new or returning worker who has recently become disabled is the same.

A work environment in which each person is, as Jennings describes, "welcomed, valued and respected" does not only benefit the employee who is "different." Companies that, in essence, see all positions as necessary to the bottom line and all workers as co-workers bring out the best in people. Creating an atmosphere of collaboration rather than assertion of status encourages high performance and a sense of responsibility for results from the CEO to the mailroom clerk. An atmosphere that honors diverse (and, in particular, disabled) employees as equal contributors to the common goal allows each worker to recognize the collective talents of the group instead of a new employee's deficits.

Basically, it is your responsibility to prepare other staff people for inclusion of a disabled worker -- and it is up to that worker. Showing him and the other staff that you regard him as the chief educator on the subject of how he works and how to relate to him both empowers him and shows him that you expect him to take responsibility for dealing with his peers. He cannot wait for you or others to guess at what he needs. He must speak up.

By insisting on this forthright candor, you are supporting your other workers, too. They see, from your attitude, that you require equal effort from them as well as the employee with a disability.

However, it will be ultimately up to you to step in when miscommunication or inappropriate behavior on anyone's part is not prevented or resolved on a peer-to-peer level. If, for example, a new visually impaired employee has asked politely and repeatedly that other staff members not change the location of important tools or supplies (but they forget), you may need to emphasize to them the practical reasons for consistency. If, on the other hand, you discover that the disabled employee has not communicated this need but expects others to "magically know" (and is becoming contentious when they can't), you will need to make it clear that everyone, not just that employee, deserves courtesy.

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What You Can Do to Create a Welcoming Work Environment

Jennings lists and explains what she regards as the three essential aspects of a friendly and accepting work environment: welcoming, valuing and respecting.

Welcoming. Jennings stresses that "welcoming" goes far beyond the introduction of a new worker. It persists throughout a person's presence in the workplace. In the simplest way, it means a workplace where everyone greets everyone.

I used to work in an organization where the executive director never said hello to me. I enjoyed making a point of introducing new volunteers to her just so she would have to condescend to greet us. In the case of a blind or visually impaired worker, staff members need to be aware that a simple hello is insufficient. I ask colleagues to say, "Hi, Nan! It's Dorothy."

Welcoming goes farther though. Welcoming in one sense means discouraging cliques or confederacies that tend to push others away. In an affirmative sense, Jennings encourages creating space and time for "cross-pollination" between individuals, departments and levels. This provides needed social interaction as well. Make sure these activities or locations are accessible to the disabled employee. Often, in that same organization where I worked with the aloof executive director, staff members would plan parties off-site, and that would force me to wrangle with transportation alternatives which were not always comfortable for me.

Valuing. "Valuing is demonstrating to others that their presence and contributions are noticed, make a difference, and matter in the organization," Jennings points out. She goes on to discourage empty gestures such as once-a-year recognition events. Rather, she recommends, get to know the individual, listen to his ideas and be aware of and support his efforts to overcome challenges in the work.

Instill in your staff a regard for courtesy: expressing thanks, respecting others' time and seeking to reciprocate help. "A certificate may be less effective than sharing a break with someone to discuss their work and their contributions," Jennings explains. "A salary increase may have more impact, if someone in a leadership role shares how much the (individual's) contributions have helped the organization accomplish its goals."

Workers who have a disability need to be valued for their work -- not treated as if they were somehow defying the odds by showing up at all. Encourage staff not to include the disability in praise:

• As a qualifier, such as: "You present very well for a blind person!"
  
  
• As a superlative, such as: "Wow! I couldn't do as well, and I'm not blind!"
  
  

An employee with a disability wants to know that he is contributing in the affirmative and on an equal par. You may not quite understand how he manages such high level work with limited vision, but he is a lot more than just disabled. He is talented and hardworking. He feels patronized when his disability always has to be a part of the equation.

Respecting. Jennings stresses the top-down aspect of respect and emphasizes the leadership role in encouraging everyone to recognize the accomplishments and expertise of each and every worker. "Supervisors often expect employees to come to their offices or to make appointments to talk about their work," says Jennings. "Many employees will avoid such meetings because they do not wish to give the appearance of a problem. What employees often are seeking is acknowledgment that their supervisor is aware of their work and cares enough to ask how things are developing."

She adds, "Some administrators send messages through supervisors, when a direct note, phone call, or e-mail would have a much more positive effect on self-esteem and a sense of personal accomplishment."

Here's another no-no I encountered while working in the organization with the aloof executive director. A new supervisor set out from the start to communicate that her staff was under her. One's area of expertise did not matter. She made the calls -- not because she had a bigger picture but because her "picture" was virtually feudal in nature. (I'm reminded of a "Wizard of Id" comic strip in which the king is shown saying, "I'm the King, and you have to do what I say, or I can't be King any more.") I not only did not feel respected, in spite of my expertise and potential contribution to the agency, but, in fact, I felt demeaned, distrusted and disliked. Instead of fostering teamwork, the supervisor held each of us apart and at arm's length, and that resulted in conflict, poor communications and poor morale --- and worsening productivity.

A worker with a disability needs no more or no less respect than any other employee. Neither avoid him nor heap undue praise on him. Jennings observes that an overall atmosphere of mutual respect can be the key to a successfully diverse workplace.

Here are some other tips for building harmony:

• Provide diversity awareness training that includes disabilities -- whether or not you have a disabled employee coming on board. Be sure to choose a trainer with a sensible, matter-of-fact and practical approach.
  
  
• Stress with other workers that the disabled employee was hired because he is qualified and can do the work. His disability was not and should not be a consideration. He will have to satisfy the same performance standards as they do.
  
  
• Encourage the new employee to be candid about his disability. Offer him a chance to discuss it at a staff meeting.
  
  
• Discourage the employee from playing a passive or manipulative role by making sure he knows you are only interested in what he can do and how -- not what he can't. Be sure his responsibilities and those of others are well-defined and equal.
  
  
• Treat everyone the same. Neither ignore nor highlight a disabled employee.
  
  
• Realize that employees will have prejudices and be prepared to deal with those prejudices. A woman once told me she felt disabled people had no right to "special treatment" and clearly resented being required to work with them. Others may feel disabled people get unfair advantages just as others feel that way about women and minorities. Still others may have had experiences where a disabled person has not been held to the same expectations. You must make clear that this person is not to be judged until he proves himself.
  
  
• Encourage a relaxed atmosphere that includes humor, but do not tolerate stereotyping, bigotry or mean humor. I am the first to make jokes about my eyesight and respond well to sensitive remarks from others, but I do not appreciate humor that reveals ignorance or a desire to put me down.
  
  
• Make sure a person taking on new duties is adequately compensated for them when you must shift a responsibility from one job description to another because of a disability. Higher pay or authority (or simply allowing for an exchange of tasks) can make the addition acceptable so it doesn't breed ill will.
  
  
• Let the disabled employee and co-workers handle issues not related to work. I generally feel awkward, if a co-worker tells me to "step down" at a curb (that's what the white cane is for). But it is up to me to make that clear because it has nothing to do with my work responsibilities.
  
  

Finally, be vigilant about typical misunderstandings and myths. Florida State University's Student Disability Resource Center identifies three major misled approaches and attitudes:

• The Myth of the Helpless Invalid (which assumes that the person with a disability is unable to do anything without assistance).
  
  
• The Myth of the Heroic Cripple (which places the person with a disability on a pedestal, making it difficult for him or her to assimilate and function).
  
  
• The "Spread" Phenomenon (which generalizes from a single disability and assumes there are also intellectual, social, and additional physical deficits). An example would be shouting at a person with a visual impairment.
  
  

You set an inclusive tone by how well you interact with an employee who has a disability. How well you welcome, value and respect him as well as other workers will have a direct effect on how well everyone works together. You cannot lose by setting clear guidelines for the type of work environment you wish to foster -- and then consistently following them. The harmony (and productivity) of your staff will pay you back many times over.

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