“A job for a person with disability isn’t just about money. It’s a sign of independence and a way to let the world know we’re not a burden on society, but an asset.”
– GSA Associate
What is inclusive recruitment?
Inclusive recruitment involves reviewing and developing your organisation’s recruitment practices and ensuring that the application and hiring process is accessible for people with disability. This means creating policies, practices, and procedures that actively promote diversity and inclusion within your workplace.
Why is it important to have an inclusive recruitment process?
77%of businesses believe it is important for their workplace to reflect the diversity in the community by including people with disability. In Australia, however, only 52.6% of people with disability are in the workforce, compared to 75.2% of people without disability. That’s a 22.6% gap, representing a vast pool of people with unique experiences, knowledge, and skills. Ignoring this is not just ethically questionable, it’s also strategically short sighted. Research has found a 25% increase in profitability and a 30% decrease in employee turnover for companies who offer a diverse and inclusive workplace.
Having inclusive approaches to recruitment is essential as it opens your workplace up to a treasure trove of diverse talent and perspectives. By offering an inclusive recruitment process, your organisation is helping to fuel out-of-the-box problem-solving while fostering a dynamically adaptable workforce, which is crucial in the rapidly evolving business landscape.
People power your organisation
By updating your recruitment practices to being more inclusive, your organisation welcomes a more diverse range of applicants. And the benefits of hiring a person with disability are tangible. Staff diversity encourages customer diversity and having a diverse staff helps your business to better understand disability needs. It can also promote a competitive edge and growth within your market share.
An untapped talent pool
Creating a diverse workforce creates loyalty and commitment in your workforce. Studies have found that a person with disability stays with a company 28% longer on average than an employee without disability. 90% of employees with disability record equal or greater productivity than other workers, and 86% have an equal or better attendance record.
Could your workplace recruitment process possibly be excluding future valuable employees?
How does it work?
Build your knowledge and access tools needed to foster a diverse and inclusive workforce when you engage with us at Get Skilled Access.
We start by assessing your recruitment process and help you to identify any barriers that a candidate might come across. This involves us reviewing your organisation’s internal procedures while seeing exactly how a candidate will experience the recruitment process. We work on removing any bias that may sit behind the decision-making and be affecting staff retention. We also look at what you do in relation to the ongoing support of a person with disability once they are employed.
Learn about how Get Skilled Access helped improve inclusive recruitment practices at Medibank.
Actionable ways forward
For our recommendations to be most impactful (and easy for you to put in place), we’ll show you ways to update your existing recruitment pipeline for a barrier-free process for both people with disability and without.
These updates could look like using more inclusive language in your job descriptions or advertising. Or better understanding how a person with disability might experience interviews and onboarding. Or giving your recruitment or hiring team the confidence to welcome a person with disability into your organisation.
As you develop a more diverse and inclusive outlook into recruitment, you’ll be in a stronger position to find the best talent and push your business forward.
Learn more about how to hire more people with disability.
