A Plead for Organizations like NASDAQ to Recognize the Power of Disability Inclusion
A source of frustration for many people with disabilities is the inexplicable omission of people with disabilities in companies’ diversity quotas. In an era of a great reckoning for the lack of diversity in corporate America that has seen an increasing number of LGBTQ+ and underrepresented minorities being hired by major companies, the hiring rates for people with disabilities has remained frustratingly steady.
Why aren’t people with disabilities included amongst diversity efforts in companies?
The abysmal employment rates of people with disabilities are well known. They stem from a history of unequal treatment and marginalization based on negative stereotypes. That alone should include people with disabilities on the list of groups that are considered underrepresented minorities. And yet, it isn’t enough. Many employers are hesitant to include people with disabilities in their workplace due to a fear of high costs associated with adding accessibility features, their own lack of understanding, or the wrong assumption that people with disabilities cannot contribute as much as their able-bodied peers.
The Americans with Disability Act (ADA) was passed over thirty years ago. It is well past time that these bigoted and incorrect stereotypes about people with disabilities in the workforce cease to exist. Not only are they counterproductive to the larger disability rights movement, but they’re also flat out wrong. According to an article from Fortune magazine, companies that adopt best practices for hiring people with disabilities outperform their peers over and over. They have 28% higher overall revenue, twice the net income, and 30% higher economic profit margins.
What Needs to Change?
Companies and organizations across the United States need to start embracing people with disabilities as a part of their diversity profiles.
This is especially important for sectors that traditionally do not include diverse voices, like the investment sector in the US. Nasdaq, one of the biggest stock markets in the world, recently announced that they would be diversifying their board members by including a director who self-identifies as female and a director who belongs to an underrepresented minority or the LGBTQ+ community.
However, diversity and inclusion for Nasdaq did not extend to people with disabilities, a disappointing loss in what otherwise would have been a huge, unprecedented step towards true inclusion in the investment sector.
News like this is a snapshot of what needs to change. Systematic inclusion will come from the top down in corporate America, and at first hiring people with disabilities must be an intentional initiative. Only when companies force themselves to become inclusive in their hiring processes will they realize that employing people with disabilities is an important and economically smart thing to do.
But corporate America will not get there if major organizations like Nasdaq refuse to acknowledge people with disabilities as an important step towards addressing a lack of diversity in their workforce.
Corporate America can and must do better to fight against bigoted and outdated stereotypes. They must step up and become a leader against the harmful stereotypes that surround employees with disabilities.
Want to read the article this blog post was based on? Check out https://fortune.com/2021/06/13/nasdaq-board-diversity-people-with-disabilities-labor-force/
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