https://healthcare-digital.com/hospitals/solving-healthcare-staff-shortages-with-disability-inclusion

IWSI America’s COO Andrew Sezonov & CSO Simon Whatmore on why the healthcare staff shortage can be solved with the inclusion of people with disabilities

Everywhere you look across the US healthcare sector, skilled healthcare professionals are in high demand and short supply. 

Few sectors, if any, face as many complex challenges as healthcare to secure the skilled workforce required to meet client needs, say IWSI America’s COO Andrew Sezonov and CSO Simon Whatmore.

While recruiting healthcare talent was never as simple as lodging a vacancy online and waiting for the applications to roll in, the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated these challenges significantly. 

Healthcare staff burnout and shortages post COVID-19

The upheaval and uncertainty the sector has had to overcome in responding to COVID-19 has led to a marked increase in staff burnout and turnover, as well as critically interrupted the flow of new talent pipelines, as many clinical placements and other practical requirements for formal professional qualification or registration were deferred or cancelled.

Yet these widespread skills shortages have not reduced demand for healthcare services, which are forecast to grow and keep growing. 

A 2021 US healthcare labour market analysis by Mercer revealed that we can expect the current chronic skills shortages to persist in the years to come, because in the majority of states, the projected supply of healthcare workers will be unable to meet market demand. Indeed, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projects the need for an additional 1.1m registered nurses by 2030, and New York and California each face a healthcare workforce shortage of half a million positions within the next five years.

The Mercer report also identified that the most acute workforce shortages will be in frontline allied healthcare positions such as medical assistants, home health aides, nursing and dental assistants and medical imaging technicians.

If current workforce attrition, retirement and training trends hold, Mercer predicts America will face an allied healthcare worker shortfall of 3.2m workers in the next five years. 

In this labour market, it is unlikely that overworked healthcare recruiters can address this seven-figure shortfall by doubling down on the same old recruitment strategies. Nor is poaching experienced staff from rivals a viable option – a simple recipe for rapid wage inflation. 

Long term, the most effective way to resolve the current challenge is to expand and diversify the healthcare workforce.

If we can refresh the approach to recruitment and modernise our recruitment and training processes to ensure they are truly accessible and inclusive, we can turn our current challenges into a once-in-a-generation opportunity to improve employment outcomes for historically underemployed groups, particularly Americans with a disability.

Supporting people with disabilities access healthcare employment opportunities

Across all age and educational attainment groups, unemployment rates for people with a disability are higher than those for people without a disability.

Despite the fact that one in four adult Americans lives with a disability, and roughly one in five school-aged Americans identify as having a recognised disability, Americans with a disability still experience appalling employment outcomes. 

Illustrating this, in February 2022, the BLS reported that America’s disability employment gap was more than 44% – only 19.1% of Americans with a disability were in ongoing employment, compared to 63.7% for those without a disability.

People with a disability are ideally suited for many common allied health professions in shortage, there is every reason to believe significantly more Americans with a disability can transition into mainstream employment as we address these skills shortages.

One programme which could become the template for change to come is the Ready, Willing and Able pilot programme. Recently launched by the California Government and IWSI America, the programme aims to support Californians with disabilities to access emerging allied health employment opportunities. The programme’s name was chosen to highlight the fact that there are millions of Americans with a disability who are ready, willing and able to work, and are simply awaiting an opportunity.

The pilot programme will focus on connecting suitable candidates with allied healthcare jobs to be delivered as part of registered apprenticeship programmes.

Apprenticeships are uniquely suited to help people with disabilities enter the healthcare workforce. The structure of career and technical education (CTE) training breaks down the teaching of complex skills into modular units and is proven to successfully support people with physical or developmental disabilities to master skills and build confidence. This structure also provides the apprentice with a degree of certainty and long-term security – something that shift work or seasonal jobs cannot.

We talk a big game on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Now is the time to bring more Americans with a disability into mainstream employment. If we cannot improve employment outcomes for Americans with a disability (and other disadvantaged and underrepresented groups) during a red-hot labour market, then when can we expect to?

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Article by Nicholas Wyman.

One of the key factors in running a successful business is attracting and retaining talent.  Whether hired from the outside or mentored from within, skilled and loyal employees are the backbone of any business.  But when businesses strategize to expand their pool of skilled workers, they might be overlooking a key demographic: people with disabilities. “Disability” can include physical impairments such as reduced mobility, hearing loss or vision loss; and intellectual impairment.

Myths about people with disabilities in the workplace

Why are people with disabilities overlooked?  Many employers fear people with disabilities present more costs than benefits and are reluctant to invest in them. Employers are also likely to believe at least some of the common myths about people with disabilities in the workplace, including: 

• They can’t work;
• They have a higher absentee rate;
• They can only do basic, unskilled work;
• They’re not as productive as their co-workers;
• They cost more to recruit, train and employ; 
• They reduce their co-workers’ productivity;
• They’re not eligible for government financial incentives (such as funds to hire apprentices); and
• They don’t fit in.

But as we’ll see, these assumptions are highly questionable, and they’re preventing valuable people from joining the active workforce.

Figuring out disabilities

Just how many people with disabilities are being sidelined because of unfounded beliefs?

According to the World Bank, 15% of the world’s population have some form of disability, one-fifth of them significant. In the US, 61 million adults have a disability – that’s more than 18% of our population. Disabilities affecting mobility, hearing, vision, and cognition are the most common.

People with disabilities are both unemployed and under-employed. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, not even one in five people with a disability was employed in 2019, and a third of those who were employed were in part-time work. In the same year, two-thirds of people without a disability had jobs, and just 17% of those were part-time workers.

But that was before the pandemic.  Workers with a disability were hit hard by Covid layoffs, with 1 in 5 workers with a disability losing their jobs, compared with 1 in 7 in the general population.  Advocates fear those job losses could be permanent, as many employers do not have a solid commitment to attracting and retaining people with disabilities.

The problem is not unique to the U.S.  A United Nations fact sheet notes that between 50-70 percent of people with disabilities are unemployed in industrialized countries, and 80-90 percent in developing countries.  

Even when people with disabilities are employed, they face barriers.  In my home country of Australia, a government commission is documenting the problems people with disabilities face at work, and some of the stories are harrowing.  The Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect, and Exploitation of People with Disability is currently holding hearings and is expected to complete its findings by late 2023. But it’s already heard about the barriers to employment people with disabilities face, including:

• Environmental – where premises are physically inaccessible, or there are inadequate communication facilities;
• Organizational – where there’s little help or adjustment to transition to work smoothly; or 
• Structural – e.g., income support programs that are poorly integrated with the labor market for people with a disability.

These stories and statistics reveal a global problem rooted in persistent myths about people with disabilities in the workplace.  But it turns out research doesn’t back up those myths.  In fact, research shows organizations that employ people with a disability enjoy multiple benefits, such as:

• Improved profitability (profits and cost-effectiveness, turnover and retention, reliability and punctuality, employee loyalty, company image);
• Competitive advantage (diversity of customers, customer loyalty and satisfaction, innovation, productivity, work ethic, and safety);
• An inclusive work culture; and
• Ability awareness.

Providing workplace accommodations to make sure people with disabilities are fully integrated into the workplace also reveals more benefits than costs.  In its annual survey, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Job Accommodation Network (JAN) questions employers about providing workplace accommodations. The most recent survey found that:

• Employers are open to providing accommodation for employees to retain them on the job;
• Most employers report zero or very low costs associated with accommodation;
• With accommodations in place, workers with disabilities are more productive and less likely to be absent;
• Employers save on workers’ compensation or other insurance costs;
• Employers can more easily promote a person with a disability; and
• Employees who’ve been accommodated have better interactions with co-workers, increased morale, and increased productivity.

It’s becoming more and more clear that attitudes toward employing people with disabilities are out of synch with reality.  In my next blog, I’ll talk about sources of support for employers who want to make their workplaces more inclusive and productive by actively seeking out and hiring people with disabilities.

View this article on Forbes:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholaswyman/2021/02/25/an-untapped-talent-resource-people-with-disabilities/?sh=2edc5c292fc0