August 2008
Employing Persons with Disabilities - Opening New Doors
By Sachin Verma, Co-Founder, AccessAbility / EmployAbility
With skilled talent becoming a global shortage, India is not far behind. Various studies undertaken in the recent past have revealed that the Indian Inc is facing an acute shortage of skilled manpower. Further constant surge in FDI and FII investment has a exacerbated this shortage of talent in the Indian market, necessitating some quick thinking and long term planning to retain and recruit the right talent.
While a majority of the industry is facing the talent crunch, there are some organizations especially from the high growth sunrise sectors like the IT, ITES, KPO, BPO, Hospitality, Retail, and Telecom that have started to look beyond the conventional sourcing approach. 'Diversity' as they say, is now opening new doors. With diversity increasingly being recognized as a business benefit, it will be unwise for the new economy in India to ignore the significance of this untapped human potential.
A quick look at the figures in Table 1 will indicate the latent potential and a possible respite that Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) offer to the existing talent stress, which is so often being quoted as a key concern by most Human Resource professionals.
| NSSO 2002 | Male | Female | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total | % | Numbers | % | Numbers | % | |
| Locomotor Disability | 10634000 | 58 | 6633900 | 36 | 4000100 | 22 |
| Hearing Disability | 3061700 | 17 | 1613300 | 9 | 1448400 | 8 |
| Speech Disability | 2154500 | 12 | 1291100 | 7 | 863400 | 5 |
| Blindness | 2013400 | 11 | 928700 | 5 | 1084700 | 6 |
| Mental Illness | 1101000 | 6 | 664500 | 4 | 436500 | 2 |
| Mental Retardation | 994700 | 5 | 625800 | 4 | 368900 | 2 |
| Low vision | 813300 | 4 | 369300 | 2 | 444000 | 2 |
| Any disability | 18491000 | 100 | 10891300 | 59 | 7599700 | 41 |
Employment opportunities for people with disabilities however have so far been restricted due to several challenges that need to be overcome, both from the demand side (employers) and from the supply side (job seekers).
Challenge at Demand Side - Employers Story
One of the major challenges that employers usually face while looking at employing people with disabilities is the fear of the unknown, the fear of failing. This fear is associated with their lack of experience and awareness of hiring disabled employees and a very limited knowledge of disabilities. Most companies do not have a clear diversity strategy in place and show lack of leadership and commitment in working towards integrating diversity and inclusiveness in their recruitment, retention and development strategies.