Unlocking Employment Opportunities for People with Intellectual Disability: Insights from Melbourne University Research

In a world where employment opportunities for individuals with intellectual disabilities lag significantly behind, innovative solutions are essential. According to recent statistics, while Australia's overall unemployment rate stands at 3.7%, individuals with intellectual disabilities face an alarming 16.9% unemployment rate.

Recognizing this pressing issue, Melbourne University Graduate Researcher Micheal Meehan sort the collaboration off a group of Greater Dandenong Chamber of Commerce Members (organisations with 20 to 199 employees) to delve into the root causes and potential solutions.

The aim? To pave the way for increased employment of individuals with intellectual disabilities.

These are findings:

The Problem Worth Solving

• Around the globe, people with intellectual disability experience higher unemployment rates than those with no such disability.
• As at July 2023, Australia’s unemployment rate was 3.7%, but for people with intellectual disability, it was 16.9%.
• Despite this, MSEs, defined as organisations employing between 20 and 199 employees, reported difficulties finding suitable applicants for jobs.
• Alternative approaches are needed to assist MSEs to employ people with intellectual disability.

The Study Design

• This study sought to identify ways the employment of people with intellectual disability might be increased.
• It explored the relationships between the structural characteristics, employer beliefs, work practices, and hiring strategies of MSEs and their likelihood of employing people with intellectual disability.
• It also explored the paths taken by MSEs that have successfully employed people with intellectual disability.
• A survey was used to examined factors associated with an MSE’s likelihood of employing people with intellectual disability (N = 98).
• MSEs that identified successful employment of people with intellectual disability were invited to participate in semistructured interviews (N = 6) to explore how these MSEs were able to overcome the perceived barriers to employing people with intellectual disability.

Overall Findings

• The study found that larger sized MSEs had a greater likelihood of employing people with intellectual disability than smaller MSEs, and MSEs in rural locations had a greater likelihood of employing than those in urban settings.
• Interview findings revealed facilitating conditions that enabled employment, the actions taken by employers that maximised successful employment, and the perceptions MSEs held regarding the benefits of employing people with intellectual disability.
• Overall, the findings of this study suggest that for MSEs to be successful employers, they need to have the right foundations in place (i.e., the design of the management and reporting structure within the MSE, a level of resilience in the business model, rightsizing of the organisation, and adequate resourcing to support employees) and enact their diversity and inclusion values through the promotion and demonstration of the inclusion of people with intellectual disability in the workplace.
• The results indicated that MSEs can effectively balance diversity and inclusion values within their business models.
• Benefits experienced by MSEs from employing people with intellectual disability included: having loyal and reliable staff who can cope with the repetitive nature of some tasks, a more positive work environment, improved teamwork, an increase in customer diversity, and greater productivity.
• The importance of these benefits to the MSE and the workplace may be overlooked or undervalued during the hiring process, particularly by those who have not employed people with intellectual disability before.
• Changing employers’ beliefs towards people with intellectual disability as suitable candidates for employment is likely to be challenging, although possibilities exist given that 50% of participants in this study expressed an openness to employing under the right circumstances.

Journeys for MSEs to Increase Openness to Employing People With Intellectual Disability

• Being part of a community was a common influence noted among interviewees, who used terms like “we’re a village” and a “family-orientated business”, to show connections to external or internal communities.
• The role of upper managers with strong workplace inclusion philosophies appeared to be important, and the openness to employing people with intellectual disability needed to come from the top down to have a positive effect throughout the enterprise.
• A risk-free way MSEs could enact their diversity values would be by promoting values on their websites and social media platforms and include examples of how they have enacted those values in the workplace.
• Designing jobs around the strengths of individuals was a deliberate process that showed commitment to accommodating people and setting the conditions to allow the employee with intellectual disability to work to their capacity while meeting the needs of the MSE.
• MSEs can take a “try before you buy” approach and have the person with an intellectual disability undertake a work-integration programs could be the first step as it is a low-risk, low- cost way for MSEs to experience the benefits of employing a person with an intellectual disability and begin to understand their capabilities.
• MSEs could hold a corporate team-building or fundraising event with an organisation supporting people with intellectual disability to bring hiring staff and leaders from MSEs that had not yet employed a person with an intellectual disability together with people with intellectual disability.
• Opportunities exist for MSEs to present their employment journeys to MSE peers within their industry field at events arranged through business associations, chambers of commerce, Rotary and Lions Clubs, and industry conferences.
• These presentations could be supplemented with blogs or feature articles on the webpages of these organisations.