Disability: Asset, Not Liability, Revenue, Not Cost

This morning, LinkedIn was being very Monday, very LinkedIn, not very demure, not very mindful.

A woman, whose profile suggested she works in recruitment, responded, quite aggressively, to a disabled man asking why companies were still engaging in discrimination against disabled individuals with:
"Because disability is a liability, it costs money, and businesses can't expect to run up their costs to an infinite degree whilst tiptoeing around every single need people could ever possibly have."

This isn't an isolated thought.  It's not often said out loud in the UK - but it always has been elsewhere in the world, and it very much is being shouted from the rooftops of the USA.

And it's not just recruiters and executive leadership; it's ordinary people, meaning that, even with the most inclusive, welcoming, accommodating leadership, disabled people will still be encountering hostile environments courtesy of the able-bodied people they have to work with on the front line.

Disability As an Asset:

What is an asset? An asset is anything which enhances your brand, adds value, reduces costs, and enables you to achieve your ambitions without having to waste time looking for additional resources outside your organisation.

Disabled people, without being given a salary, perks, an office, or a job title, bring organisations who are willing to be radically inclusive - which includes zero tolerance of hostile attitudes from their grassroots workforce and their clients and customers, embedded not through "get on board or get out", but through reflective practice, to explore where hostile attitudes are coming from, and address the roots, not the shoots - are bringing companies a wealth of skills and strengths, into even the most basic minimum wage job, that it would be prohibitively expensive to recruit directly:

. Stakeholder negotiation - through the constant challenging for accommodations, recognition, and credibility we have to do, through the extensive self-advocacy we have to do to get anything we need to support our inclusion and success.

. Achieving with low budgets - unemployed disabled people are not "getting thousands of pounds a month!" The benefits cap is a maximum of £1,413 a month - and that's only if you live in the Greater London area (the "London Weighting" for welfare); outside of London, a disabled person can only receive a maximum of £1,229 a month.

Most disabled people only actually receive around half this amount, which has to cover significant personal costs, as well as the usual bills, groceries, and wider cost of living impacts, just like anyone else.

On top of these routine costs, disabled people have to engage with emerging research into their conditions, they have to access professional support such as physiotherapy, cryotherapy, naturopathy, acupuncture, counselling, hypnotherapy, peer and social support, and assistive technology, as well as identifying opportunities they would be able to participate in and add value through.

Leadership - Disabled people excel at finding and creating community, and, in peer-led spaces, supporting other disabled people through challenges, guiding them to opportunities, and working alongside other disabled individuals to help them achieve their goals; leadership without an MBA, without sector-restrictive experience, without CMI qualification. Dynamic, agile, solutions-focused leadership.

Cost Efficiencies - Disabled people are very used to making life work with less.  Every four to five years, we're faced with an immediate and significant loss of income, and we just adapt to the new challenges, the new restrictions.

HR - Disabled people often have to manage recruitment for personal care support, we are frequently engaged in high-conflict situations with people who have a lot more power and influence than we do, we are having to defend and justify ourselves almost daily, whilst simultaneously bearing the burden of representing the entire disability community well.

We are used to remaining calm in the face of extreme provocation, of translating highly emotive lived experience into something that is acceptable to the corporate sector.

Pivoting - Disability is dynamic challenge - from within, from without, or both simultaneously. And disabled people have to navigate these challenges and pivots on our own.

Whatever job role you're recruiting to, whatever salary you're offering, you get all of this executive-level expertise for free when you hire a disabled person.

Disabled People Generating Revenue? Really?
"Don't spend where you won't be hired."  That rallying call is becoming increasingly relevant as America goes through its paradigm shift, and the ripples of those waves wash up on other country's shores.

Almost a quarter of the UK population are disabled.

With an increasing focus on "don't spend where you won't be hired", ignoring, and often actively excluding, nearly 25% of the population is a bad decision, whatever your business.  When disabled consumers see people like them working in your business, particularly at senior and leadership levels, they respond with a greater willingness to spend their money with your business.  The more disabled people that are securely employed in roles that represent the value we bring purely through our lived experience, the more money disabled people have to spend with brands which show inclusion, rather than just talking about inclusion.

Disabled people are also primed to spot new opportunities, because we're always living in the dynamic, productive space that Chris Langton describes as "the edge of chaos." This is a valuable, revenue-driving asset to any business, particularly as the world becomes more competitive.

But Disabled People Can't...
There's always going to be something anyone can't do. Business has never been about recruiting someone who can "do anything and everything"; business, at its very best, is about identifying people who can do a small number of things exceptionally well.

That's what diversity is; the maximum number of practitioners of excellence in the widest range of positions of strength.

Effective HR practice is about identifying the positions of strength that individuals hold.

Effective leadership is about honouring, refining, and nurturing those strengths.

Effective collaboration is about blending your strengths with the different strengths of other people.

Want to learn how to be more effective, better resourced, and asset-driven?

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