TY - JOUR
T1 - Workplace inclusion
T2 - Exploring employer perceptions of hiring employees with disability
AU - Antonopoulos, Christine R.
AU - Sugden, Nicole
AU - Saliba, Anthony
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 The Author(s). Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
PY - 2024/7/1
Y1 - 2024/7/1
N2 - The unemployment rate for people with disability in Australia has remained unchanged for decades, despite policy and strategy focus. Therefore, understanding perceptions of those making hiring decisions is important. This research used a qualitative approach interviewing 13 participants who made hiring decisions. Reflexive thematic analysis uncovered four themes about altruistic hiring motivations, organisational culture barriers, sharing of disability during the hiring process, and negative emotions towards disability. There were distinct perspectives between people with and without experience of disability. People without experience tended to encourage early sharing of disability in the hiring process, cite organisational culture as a barrier, and shared strong negative emotions towards people with disability. People with experience of disability tended to prioritise autonomy of people with disability in sharing during the hiring process, and an intersectional approach to improve organisational culture. Regardless of disability experience, participants tended to share altruistic motives for hiring people with disability, despite this potentially contributing to the maintenance of power dynamics. Future research should continue to explore personal attributes and decision making of employers, ideally conducted by people with lived experience of disability. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement.
AB - The unemployment rate for people with disability in Australia has remained unchanged for decades, despite policy and strategy focus. Therefore, understanding perceptions of those making hiring decisions is important. This research used a qualitative approach interviewing 13 participants who made hiring decisions. Reflexive thematic analysis uncovered four themes about altruistic hiring motivations, organisational culture barriers, sharing of disability during the hiring process, and negative emotions towards disability. There were distinct perspectives between people with and without experience of disability. People without experience tended to encourage early sharing of disability in the hiring process, cite organisational culture as a barrier, and shared strong negative emotions towards people with disability. People with experience of disability tended to prioritise autonomy of people with disability in sharing during the hiring process, and an intersectional approach to improve organisational culture. Regardless of disability experience, participants tended to share altruistic motives for hiring people with disability, despite this potentially contributing to the maintenance of power dynamics. Future research should continue to explore personal attributes and decision making of employers, ideally conducted by people with lived experience of disability. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement.
KW - disability employment
KW - diversity
KW - employer perceptions
KW - hiring decisions
KW - inclusion
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85196198701&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85196198701&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1002/casp.2830
DO - 10.1002/casp.2830
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85196198701
SN - 1052-9284
VL - 34
SP - 1
EP - 16
JO - Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology
JF - Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology
IS - 4
M1 - e2830
ER -