Employer and rehabilitation personnel perspectives on hiring persons with disabilities: Implications for job development

Abstract

A recent trend evident in supported employment and job development and placement is shifting the focus of services to employers. This shift is seen as encompassing several advantages. One is improving workplace integration for employees with disabilities. For example, natural workplace support approaches to supported employment are based on an assumption that de-emphasizing the job coach's presence in the work environment de-emphasizes the disability of the worker (Nisbet & Hagner, 1988). A second advantage is that such approaches mobilize existing support networks in order to sustain long-term employment. In other words, the economic and practical difficulties of achieving ongoing support for workers with severe disabilities are shared, in part, by having supervisors and co-workers provide it (Rhodes, Sandow, Mank, Buckley, & Albin, 1991). Yet a third advantage is that it encourages employers to respond to the needs of employees with disabilities in a similar manner that they respond to the needs of other diverse groups in the workplace. Thus, this approach promotes the view that workers with disabilities should not be seen as necessarily unique in requiring workplace accommodations (Fabian & Luecking, 1991). Although shifting or sharing the responsibility for workplace training and support with employers is seen as advantageous, Sandow (1993) and others have pointed out that there are difficulties in developing the collaboration necessary to achieve it. These difficulties arise in part from different assumptions and values that drive rehabilitation agencies as compared to those that drive businesses (Patterson & Marks, 1992). The contrast between the two sets of assumptions was perhaps best described by Drucker (1985) who noted that human service agencies tend to focus on internal processes such as budgets, staff sizes, and numbers of individuals served, while businesses tend to focus on external feedback such as profits earned and performance outcomes. Albin (1992) suggested that the assumptions that drive rehabilitation agencies may actually function as barriers to developing effective collaborative or relationships, since agencies are not geared toward taking into account needs and expectations. She pointed out that many agencies lack the type of customer culture that continuously monitors and modifies service performance in accord with feedback. For example, job development and placement efforts frequently involve rehabilitation agencies engaging in informal service agreements with employers. That is, agencies agree to assess employer needs, identify capable applicants, provide initial training, and conduct follow-up among other tasks. Employers have an expectation of service outcomes and evaluate them based not only on the performance of the individual employee, but on such factors as agency responsiveness, attitudes, and willingness to problem solve. These are the tangible indicators of service performance (Zemke & Schaaf, 1989). However, rehabilitation agencies have few standards for measuring performance effectiveness except in terms of the job performance of the individual worker, and overall the numbers of agency placements achieved. The result of ignoring evaluations of service performance is that effective relationships with employers are difficult to develop or sustain, since feedback from employer-customers is generally lacking (Fabian, Luecking, & Tilson, 1994). In turn, poor or inadequate employer relationships negatively influence the ability of agencies to conduct effective job development and placement activities. Without external feedback, agencies tend to attribute job failures to inadequate internal processes or resources. Thus, Sandow (1993) noted the example of a program experiencing difficulties in job placement. The program's response was to redouble their job development activities, as if it were these activities that produce jobs, when in fact, only community businesses can create jobs (p. …

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