I’ve been in business and marketing consulting for many years. I’ve worked from home, successfully, for over a decade. Working from home is not the evil thing that CEOs, executives, and managers say it is. Remote work policies have increase workplace diversity and inclusion; and it has allowed disabled people to flourish alongside their peers. Work from home is a viable and necessary accommodation that can be given to the disabled workforce. It needs to stay for the betterment of workplace diversity and inclusion… AND for disabled people’s livelihoods.
Watch the video below
Below is a transcript if you prefer to read it
Work From Home Benefitting Disabled People
We have been asking for work from home arrangements for decades and we don’t want to see them go anywhere.
You’ve probably seen:
“Elon Musk says remote work is ‘no longer acceptable’,”
“Amazon CEO plans to bring employees back to office,”
“Disney CEO Bob Iger orders workers to return to the office 4 days a week,”
But have you read articles like this?
“Surge in remote working due to COVID fuels record employment for people with disabilities.”
The ability to work from home has revolutionized the way the world works. And work from home options have also had a huge impact on the disabled population’s ability to work. Acceptance of remote work has been a game-changer for disabled people.
While remote work is not new, I’ve personally been doing it for well over a decade, the global experiment we were thrown into in 2020 showed scared employers that most employees in administrative or office jobs can work from home without disruption to workflow.
This finally proved to employers that work from home is a great option to not only save money on real estate cost, but also hire a more diverse and experienced workforce… including some disabled people that had been begging for work from home options for decades.
In late 2022 the Economic Innovation Group[i] published data from a survey showing “People with disabilities in their prime working years, age 25 to 54, are 3.5 percentage points more likely to be employed in Q2 2022 than they were pre-pandemic. In contrast, non-disabled individuals were still 1.1 percentage points less likely to be employed.”
There are many advantages for disabled people when working from home.
One significant advantage is the ability to overcome physical barriers. Traditional workplaces can present challenges for disabled individuals, including inaccessible buildings, inaccessible transportation, and lack of proper workplace accommodations.
Remote work offers flexibility and accommodations that are vital for people with disabilities. From flexible work hours to customized workspaces, these policies empower disabled individuals to adapt their work environment to their specific needs. This flexibility enables us to manage our medical appointments and procedures, therapy sessions, and personal responsibilities more effectively.
Contrary to misconceptions by managers and executives, work-from-home often boosts productivity and employee engagement for disabled individuals. In 2015, before the world shut down of 2020, a Stanford Business[ii] peer-reviewed published study showed that working from home “led to a 13% performance increase.”
Working from home makes it so you can create your own comfortable and accessible work environment. Remote work minimizes distractions and enhances focus. Additionally, collaboration tools and digital platforms facilitate seamless teamwork so no one misses out. Work-from-home policies allow people with disabilities to fully engage and contribute their skills and expertise while they are comfortable in their accessible space.
It also helps everyone achieve a healthier work-life balance. This can be especially difficult for disabled individuals due to our additional medical needs and personal responsibilities. But work-from-home offers a better work-life integration.
I know that more recently there have been several CEOs of large companies demanding that work from home cease to exist in their companies. But clearly these CEOs don’t care about research data, their employee’s needs and wants, or the strain they will place on their disabled employees.
I’ve been a business and marketing strategy consultant for over 20 years. I’ve also been disabled the entire time. Some days I can work but I can’t change out of my PJs for the day. Some days I feel great and can go into an office for 8 hours. But regardless of what I can do in any given day, I work hard, efficiently, and am always dedicated to completing my work tasks. Allowing flexibility of work from home gives companies access to dedicated talent in the disabled population that they did not have before.
We’ve been asking for work from home arrangements for years and we do not want to see them go. Squashing all remote work will strain the disabled workforce.
Some executives and managers may not see that the disabled workforce as a positive thing for their companies. But this is unfounded thinking. In 2018, Accenture[iii] did a study and found that “businesses actively employing people with disabilities generated 28 percent higher average revenues than those that did not.”
Given the current state of the economy and social change towards diversity it’s worth keeping remote work policies in place. This allows for workplace diversity and inclusion. Disabled people have a lot of life experiences outside of what’s needed for the job that contribute to our value within a company.
And its also important to note that the 2020 event that rocked the planet is leaving many healthy, hard-working individuals disabled with chronic disease. If we want to continue working towards more inclusive work environments, we need to be willing to make adaptations so our disabled workforce can continue working.
So these are just some of my thoughts as to why I believe that work from home should continue to be an option, especially for disabled individuals. It allows us access to jobs that we didn’t have before, and we’ve been wanting this for decades.
We want to get the word out to try to keep work from home an option.
If you found this video valuable, please consider sharing it and subscribe. Thanks so much. I’ll see you next time.
[i] https://eig.org/remote-work-is-enabling-higher-employment-among-disabled-workers/
[ii] https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/publications/does-working-home-work-evidence-chinese-experiment
[iii] https://www.inc.com/ben-sherry/why-your-business-should-hire-workers-with-disabilities.html#:~:text=According%20to%20a%202018%20study,percent%20above%20non%2Ddisabled%20workplaces.