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PROGRAMME GRANDE ECOLE 2018
SEMINAR PAPER
INVISIBLE DISABILITY AND THE PROCESS OF RECRUITMENT
How future managers should consider invisible
disability during the recruitment process?
Frédéric POOR
Head of Specialization: Rachel BEAUJOLIN
Seminar Paper Supervisor: Hae-Jung HONG
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Declaration of academic integrity Page 3
Greetings Page 3
Executive summary Page 4
Introduction Page 5
Literature review Page 7
- N. Ann Davis (2005) Page 7
- Odile Rohmer, É. Louvet (2006) Page 8
- Sarah Richard, Isabelle Barth(2017) Page 9
Research question Page 11
Methodology Page 12
Results Page 14
- Questionnaire Page 14
- Interviews Page 16
o Expert in physiotherapy Page 16
o Expert in disabled people's integration Page 16
o Expert in recruitment of disabled people Page 17
Discussion Page 18
Recommendations Page 20
Conclusion Page 21
References Page 22
DECLARATION OF ACADEMIC INTEGRITY
I, Frédéric POOR, student enrolled in the Human
Resources & Consulting specialization of the Programme Grande Ecole,
certify that the data and information contained in the Seminar Paper entitled
have not been plagiarised.
GREETINGS
I would like to thank all the people who helped me writing
this Seminar Paper. First, I would like to thank NEOMA Business School for the
five years of learning and personal development I was able to experience during
the Programme Grande Ecole (2013 - 2018). The different personal experiences I
lived inspired me to write this paper about Global Human Resources Management.
I felt really involved by the subject that I chose. I would also like to thank
my supervisor, Mrs. Hae-Jung HONG, for her support, advice and kindness. I
would not have been able to write this Seminar Paper without the precious help
of the twenty-nine people who took time to answer my survey and the three
people who helped me to go deeper in the subject during the interviews. I would
like to thank them for their implication and listening. I understand that I can
rely on many people at NEOMA Business School and I keep good memories from my
studies.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Research objective
The main objective of this research is to find a way to
integrate people living with an invisible disability on the job market. This
population is often discriminated and faces difficulties to get included in the
society. Even if there are many measures to help these people to be integrated,
they still suffer from their disability. More than the physical pain, it is the
psychological pain that is more difficult to support. In this sense, I want to
raise awareness about the fact that the person living with an invisible
disability may be «able» to work and, doing so, fight the prejudices.
Research questions
- How future managers should consider invisible disabilities
during the process of recruitment?
o What is an invisible disability?
o How to talk about invisible disabilities in the professional
world?
Methodology
First, I read some paper in the literature review and realized
that no research was done on the subject. As a consequence, my research is
explorative because I had no answer to this question yet. Then I made one
questionnaire of ten questions and interviewed three people that we can
consider as experts on the subject.
Findings
Current and future recruiters have to be sensitized about
this subject and they should encourage people to talk about their disability.
The best moment to share the information is after the candidate selection.They
should also consider invisible disability more as a character trait than a
threat to the job integration.
Introduction
In France in 2016, the global unemployment rate is 10,5% while
the unemployment rate of people living with an invisible disability is twice
higher (21%). So we can see thatthey face many difficulties to find a job. In
2005, the French government has implemented a law in favor5; of disabled
people, to help them to be included in the job market. On February
11th 2005, the law has initiated many changes in the societal
inclusion of people with disabilities. This law asks companies of more than 20
employees to hire at least 6% of disabled people. The employers that do not
respect this quota have to pay a compensation to the AGEFIPH(Association de
Gestion du Fonds pour l'Insertion professionnelle des Personnes
Handicapées). If somebody is living with an invisible disability,
he/she has to be recognizedlegally as a disabled worker. The institution which
can confirm or infirm the fact that a person can be considered as a disabled
worker is the MDPH (Maison Départementale des Personnes
Handicapées).Even with the implementation of this law, the number
of unemployed people living with a disability has increased by 65% in 5 years
between 2011 and 2016. We can conclude that the law is not fully efficient to
answer the integration difficulties on the job market.
In France, 12 million of people are considered disabled. It
means that a large part of the population (more than 18%) is touched directly
and it also has consequences indirectly (family, friends or college). We can
divide the disabilities between two categories: the disability which is visible
and the category which is invisible. In this paper, we will focus on the
invisible disability only. Due to the characteristic of the disability, which
is invisible, people may not know that a person is «suffering» of an
invisible disability. I use the word «suffering» because the disabled
person not only suffers physically from the disability but also emotionally
because of others' rejection.
For most of the people, a disability is visible and, most of
the time, implies a wheelchair, as the symbol we can see when we Google the
work «disabled». Many of the images that result from this research
represent a person on a wheelchair whereas people on wheelchair only represent
2% of the total number of disabled people.
Even more interesting, more than the half, around 80%, of
disabled people live with an invisible disability. It means that in France, 80%
of the 12 millionpeople living with a disability, so around 9.6 million, are
living with an invisible disability and a large part of them are not really
recognized by the society as «real» disable people.
In 2016, 29.6 millions of people were considered to be part of
the «active population». It means that these people are considered to
have the capacity to work. In France, it is from the age of 15. In 2016, the
overall population in France 66.9 millions of people. It means that around 44%
of the population can work and people living with an invisible disability are a
part of it. If we apply this proportion to the 9.6 million of people living
with an invisible disability, it means that more than 4.2 million people living
with an invisible disability are able to work, making part of the «active
population». 4.2 million of people with an invisible are studying, working
or looking for a job and maybe do not know how to deal with this
characteristic, not to say this issue, in the professional world.
As a student of NEOMA Business School, my Seminar paper aims
at finding solutions to include the statistical minority in the debate, which
represents, in reality, a lot of people. As a recall, this paper is dedicated
to 4.2million people who struggle to get recognized as there are: not
«real» disabled, not «normal», «able». This
difficulty to clearly identify themselves to a defined group leads to what we
can call an «identity schizophrenia». Here is the point: we can
notice that there is already a gap between private life and professional life
for «non-disabled people», this gap is more strongly perceived by the
person living with an invisible disability. As a consequence, it is a true
challenge to find a solution to integrate this group of people within the
society as they deserve to be.
Literature review
1) N. Ann Davis (2005), Invisible Disability
In our society, the handicap touches what is most profound in
the human being, that is to say his ability to act or not to act. For most
people, the disability is illustrated by the image of the person in a
wheelchair or blind with the cane. It is clear that this person is not
«normal» or «capable»of doing the actions of everyday life.
But disability is not just a physical or intellectual disability that limits
the person in his/her personal or professional life. Sometimes, in a simple
meeting, you may be facing a person who presents - only visually - no
disability, that is to say that he/she corresponds to the standard imposed by
society. However, during a more in-depth exchange, we realize that the person
has a disability, that is to say a limitation to perform certain tasks. This is
what characterizes invisible disability according to Davis. During a classic
social conversation, the person seems to be in good health, his/her image is
the one of a «capable» person, corresponding to the standards imposed
by society. However, this person is well limited by a pathology, such as a
psychiatric disorder, a disabling physical illness or a psychomotor development
disorder.
Davisalso highlights some concepts as the human
paradigm, which is embodied by a man that seems healthy, meeting
theable-bodied standards. In our society, unconsciously, we tend to
reach this standards to appear well included in the society. But if we look
closer at society, there are more and more people that are not able to meet
able-bodied standards. In the future, we tend to have more people that do not
meet able-bodied standards, so it means that people with an invisible
disability will not be considered as a statistic minority. It is mainly due to
the myth of the transcendent will that can be defined by the fact that
each human being has 100% power on his/her choices and so is responsible of
everything happening in his/her life. Due to this belief, most of the humans
tend to go through their biological conditions, they think they can do whatever
they want or that the society pressure wants them to complete. There is a
difference between looking like the able-bodied standards and really being
able-bodied. It means that most of the people think that they meet the
standards but they actually do not, so they are not aware about their own
weaknesses. This lack of awareness leads to ignore others' limitations and
thishas huge consequences on the person living with invisible disabilities. Due
to the invisibility of the disability, we expect from them to behave as an
«able-bodied» person. This requirement is really threatening for the
disabled person, because he/she has to make twice as much efforts than a
«normal» person. It can have significant consequences on the
disability itself and can reinforce the inequalities and prejudices. The
professional world is really demanding in terms of performance, which puts the
expectation really high that even the «normal» person finds issues to
meet these standards. So it is even more difficult for the people living with
an invisible disability.As a conclusion, Davismanages to define five criteria
that can help to acknowledge the fact that a person is «suffering»
for an invisible disability:
1 «Neither their presence nor their nature can usually be
ascertained in the course of the completion of a mundane social
interaction».
2 «They place the individual at a heightened risk for the
recurrence of episodes that would be painful, life threatening, or activity
limiting».
3 «They severely limit the duration or the circumstances
in which the individual can interact with other persons in everyday social
spheres».
4 «Their presence can be verified by technical medical
procedures».
5 «They can be diagnosed by medical personnel, but their
identification or classification is not purely quantitative but involves
interpretation and requires the use of judgment».
The question that rises from this paper is: how to
sensitize people about the reality and the consequences of living with an
invisible disability?
2) Odile Rohmer, É. Louvet (2006),Being disabled,
what impact on the assessment of candidates for employment?
This paper aims at showing to what extent information about
the disability of a candidate can influence the recruiter. The first conclusion
is that we tend to overvaluethe person with a disability. Concretely, we pay
more attention to the flaws on a CV of an abled personand on the qualities on a
CV of a disabled person. If people with disabilities are positively
discriminated, it means that their abilities are underestimated. In addition,
the results confirm an overvaluation of the disabled candidate, judged
positively on his/her social qualities and self-confidence. Consequently, the
recruiterprefers to grant a job interview to a disabled candidate rather than
to a candidate without a disability. However, this theory is only valid if the
candidate has professional experience.
The recruiter never discriminates negatively disabled people,
but he/she perceives the person as exceptional when applying for a job, which
is reductive for them. Hence, we tend to highlight the personality of the
individual and not the skills. Also, some positions are perceived as
inaccessible to the disabled, while this is not necessarily the case.
The results show that the difficulties of employability for
people with disabilities are not the result of physical barriers related to a
disability, but rather social barriers related to expectations, beliefs,
perceptions and representations. The evolution of society in terms of
disability puts the psychosocial dimension of disability above its physical
reality. This articleraises awareness about the multiple forms of
discrimination that people with disabilities face, improves communication about
disability and promotes positive representation of people with disabilities.
From this paper rises the following question: how to
share the information concerning the disability within the company?
3) Sarah Richard, Isabelle Barth,Between expectations and
realities: an analysis of consequences of the legal revelation of handicap in
business (2017)
In order to analyze the consequences of the legal handicap in
business, the authors chose to use the Expectation Disconfirmation Theory
(Richard L. Oliver, 1977). We want to analyze if the
revelation of the disability, which in France is made by the recognition of
«RQTH» (Reconnaissance en Qualité de Travailleur
Handicapé), has positive or negative influence on the employer's
and employee's expectations. The theory analysesthe expectations through 3
axes: positive disconfirmation (favorable influence), negative disconfirmation
(unfavorable influence) and neutral expectations. It means that when an
employee shares the information about the RQTH, he/she is likely to expect
his/her employer to make required adjustments to the missions and the
workplace. The negative disconfirmation is when the employee's expectations are
not met. In this case, there is room for improvement and this what the article
focuses on.
The main conclusions are:
- The disability policies are only intended to improve the
image of some companies and result in inappropriate integration with the needs
of the individual.
-A complex professional integration, job search or internship
seems to be limited due to the presence of disability.There is a few positive
responses and a few job interviews. This is not just about discrimination.The
consequences of labeling, which results in stereotypes and prejudices about
disability, such as the probability of absence or limited productive capacity
are affecting the probabilities to be hired.
The following question is rising: how to avoid
positive and negative discrimination towards?
Research question
When I looked for some literature on this subject, Ionly found
one article that tries to define « Invisible disability »
but none of the articles was dealing with the people with an invisible
disability in the professional world. As a student in human resources and so
maybe a future recruiter, I was wondering how we can take into consideration
this group of people that facesa serious lack of acknowledgement in the civil
and professional society. It is mainly due the invisible character of their
disability. I think that unconsciously, due to mainly understandable reasons,
we keep in mind the image of a disabled people: somebody on a wheelchair.
Society often sees disabled people as deaf, blind or with any other disability
which affects one of the 5 senses. The invisibility of the disease which the
person is «suffering» from mainly characterizes the fact that during
a classic social relation, it is difficult to acknowledgethe disability. It
also means that a disability is most of the time contextual. In this sense, I
chose to analyze one specific context: the process of recruitment. I do not
know if we could say that an interview for a job is a «classic» day
to day relationship but it is an event that a person, - disables or not - is
likely to face during his/her life.
For this reason, I am wondering: How future managers should
consider invisible disability?
In France, people who are «suffering» from a
disability could ask, as I said before, the RQTH from the MDPH. It means that
there is a legal acknowledgment of the disability but not necessarily done by
the civil or professional circles. A person who is living with a visible
disability - let's take the iconic exampleof a person on wheelchair - has no
choice to reveal his/her «status», he/she has no choice because the
disability is obvious. In the case of an invisible disability, the question of
revelation is more difficult because the person has to choice to hide it or to
share it and to whom. The more the disability influences daily initiatives, the
stronger the incentive is to make it recognize legally first. It is the first
step of acceptance of his/her own weaknesses the difficulties he/she will face
in society. For many understandable reasons, some people do not want to be
recognized by the MDPH as a disabled. Being categorized as part of the
«weakest», from a human paradigm society point of view, is really
difficult to accept. The way we define disability in our society has a huge
influence on the willingness to be recognized as disabled. It may make us feel
be abnormal, different. Anyway, «suffering» is context-related.
Let's take the case of a person who has already been
recognized as disabled by the MPDH, thanks to the RQTH status (which can be
translated into«recognition as a disabled worker»), we then face the
question of whether or not revealing this information while for a job. As a
reminder, a person living with an invisible disability has the choice to reveal
it or not. Which can lead to the following question: how should we consider
invisible disability during the recruitment process?
Methodology
In order to collect quantitative data to answer to the
research question: «how should we consider invisible disability during the
recruitment process?», I chose to conduct a survey of 10 questions. We can
separate them in 2 parts:
- 5 questions related to the meaning of «invisible
disability» and the consequences when a person applies for a job
- 5 questions about how the person living with an invisible
disability should be integrated within the company and about the way the
information should be revealed.
Then, I chose to contact a few companies and people
specialized in recruitment of disabled people. It allowed me to have an expert
point of view on the subject. The interviews were open discussions. I compared
the results of the questionnaire, from students in the last year of a master's
degree specialized in human resources and consulting, to the interviews of
experts. From this comparison, I will deduce what kind of actions must be
implemented.
29 people from the Human Resources specialization of NEOMA
Business School - between 22 and 27 years old - answered the questionnaire.
They are a relevant sample because they will be the managers of tomorrow.
The first question aims at checking if people have a good
understanding of the expression «invisible disability» and the second
question aims at verifying the veracity of the claiming with concrete examples.
As the expression is not well defined and understood, I just want to check how
people react about it. To check if they really understand what an invisible
disability is, I made a list of 12 diseases or disabilities that are included
in the spectrum of invisible disability. As a reminder, indivisible
disabilities represents 80% of the disabilities in general. So the second
question aims at understanding what kind of disabilities people include in the
spectrum of invisible disability. It will allow to check if the people really
know what an invisible disability is and if they are aware that behind many
diseases, there is a disability. The third question aims at highlighting what
kind of assumptions and expectations future recruiters have about a person
living with an invisible disability. It focuses on the consequences that a
disability can have on job searching. The fourth question aims at answering to
the following question: Is it a good or a bad thing that a person releases the
information? It also can allow to know if some people are reluctant, meaning
they are not in alignment with the French law of 2005, which encourages people
«suffering» from any form of disability to reveal the information.
Otherwise, it will enhance the fact that due to the invisible character of the
disability, it is not useful to reveal it. They think that the word
«invisible» can be mingled with «visible» without
consequences. If people think that it is useful to reveal this information,
they will answer to the fifth question specifying what the best moment to do
so. Since the law on the revelation of the disability in 2005, the people
concerned are motivated to get their status acknowledge by the MDPH. They have
the opportunity to get recognized as «disabled worker» from the MDPH.
If they get the status, they can put on their CV the mention «RQTH»
in order to have privileged access to employment. I proposed 5 possible moments
for the revelation: before the process of recruitment, during the process of
recruitment, after the selection, during the integration and after the
integration. Depending on the results, it will highlight if there is another
option than revealing before the process of recruitment, as the law incents to.
Positive or negative expectationsmay emerge from both the candidate and the
recruiter and may distort the discussion about the job and tasks to be
performed. This information is really significant in a recruitment process and
the way it will be revealed will influence the relationship. The second section
aims at answering the question: what is the best way to talk about invisible
disability within the company? The 5 questionsaim at finding a way to minimize
the influence of the revelation of the disability within the company. Even if
the status allows specific conditions to the person living with an invisible
disability, there are many expectations that are not match on both person and
recruiter side. What would be the best way to integrate the person in the
company, respecting his/her desire to be recognized as a person and not only as
a disability? The 5 questions are made to design a path to follow, and from
these questions, I will try to suggest new ways of revealing the information
linked to invisible disability within the company. The goal is to understand
that the disability is more than just a status given by the MDPH and the role
of the employer is to create a win-win situation, enabling a disabled employee
to develop skills despite the disability. The objective will be matched if the
company manages to minimize the fact of suffering from the disability.
Results
a) Questionnaire
From the question 1, we can notice that 93.1 % of the people
claim that they know what is an invisible disability. If we compare to the
results of the 2nd question, which is a non-exhaustive list of
invisible disabilities, we can see that only 44.8% of the peopleanswered that
all the propositions were right. Hence, 48.3% think they know what is an
invisible disability without knowing different examplesof invisible
disability.
From the question 3, 89.3% of the people interviewed think
that a person living with an invisible disabilityshould reveal his/her
«status» to the employer. Consequently, they think that the
disability may be compatible with a job. From the question 4, 75.9% argue that
a person living with an invisible disability should reveal the information in a
way to prevent the company from one of the most private information about the
person : his/her health.
From the question 5, we can see that 40% think that the
information should be revealed during the process of recruitment, 24% think
that is should be done at the announcement of the selection for the job. Only
20% of the people think as the current law motives candidates to share this
information before the process of recruitment, with the notification of the
recognition of MDPH on the CV.
Now we know that it is better to reveal the information while
the candidate has been selected for the job. The next question aims at
understanding what is the best way to integrate them within the company.
From the question 6, there is no clear trend between the fact
that the information should be revealed formally or informally. 48.3% of the
people think that the information must be shared informally within the company
and 51.7% of the people argue that it must be communicated formally. Informally
is for example just shared with word-of-mouth or just discussed briefly between
colleagues. Formally means that the person concerned or the company organizes
an «event», for example a presentation to sensitize the company or
team members about a disability.
From the question 7, it is clear that the information must be
told by the person herself and not by somebody else. It deals with privacy and
the person's agreement is necessary to share this information. It also means
that the colleagues or manager must respect the law of silence. Otherwise,
there is violation of private life that can lead to some legal pursuit. A law
could be implemented to prevent from this kind of disrespect and discrimination
if we continue to consider that the person is his/her disability.
From the question 8, there is also no clear separation between
the fact that the information should be revealed to the close colleagues or to
the manager. 55.2% think that it should be transmitted to the colleagues and so
44.8% argue that only the manager should get to know about the person's
disability. It really depends on the person's disability and the consequences
on daily work. The responsibilities and place of the person within the company
and also fact that the person is working independently or not will influence
both the symptoms and so the necessity to share this information.
From the question 9, it is clear that most of the time, it is
not relevant to share the information to all the company members. 69% of the
people interviewed think that only the human resources management has to get
informed by the person and then, take the necessary actions to integrate the
person depending of the scope of influence of the disability on the daily
work.
From the question 10, it is obvious that the information has
to be shared face-to-face and not electronically. This information deals with
the person's life secret and should be treated as something precious. Depending
on the person's acceptation of his/her disability and his/her will to share it,
it would be relevant and possible to organize a kind of event within the
company to make the company members aware of the disability and so to prevent
them from ignorance and judgment that is most of the time the main obstacle of
the «disabled» person integration.
b) Interviews
1) Point of view of an expert in physiotherapy
Nathalie Shuhmacher is a physiotherapist. From our interview,
there is some information that are really interesting. First, we discussed
about the moment when a person should release the information concerning the
invisible disability, and for her, the best moment is after the selection. In
this way, we could avoid both positive and discriminative discrimination. Of
course, if the disability has an enormous influence on the person, it would be
better to announce it before the first interview, but in other case, it would
be better to keep in secret to improve the chances of being recruited. The law
concerning the recognition of invisible disability is, for her, really
ambivalent. On the one hand, it comes from a good will but many of the big
companies are just using the 6% quota to improve their corporate image, but in
the end, it improves the chances of a person suffering from a disability to be
hired. On the other hand, the fact of setting a minimum quota which can get a
company rid of penalty, it leads to a categorization of the people. As a person
living with a disability, we are so considered as a «weight» by the
whole society.
2) Point of view of an expert on disabled people
integration
Severine Meon is regional delegate at Agefiph Grand Est, which
is the association that aims at helpingpeople living with a disability to be
more easily integrated in the job market. We had a discussion about how to deal
with ins and out concerning the subject of invisible disability in general.
First of all, the fact of living with an invisible disability affects personal
and professional life. Consequently, we cannot find an issue only considering
the professional lifein spite of the personal life. It is a global issue, which
leads to a global consideration of the consequences of being disabled.
Moreover, as the number of people, the fact of being affected by one specific
type of invisible disability and the way the person accepts and lives with it
determine the disability influence spectrum. According to her, we cannot speak
about invisible disability but more disabilities. Considering this fact, we can
say that there are as many ways to integrate people with an invisible
disability as disabilities in companies. It is really context-related and
knowledge-related. The sensitization is really important for her, the more we
will communicate about the reality of a specific disease, the more we will be
able to see how the person disability will affect the company considering the
specific tasks linked to the job. And sometimes we can see that is a specific
context, there are more pros than cons hiring a person.
3) Point of view of an expert in the recruitment of people
living with disabilities.
Pete Stone created the company Justdifferent, which has the
mission to defend a simple vision: we are all different. According to him,
there is no real disabilities but special characteristics depending on the
personality, not depending on the «disability». Stereotypes and
prejudices are really significant in the way that people use them to categorize
people. In France, when we look for example at the sign for the parking
reserved to disabled people, we only see a person on a wheelchair. This
consideration leads people to think that being disabled is only about being on
a wheelchair. But the reality is really different: only 2% of the people
classified as disabled are on wheelchair and 80% are living with an invisible
disability. In «able-bodied» people's minds, a person with a
disability is always treated differently. He showed me an advertisement stating
that when we will be able to recognize thata disabled people can be a
«prick», it will mean that we have made a step forward. The main
recommendation is to delete the work «able» from the dictionary and
replace it by «non-disabled» people, as Barack Obama used to say in
one of his speech.
To sum up, there is no magic formula to integrate the disabled
people in the company except considering that behind the disability, there is a
personality.
Discussion
The first conclusion we can make is the lack of awareness of
what it really means to live with an invisible disability. It is obvious that
even if we say that the disability is invisible, the word
«disability» is linked to many judgments and stereotypes. Being
disabled necessarily means being abnormal and maladapted to the society's
needs. But as a human being living in the society, the disability should not be
seen as something wrong but more as a symptom of a society's dysfunction. We
should consider the increase in the number of people living with a disability,
visible or invisible, as an alarm that something is going the wrong way. First,
we should encourage people to makea difference between the person and the
disability. As we often say «I am sick», it means that the whole
person is sick and behind this, there is no personality. To demonstrate the
contrary, we can take the example of a person living with a cancer: the
recovery is mostly due to the way the person is living «with» the
disease and how his/her relatives and society are considering the person. The
acceptation of the disability by the person and the environment he/she living
in allows the person to develop an enormous capacity of adaptation, which can
be seen as a significant behavioral and cognitive creativity. It also showswhat
are the societymisleadings and sometimes, it can bring a solution to solve it.
We must listen to these people and stop considering them as a weight that
should be lightened by cutting the angles to make them enter in the society
boxes. It is too painful for many people to think that, one day, they can also
be afflicted by a disability, so they prefer to deny that the other could be
themselves in another life. Empathy and compassion could be the keys to
integrate disabled people the best we can to make them living well with their
conditionsand maybe even cure the «dis-ease» by making them feel
useful to the society their own way. We should acknowledge that a person living
with an invisible disability is a human being, with qualities and flaws. Some
people think that the nature, in order to compensate the disease, gave gifts to
the person who will discover them during his/her healing journey.
Who does not want to speak about his/her said
«weaknesses»? Many of us, because we consider that our weaknesses are
not really part of ourselves, but they are more something to avoid. As Carl
Jung said,«we can only see the light within the shadow». It is a
strength to talk about it and, doing so, people will acknowledge that there are
perfectible, they can fall sometimes to rise up differently and stronger than
before. Discussing openly about the disability means that it should be
considered more like a character trait than something that defines the person.
In this way, the information concerning the disability should be shared during
the process of recruitment, and not before. In France, some organizations, like
the MPDH, use to incent people to get their status acknowledged and motivate
people to mention it on their CV while looking for a job. This incentive
increases both positive and negative discriminations. In the short term, it
allows the people concerned to find a job more easily but in the long term, it
prejudices them by being stigmatized. In the case of invisible disability,
which is context-related, we think that it is better not to have the disability
status but it also depends on the limitations that the disability provokes. The
relationship between the candidate and the recruiter must be based on trust,
not on fear or judgment. In order to avoid these cognitive bias, the recruiter
must be open-minded, empathetic and able to understand how the company can help
the person get integrated. We should implement a win-win situation, whereas
both the «disabled» person and the company are learning something
about themselves to improve the condition of both. Is not recruiting people for
who they really are the future of recruitment? In this way, we must
individualize the process of recruitment, focus on personality and competences,
considering the disability as a personality trait and not as a weakness that is
context-related. As a consequence, hiring a person living with an invisible
disability could be an asset for the company if it looks at it from the right
angle.
The information about a disease is linked to the confidential
medical information. Consequently, it is up to the person to choose how this
information should be shared within the company. It will influence both the
person's and the company's expectations. If the job is really demanding and the
person is different because of chronic depression, for example, it will be
difficult to follow the stream. But it does not mean that the person is not
capable to perform the task, it is more about the rhythm, relationships and
atmosphere. If the company can offer the conditions that the person needs, it
can be beneficial to both the company and the person. We should let the person
share the information if he/ he feels that it is relevant to the job, the
tasksand the atmosphere. Anyway, the way the disability should be proceeded
within the company comes from the person itself. If the person makes the choice
to reveal it, the person in charge of the communication linked to the
disability issue should motivate the person to share the information about the
disability. It is better that one person is designated to deal with the
disability problematic within the company, even if the person is not
specialized. He/she just has to manifest the wish to get involved in this task
and could be motivated by personal experiences linked to disabilities and all
the underlying misunderstandings.
I think it is better to do some presentations about
disabilities the person is not affected by to avoid discrimination within the
company. Talking about invisible disabilities in general will enable the
collaborators to be aware of them and reconsider the scope of invisible
disability compared to visible disability.
RECOMMANDATIONS
- Raise managers' awareness aboutwhat is an
«invisible disability» and convince them that the people concerned
are not a weight for the company but they can be an asset. We should intervene
in the company, motivate the people concerned by the invisible disability to
talk about it in order to allow them to play down their situation and encourage
other people to talk about it (they are numerous but silent).
- Reveal the information either at the time of the
recruitment process or at the time of the selection to avoid any form of
discrimination if it is possible according to the disability. This result
goes against the incentives put in place in relation to the revelation of the
MDPH.
- Consider disability as a personality trait that has
its strengths and weaknesses and not as a fact that fully definesthe
person.
- Let the people share the information themselves in
the company, encourage them to do so in order to sensitize their colleagues and
the company as a whole if they want to. For instance, implement workshops on
various themes, animated by people living or not with an invisible
disability.
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