Recruiting and employing disabled people

The business case for employing disabled people

There are sound business reasons for employing disabled people. You can:

• Widen your pool of candidates from which to recruit staff.
• Gain a competitive advantage by having a diverse workforce that can attract a diverse range of customers - there are over ten million disabled people in Great Britain, most of whom are potential customers and/or employees.
• Make your business more representative of the community and foster a better public image as a fair and inclusive business.
• Improve staff morale and loyalty to a business considered inclusive and representative.
• Avoid claims of unlawful disability discrimination.

Find out about the benefits of employing disabled people on the Fast-Forward website.

As a business owner, you will need to comply with new access rules, which came into force in October 2004 under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. These require businesses and service providers to make "reasonable" changes to ensure access for the disabled.

The costs of making adjustments are often very small, and there is financial and practical help available to employers from a range of sources to help improve access and facilities for disabled people. See the page in this guide on advice on disability and funding for employers.

As well as considering adaptations to your workplace, you could consider employing disabled people as homeworkers - see our guide on employees working from home. In many cases, their homes will already be equipped to meet their needs.

Subjects covered in this guide

• Introduction
• The business case for employing disabled people
• Advice on disability and funding for employers
• Recruiting disabled people to work for your business
• Helping disabled employees in your business
• When an employee becomes disabled
• What the law says on employing disabled staff

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