Recruiting and employing disabled people

Introduction

Disabled people have abilities, skills and experience that your business can benefit from. If you make a few adjustments in your policies and at your premises, and add flexibility to work arrangements, you could potentially open up jobs to many more recruits - often at little or no cost.

Under the Disability Discrimination Act, a disabled person is someone with a physical or mental impairment that has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on their ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities. This covers a wide range of impairments of varying type and severity, from the obvious - such as severe mobility restrictions requiring wheelchair use - to less obvious "invisible" impairments like diabetes.

The aim of this guide is to help businesses understand how to make the most of the potential offered by disabled employees.

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