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Employees with disability
In contrast to the results for Indigenous Australians, the decline in employment of people with disability continued this year (down to 4,717 from 4,818 last year). In absolute terms, the number of employees fell for the third year in a row, after increasing in 2002–03 and 2003–04. At June 2007, employees with disability represented 3.3% of ongoing staff, down from 3.6% the previous year. Even though the decline was only 100 people, the large percentage decline is due to the growth in the APS overall. The proportion of employees with disability has fallen in eight out of the past 10 years.
Results from the employee survey suggest that there is some under-reporting of disability on APSED and in agencies. The proportion of employees reporting in this year’s employee survey that they had an ongoing disability was 6%. Reporting through the employee survey has generally been higher than results on APSED. Nevertheless, declining representation in the APSED results has been consistent over a long period and is likely to be reflecting a real trend.
The decline in the employment of people with disability can be partly explained by a reduction in the number of positions at the APS 1–2 levels, where employees with disability have historically been over-represented. The proportional decline over the past 10 years, however, has been evident at all classification levels. Figure 5.3 shows employees with a disability as a proportion of all ongoing employees, by classification level, for the past 10 years.
Figure 5.3: Representation of ongoing employees with disability, by classification, 1998 to 2007
Figure 5.3 shows employees with disability as a proportion of all ongoing employees, by classification, from 1998 to 2007. Overall there has been a decline in representation of people with disability at all classification levels over this period.
Source: APSED
During 2006–07, representation of people with disability fell proportionally in all classification groups. The EL classification group was the only one in which the number of employees with disability increased (up from 1,009 at June 2006 to 1,041 at June 2007), but the proportional increase was lower than the overall growth in that classification group—3.2% compared with 9.7% for ELs overall.
Employees with disability are somewhat less likely to have graduate qualifications than other employees—at June 2007, 42.9% of employees with disability had a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared with the APS average of 53.0%.9
Agencies with relatively high proportions of employees with disability are CrimTrac (8.6%), the Commission (8.5%), AIATSIS (8.0%) and the Australian Industrial Registry (AIR) (7.9%). These are all small agencies, so the actual number of employees with disability is relatively low. Fourteen agencies, all of which were small, reported that they had no ongoing employees with disability.
While the number of employees with disability fell overall, there were increases in some agencies, including FaCSIA (an increase of 32 employees), DIAC (15 employees) and DHS (11 employees). The agencies with the largest decreases in employment of people with disability were Centrelink (64 fewer employees with disability), ATO (43 employees) and Defence (28 employees), although Centrelink continues to have above average representation of people with disability.
The age profile of employees with disability is somewhat older than for the APS overall, with a median age of 46 years at June 2007 compared with the APS average of 42 years. This group also has a much longer length of service than the APS overall with a median length of service of 15 years at June 2007 compared with the APS average of seven years.
Figure 5.4 shows the proportion of people with disability in agencies with more than 1,000 ongoing employees. Large agencies with representation rates equal to or above the APS average were FaCSIA (5.7%), Centrelink (5.3%), Health (4.4%), DVA (3.9%), BoM (3.7%), ABS (3.6%) and Defence (3.3%).
Overall engagement and separation rates for employees with disability fell this year, both in actual number and as a proportion of all engagements and separations (see Table 5.7). The engagement rate (1.3%) was substantially lower than the representation of employees with disability in the APS overall (3.3%), while the separation rate was somewhat higher (3.7%). The separation rate for employees with disability has been equal to, or higher than, their APS representation for each of the past 10 years.
Figure 5.4: Representation of employees with disability in agencies with more than 1000 ongoing employees, June 2007
Figure 5.4 shows representation of ongoing employees with disability in agencies with more than 1000 ongoing employees, at June 2007. Representation varied from 5.7% in FaCSIA to 0.1% in ASIC.
Source: APSED
| 1997–98 | 1998–99 | 1999–00 | 2000–01 | 2001–02 | 2002–03 | 2003–04 | 2004–05 | 2005–06 | 2006–07 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Engagements | 168 | 162 | 192 | 200 | 268 | 516 | 235 | 262 | 345 | 255 |
| % of engagements | 2.7 | 2.1 | 1.6 | 1.5 | 2.2 | 3.4 | 2.5 | 2.3 | 1.7 | 1.3 |
| Separations | 884 | 781 | 515 | 332 | 360 | 317 | 350 | 441 | 454 | 384 |
| % of separations | 5.3 | 5.4 | 4.7 | 4.2 | 4.2 | 4.4 | 4.8 | 4.1 | 4.8 | 3.7 |
| % of ongoing employees at 30 June | 5.2 | 4.9 | 4.6 | 4.2 | 4.1 | 4.1 | 4.1 | 3.9 | 3.6 | 3.3 |
| Source: APSED | ||||||||||
The low levels of overall employment of people with disability largely reflect low levels of recruitment. This may reflect misconceptions held by agencies about the ability of people with disability to undertake a wide range of work, a lack of workplace support, perceived discrimination, and inability to access job information. As mentioned earlier, the reduction in the number of positions at the APS 1–2 levels and the slightly lower rates of graduate qualifications may also have some impact on lower rates of employment of people with disability.
Total numbers have also been affected by slightly higher separation rates. Although we have no data on why this is so, it could be as a result of the pressure of modern APS work (more efficient and faster pace, which some employees with chronic physical or challenging mental conditions may find harder to bear), an unwillingness to settle on part-time and casual work opportunities (on both sides) and for some employees a requirement for long periods of absence from work. Nevertheless, Ability at Work: Tapping the talent of people with disability10 highlights what many studies have shown—that employees with disability as a whole take fewer sick days and there is little difference in their level of productivity compared to that of other employees. It is important to recognise there are a range of misconceptions around the capacity and productivity of people with disability.
Agency progress in implementing the MAC objectives to support the employment of people with disability
In August 2006, MAC launched its report, Employment of People with Disability in the APS.11 This report committed MAC members to eight objectives to promote the employment of people with disability, and identified a range of better practice strategies for agencies to consider in meeting these objectives. These initiatives are not an exhaustive list and may not be appropriate in the context of each agency. Agencies need to determine for themselves the best approaches to adopt in order to meet each of the MAC objectives.
This year the agency survey asked agencies about their progress in meeting these eight objectives. This section looks at this progress under four key headings: cultural change; access to employment; support; and improving and monitoring performance.
Cultural change
The first MAC objective is creating a culture that values diversity and actively promotes the employment of people with disability. Inclusive workplaces with cultures that value and promote the employment of people with disability are an essential requirement if agencies wish to promote themselves as employers of choice for this group.
Changing culture is not easy. An evaluation of agency strategies for encouraging the employment of people with disability conducted this year found widespread misconceptions about the productivity and effectiveness of people with disability that will require a concerted effort to turn around. A comment from one agency responding to the agency survey highlights both the widespread assumption that people with disability can only perform a limited range of work, and the difficulties facing people with disability trying to break into employment.
While the [agency] doesn’t preclude employment of people with disabilities, the small size of the [agency] and the nature of its work, limits the [agency’s] ability to specifically offer employment opportunities that target groups of people with particular disabilities.
The report, Ability at Work: Tapping the talent of people with disability, draws attention to the diverse range of skills and abilities that people with disability have to offer and that are employed across various occupations—37% of employees with disability are in professional, managerial and administrative roles and a further 30% are in clerical, sales and service roles.
Agencies are beginning to implement strategies aimed at cultural change but there is potential for them to be adopted more widely:
- Forty per cent of agencies have put in place initiatives specifically targeted at developing a culture that values diversity and actively supports the employment of people with disability.
- Fifty-five per cent of agencies report that they have mainstreamed policies and procedures that encourage the recruitment and retention of people with disability.
- Fifteen per cent of agencies have highlighted the business case for employing people with disability in their recruitment and retention policies.
A greater focus on highlighting the business case for employing people with disability is particularly important, given the need to draw on the full diversity of the workforce in a tight labour market.
Access to employment
People with disability can face difficulties in accessing employment due to an inability to access job advertisements; recruitment processes; employer perceptions; and lack of work experience. Three MAC objectives relate to the capacity of people with disability to access employment:
- flexible recruitment strategies that are accessible to applicants with disability
- accessible training, cadetship and mentoring opportunities for people with disability
- special employment measures to employ people with intellectual disability.
Of these objectives, agencies are most likely to have implemented initiatives relating to flexible recruitment strategies (see Table 5.8). Predominantly, these are initiatives that assist people with disability in the selection process—offering additional time to lodge applications and accepting different formats, processes to remove indirect discrimination, and improving awareness among those responsible for selections. The proportion of agencies implementing these initiatives has increased in recent years.
Initiatives designed to assist in building relationships with organisations that facilitate employment for people with disability, targeted advertising, and ensuring that contracted recruitment agencies encourage and support people with disability were less likely to be used by agencies. In addition, under one-third of agencies (30%) were collecting data on the number of people with disability who are applying for advertised positions.
| Initiatives | Yes (%) | No (%) |
|---|---|---|
| Objective two—flexible recruitment strategies that are accessible to applicants with disability | ||
| Work with organisations that specialised in placing people with disability in employment | 32 | 68 |
| Advertise vacancies through disability employment and support services/networks | 10 | 90 |
| Ensure any recruitment agencies contracted by your agency encourage and support people with disability | 39 | 61 |
| Accept applications in different formats and give people with disability reasonable time to lodge applications and/or make appropriate adjustments to any direct testing situation | 72 | 28 |
| Have processes in place to ensure that methods of selection do not indirectly discriminate against applicants with disability | 88 | 13 |
| Ensure delegates and selection panels are cognisant of the diverse needs of applicants with disability | 83 | 17 |
| Agency collected data on the number of people with disability who applied for positions in their agency(a) | 30 | 58 |
| Objective three—Accessible training, cadetship and mentoring opportunities for people with disability | ||
| Provide opportunities (such as traineeships or cadetships) for people with disabilities to gain skills and experience under an agency-based employment scheme | 9 | 91 |
| Participate in mentoring programmes for students with disability interested in careers in the APS | 1 | 99 |
| Objective four—special employment measures to employ people with intellectual disability | ||
| Use special employment measures limiting employment opportunities only to people with intellectual disability | 2 | 98 |
| Use external organisations to assist in designing appropriate positions and selection criteria and identifying suitable applicants for positions to be filled by people with intellectual disability | 7 | 93 |
| Agency used contractors that specifically employ people with an intellectual disability | 16 | 84 |
Note: Percentages may not add up to 100% due to rounding. (a) The percentages do not add up to 100% due to a proportion of agencies (13%) stating that this question was not applicable to them. Source: Agency survey |
||
Very few agencies have implemented initiatives in relation to accessible training, or for people with intellectual disability, although a slightly larger number, 14 agencies (16%), have used contractors that specifically employ people with an intellectual disability, a slight increase on the 12% of agencies reported last year. Half of these agencies were using these contractors for outsourced work such as mail-outs and six agencies also reported using them to recruit people with an intellectual disability into their agency.
There is considerable potential for agencies to do more in this area. Although the trend to limit base-level recruitment (APS 1–2) has greatly reduced opportunities available in the APS for people with intellectual disabilities, job redesign of some lower-level positions, incorporating routine administrative tasks could provide appropriate employment opportunities. An example of this is described below:
FaCSIA is working with the Employers Network on Disability and other private and public sector agencies to agree on a process to provide young people with intellectual disabilities with traineeship opportunities.
Evaluation—Better practice approaches to attracting and retaining employees with disability
In response to the MAC report, Employment of People with Disability in the APS, in 2006–07 the Commission undertook an evaluation of better practice strategies used in agencies to support the recruitment, retention and development of people with disability in the APS. Six agencies—Centrelink, Defence, FaCSIa, the Family Court, the Royal Australian Mint, and Questacon—agreed to participate in the evaluation.
The objectives and methodology of the evaluation are outlined in Appendix 3.
The evaluation confirmed the central importance of a strong, overt commitment from the agency head to the employment of people with disability. Other key findings are as follows.
Existing initiatives
A number of agencies, particularly larger agencies, had developed specific strategies to improve the way that they attracted employees with disability, including:
- specific policies on the recruitment and retention of people with disability
- specific policies and guidance material for managers explaining the principle of reasonable adjustment
- ensuring that outsourced recruitment providers comply with the agency’s own recruitment policies relating to people with disability
- work experience programmes for students and graduates with disability
- building consultation with employees with disability into reviews of accommodation to ensure access issues are properly identified and addressed
- developing awareness raising material concerning issues about mental illness in the workplace.
Improving understanding
The evaluation identified that, while there was a lot of support and goodwill in APS agencies concerning the employment of people with disability, there was also often a real level of ignorance and stereotyping about the issues involved. This finding suggests that agencies could consider additional efforts to:
- better communicate the understanding of what is meant by ‘disability’, so that employees do not see it as limited to sensory or mobility disability but understand that it applies to a broad range of conditions, including many different forms of impairment, mental illness and intellectual disability
- challenge assumptions that people with disability can perform only a limited range of functions and that there are not suitable jobs for people with disability in their agency
- promote the research which establishes that employing people with disability is not necessarily going to reduce productivity within a workplace, and is rarely expensive
- distribute information about the support available to employers when they wish to employ people with disability.
Improving recruitment
Concern about the way in which agencies advertise and fill vacancies was a common theme emerging from the evaluation. a number of suggestions for improvement were identified. These included:
- ensuring that people understand the nature of the merit principle and how that might be affected by the disability of an applicant, and their responsibilities to provide reasonable adjustment to applicants with disability during a selection process
- identifying the ‘inherent requirements’ of a position—enabling people making selection decisions to understand that people with disability can often perform a job’s duties in a different way, or that the duties of a job may be able to be redesigned at the margin
- improving clarity in processes and documentation so as to focus on what is genuinely required to perform the duties of the position being filled
- advertising vacancies in a way that taps effectively into the pool of available candidates with disability, including notifying vacancies with specialist disability support agencies using the National Disability Recruitment Co-ordinator
- using existing arrangements established within tertiary institutions to access graduates with disability.
Ability at Work
To support agencies in their efforts to improve the way they attract and retain employees with disability, the Commission launched Ability at Work: Tapping the talent of people with disability in June 2007. This publication, based on the findings of the Commission’s evaluation, provides agencies with an array of better practice advice, information, and training resource materials to support them in the way that they recruit and employ people with disability.
This publication is available in hard copy and in Braille, and is also available on the Commission’s website.
Support
The provision of support both to employees with disability and their managers is paramount to building an inclusive workplace. Two MAC objectives relating to this are:
- accessible premises, workplaces and supportive work environments for people with disability
- reduced complexity, cost and risk for managers employing people with disability.
Most agencies have implemented initiatives that relate to each of these objectives (see Table 5.9).
Almost all agencies have provided adaptive technology or other support to facilitate the contribution of employees with disability in the workplace. Just over three-quarters also identify the modifications required by new employees before they commence with the agency. The provision of a senior-level advocate or an agency network were much less common.
| Initiatives | Yes (%) | No (%) |
|---|---|---|
| Objective five—Accessible premises, workplaces and supportive work environments for people with disability | ||
| Identify reasonable adjustments required by new employees with disability before they commence duty | 78 | 22 |
| Provide access to adaptive technology or other practical support required by employees with disability | 92 | 8 |
| Identify an SES officer to act as a senior-level advocate for employees with disability | 16 | 84 |
| Operate an agency network for employees with disability | 6 | 94 |
| Offer AWAs to people with disability to provide flexibility to meet individual reasonable adjustment needs | 23 | 77 |
| Objective six—Reduced complexity, cost and risk for managers employing people with disability | ||
| Centralised funding for adaptive technology or other forms of practical support | 51 | 49 |
| Adaptive technology provided to employees is transferred with them when they move within the agency | 82 | 18 |
| A centralised source of information and expertise (such as disability action officers, case managers or ready access to external sources of information) to assist managers and employees with disability | 70 | 30 |
| Provide training and/or awareness programmes for managers and/or employees on mental illness, depression or related disorders | 50 | 50 |
| Source: Agency survey | ||
The most common initiative in relation to reducing complexity, cost and risk for managers is allowing adaptive technology to be moved with employees when they transfer within the agency, followed by the provision of a centralised source of information and expertise. Around half of agencies provided centralised funding for support or training or awareness programmes to managers and employees on mental illness.
Improving and monitoring performance
As stated in the MAC report, ‘what gets measured gets valued’. One way of measuring agencies’ progress is to look at the proportion of people with disability working in each agency. To do this requires a workable definition of disability, and this is the essence of objective seven—‘Consistent conceptual framework for defining disability’.
The MAC report identified two definitions of disability for use in the APS.
The first (broader) definition is to be used by agencies in developing recruitment and retention policies. This year, 55% of agencies reported that they had adopted the definition of disability in s. 4 of the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 as a basis for developing recruitment and retention strategies.
The second (more specific) definition of disability is to be used by agencies as part of their employee data collection. Forty-five per cent of agencies reported that they have adopted the definitions of ‘disability’ used by the ABS Disability, Ageing and Carers: Summary of Findings 2003 survey to collect data and statistics from APS employees.
Agencies that have not yet adopted these definitions should adopt them as a priority.
Consistent definitions of disability are, however, only one part of the story. Encouraging employees to complete and/or update information on their disability status on agencies’ HR systems is the essential step that allows agencies to report on the representation of people with disability in their agency. Only 53% of agencies reported that they actively encourage employees to update their disability status on their HR systems. Given continuing concerns about the quality of data provided by some agencies, it is important that all agencies take action on this issue. Cultivating a workplace culture in which employees feel comfortable about disclosing their status for statistical purposes will be an important part of this strategy.
The last objective in the MAC report is that agencies demonstrate continuous improvement in recruiting and retaining people with disability. To assess progress against this objective, agencies were asked to list additional recruitment strategies adopted in 2006–07 to support the employment of people with disability. Agencies reported a range of innovative strategies, including:
- participation in the Workplace Modification Scheme
- becoming a member of the Australian Employers Network on Disability
- participating in the ‘Stepping into Law’ programme, which provides paid employment for final year law students with disability during the semester break
- implementing a programme to transition interested staff from the Koomarri shopfront into mainstream agency employment
- organising for the Australian Employers Network on Disability to undertake a desk audit of agency recruitment practices
- working with a number of agencies to provide traineeship opportunities to young people with intellectual disabilities
- raising awareness of the benefits of broadening the pool of potential applicants by considering specialist advertising directed to specific groups, including people with disability.
Employee perceptions of agency support
Consistent with the relatively high level of agency activity, 58% of employees agreed that their agency actively encourages the recruitment and employment of people with disability. This is slightly lower than the proportion of people agreeing last year (61%). It was also substantially lower than the proportion agreeing that their agency encourages the recruitment and retention of people from all cultural backgrounds (77%) and similar to the proportion agreeing that their agency encourages the recruitment and employment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (60%).
Women, young people (those aged under 25 years), APS 1–6 employees and the SES were more likely to agree that agencies actively encourage the recruitment of people with disability, while employees located in the ACT, as well as the EL group, were least likely to agree. In the 45 agencies with individual agency-specific results, the proportion of employees agreeing that their agency actively encourages the recruitment and employment of people with disability varied quite widely, ranging from a low of 31% to a high of 70%. There was no difference between the views of employees with disability and employees not in this group.
Agency reporting on the Commonwealth Disability Strategy
The Commonwealth Disability Strategy (CDS) was introduced in 1994. It was a ten-year planning framework to assist Australian Government agencies to meet their obligations under the (Commonwealth) Disability Discrimination Act 1992. The CDS, which has since been extended, enables Australian Government agencies to recognise and consider the needs of people with disability in the development and delivery of policies, programmes and services.
The CDS includes a reporting framework built around a number of key roles performed by Australian Government agencies (Policy Adviser, Regulator, Purchaser, Provider and Employer). The framework requires all Australian Government agencies, with the exception of Government Business Enterprises, to provide data on their performance against the framework in their respective annual reports. FACSIA has responsibility for implementing changes to the Strategy.
In addition to reporting performance against the CDS roles in their annual reports, agencies have provided performance information relating to the employment of people with disabilities to the Australian Public Service Commission as part of the agency survey for the annual State of the Service report. To remove this duplication and allow for more effective analysis of APS progress against this aspect of the CDS, responsibility for reporting against the employer role has been transferred from 2007–08 to the Commission. FACSIA is reviewing the performance indicators for the employer role to ensure they reflect the recommendations in the MAC report, Employment of People with Disability in the APS.
The State of the Service report will be used as the main vehicle for reporting on the effectiveness of the APS in employing people with disability. The remaining roles will continue to be reported on in agency annual reports. It remains important that agencies continue to recognise the employer role as an intrinsic part of the CDS and that they continue to deliver the outcomes of the employer role set out in the CDS.
Employee engagement and job satisfaction
Employees with disability continue to have lower rates of overall job satisfaction (73% compared with 81% for the APS). Lower rates of job satisfaction have been consistent for this group over a number of State of the Service reports. They also have lower satisfaction against 11 out of the 12 employee engagement factors identified in Chapter 3 (see Figure 5.6). The only factor for which employees with disability were more satisfied than employees not in this group was the Merit factor. The largest differences were for the Work Group and Senior Leaders factors.
The top five workplace attributes that influence how satisfied employees with disability are with their jobs are the same as those not in this group. However, people with disability put slightly more weight on flexible working arrangements (see Table 5.10).
Figure 5.5: Employee satisfaction with factors identified through factor analysis— employees with disability and employees without disability, 2006–07
Figure 5.5 shows employee satisfaction with factors identified through factor analysis for employees with disability and employees without disability in 2006–07. Employees with disability had lower satisfaction ratings against all employee engagement factors except Merit.
Source: Employee survey
| Employees with disability | Employees without disability | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | Workplace attribute | Nominated factor (%) | Satisfied (%) | Workplace attribute | Nominated factor (%) | Satisfied (%) |
| 1 | Flexible working arrangements | 56 | 88 | Good working relationships | 56 | 90 |
| 2 | Good working relationships | 50 | 90 | Flexible working arrangements | 49 | 91 |
| 3 | Salary | 48 | 56 | Salary | 45 | 69 |
| 4 | Opportunities to utilise my skills | 44 | 66 | Opportunities to utilise my skills | 38 | 75 |
| 5 | Good manager | 35 | 64 | Good manager | 38 | 76 |
| Source: Employee survey | ||||||
Employees with disability had similar levels of satisfaction to other employees with flexible working arrangements and good working relationships, but were less satisfied with the other three most important attributes. The relatively low level of satisfaction with the attribute good manager is of particular importance, considering the role that managers play in both improving employee engagement and job satisfaction, and in retaining employees.
9 The method used to calculate the proportion of employees with graduate or tertiary qualifications includes those with qualifications at bachelor’s degree level and above. It excludes from the denominator those for whom no data was provided by agencies, and those who chose not to provide details of their highest qualification.
10 Australian Public Service Commission 2007, Ability at Work: Tapping the talent of people with disability, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, <http://www.apsc.gov.au>
11 Management Advisory Committee 2006, Employment of People with Disability in the APS, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, <http://www.apsc.gov.au/mac>
