What disabled workers expect from companies beyond National Disability Employment Awareness Month

October was National Disability Employment Awareness Month (NDEAM), and employers including Amazon, Microsoft, and JPMorgan Chase all touted disability inclusion and hiring efforts in recognition.

Despite the month-long celebration of disabled workers, and a lower unemployment rate of disabled people in recent years, disabled people are still nearly twice as likely to be unemployed, and face discrimination in the workplace. They are also less likely to work in senior positions, something that has not improved in recent years, according to research from LinkedIn.

Emily Ladau, a disability rights activist, told HR Brew that some employers say they’re inclusive, but don’t show how they’re inclusive throughout the year. To shed light on this discrepancy, she sported a T-shirt that read “Not your diversity statistic” during NDEAM.

“It feels to me very inauthentic and it feels like it is simply focusing on meeting a particular moment,” she said. “But the rest of the year, [they do] not do very much to put any action behind that.”

She wants employers to understand that disability is not a monolith, and disabled workers are not just a diversity statistic. “There are more than a billion experiences of disability around the world,” Ladau said. “So you can’t just condense those experiences into a number or a statistic.”

What disabled workers want. I asked disabled workers what they think HR should focus on to be more inclusive of disabled workers and received a lot of feedback:

“Survey your employees on how you are doing with your disability inclusion program. Find out from them directly what is working and what is not. Asking a third party to assess your program is great, but the real story comes from your employees.”—Meg O’Connell, founder and CEO, Global Disability Inclusion

“Disability inclusion training for managers, so they can guide their employees if they need that support.”—Zane Landin, a communications specialist and advocate

“Provide all employees with training courses for building disability awareness and understanding, steps for providing accommodations, and fostering an environment of disability inclusion.”—Anna Beninger, VP of DE&I, Liberty Mutual

“Be more creative with the interview process. A standardized sit-down, face-to-face interview can be a make-or-break moment for an autistic candidate who is otherwise highly qualified for the job.”—Rebecca Z., a New York State government employee

Finally, several respondents—as well as Ladau—said they wanted continued access to remote work. “If remote work is a possibility in your company, and you’re denying people simply because you think that it’s better off if everybody is in the office, that’s not being disability inclusive,” she said.