Employers
1 in 5 Australians have a disability.
If you haven’t employed someone with a disability you’re excluding 20% of your potential employees and 20% of your potential customers.
Services and Benefits
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1. Working for your company...
...To develop a culture of inclusionIn Australia today
Does your company include people with a disability as an EEO target group?
...To recruit from the biggest pool of skills
2. Working for your customers...
...To reflect your customer baseBusinesses that do not respond positively to the needs of people with a disability will inevitably lose market share while those that respond to the needs of this market will increase their share and opportunities.
...To benefit from improvements in the workplace
When making adjustments in the workplace for a person with a disability, you are probably making it safer and more comfortable for all staff, customers and the general community. Necessity is often the mother of invention.
For example:
3. Working for your bottom line...
...Because people with a disability often make better employees |
Employers say:
Incentives
The DEWR Services provides both financial support to employers who are considering employing a person with a disability through the Wage Subsidy and the Workplace Modifications Schemes. Information about this assistance is available at the Department's Office of Disability Support.
Information about the many training programs offered by the Federal Government, including New Apprenticeships, can be found at the Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs website.
Wage Subsidy
| Up to 13 weeks |
| Average of 8 to 10 hours per week. |
| Variable Financial Assistance available |
Wage subsidies are available for a range of employment situations. The subsidy period is a maximum of 13 weeks, and employment must average a minimum of eight to ten hours work per week for a vacancy to be eligible.
Employers receiving a subsidy must make every effort for the position to result in ongoing employment of at least three months after the subsidy ends.
Wage subsidies for employing people with a disability are now co-ordinated by the Commonwealth DEWR. The amount payable per vacancy is flexible and discretionary. Please consult your local Specialist Employment Service before commencing employment.
Successful ways to let Greenacres help your business
Greenacres Employment Solutions has been successful in placing jobseekers across many industries in full-time, part-time and casual positions. This success has been achieved through a range of innovative employment solutions developed in discussion with individual businesses.
Some of our most effective employment solutions
Job Carving:
Situation: Need to free specialist employees to focus on their main tasks.
Solution: Job carving – a job is created by “carving” off duties from existing positions.
Job Sharing:
Situation: Need to find more time for a present employee to take on new tasks.
Solution: Job sharing – a present employee shares a job with a Greenacres Employment Solutions worker to allow them to take on new tasks. For example, a second receptionist may be hired to answer phones, pay bills and complete filling while the original receptionist can take on quality control duties.
Peak Production Assistance:
Situation: Need reliable assistance at peak production times.
Solution: Peak production assistant – a Greenacres Employment Solutions worker is hired to assist at busy times. For example, Pizza Hut may hire a worker to wash dishes and pizza pans during lunch hours.
Routine tasks:
Situation: Need to reduce wages bill.
Solution: Only pay skilled wages for those duties that require them. A Greenacres Employment Solutions worker is employed to complete routine tasks. Greenacres Employment Solutions workers have been successful in a wide range of jobs such as baker’s assistant, laundry attendant, kitchen hand, cleaner etc.
All our placements are offered with an optional 5-day work trial at no cost and no obligation to you.
During this trial you will be able to observe the potential worker. Throughout the trial an Greenacres Employment Solutions Training Officer will be there helping the worker to fit into the workplace.
If you are unsure as to how our organisation can help you, call us. We are only too happy to talk with you and identify any areas in which a successful working
The Workers
TYPES OF DISABILITY
The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) defines disabilities under the following categories:
Physical disabilities
A physical disability is one that affects the mobility or dexterity of the person.
A person with a physical disability may need to use some sort of equipment for assistance with mobility. It also includes people who have lost limbs or who, because of the shape of their body, require slight adaptations to be made to enable them to participate fully in society.
A physical disability may have existed since birth or it could be the result of an accident, illness, or injury suffered later in life.
Paraplegia and Quadriplegia are what many people first identify with a physical disability. Paraplegia results from injury to the spinal cord, occurring below the neck, while quadriplegia refers to damage to the spinal cord in the neck. Varying degrees of loss of limb and other mobility may result from either condition. The conditions are often caused by motor vehicle accidents.
Other forms of physical disability, such as polio (an acquired disease), cerebral palsy (damage to brain tissue during fetal stages) and some genetic conditions can result in loss of mobility.
Intellectual or learning disabilities
People with an intellectual, learning, or cognitive disability have a reduced capacity to learn tasks or process information.
A learning disability may make it difficult for a person to take in information and communicate what they know. Learning difficulties can cause difficulties in reading, writing, or mathematics. Celebrities who have made public statements about their learning disability include Susan Hampshire, Greg Louganis, and Nelson Rockefeller.
Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) is an intellectual disability, and it may make it difficult for a person to sit calmly and give a task their full attention.
Learning disabilities and Attention Deficit Disorder together affect between 3% and 10% of the workforce. As workers, people with these disabilities are often intelligent, creative, and productive. Both are considered psychological or mental impairments.
The term Cognitive Disability is derived from the word 'cognition', which is the mental processes by which knowledge is acquired. These processes can include perception, reasoning, problem solving, and intuition. People with a Cognitive Disability may have trouble learning new things, in making generalisations from one situation to another, and expressing themselves through spoken or written language. The disability comes in varying degrees and may be found in people who have been classified in school as learning disabled, mentally retarded, autistic, multiply handicapped, or who have suffered a head injury or Down's Syndrome.
Intellectual or learning disabilities may be caused by physical damage, lead poisoning, or as a result of medical conditions such as encephalitis, disorders of metabolism, brain tumours or difficulties experienced during pregnancy (e.g. German Measles).
Psychiatric disability
A Psychiatric disability (or mental illness) can develop at any age and are often apparent to other people. One in five people in Australia will experience a mental illness during their life.
Psychiatric disabilities are often the most misunderstood disabilities in the community, and peoples' attitudes are often based on prejudice and myth (e.g. schizophrenics are potentially violent).
Mental illnesses can include stress-related conditions, major depression, bipolar disorder (formally called manic-depressive illness), anxiety, and schizophrenia. Depression is the most common non-psychotic mental illness (psychosis being a disorder which features the loss of contact with reality).
The causes of different mental illness are not clearly understood, but they are often linked with genetic and environmental factors.
Sensory disability
The term sensory disability most commonly refers to a visual or hearing impairment (often referred to as blindness or deafness).
People can be born with reduced sight or hearing, or none at all. Someone may also lose all, or part of, their sense of sight or sound due to an accident, illness, or the natural aging process.
Only 5% of 'blind' people can't see anything.
People who are Blind or have a Vision Impairment
Modern adaptive technology in the workplace has minimised the impact of vision impairment for the majority of people. Word processing programs now come with a standard screen-image enlargement capability, and if insufficient, software such as "Zoom-Text" can be loaded to enhance images or Braille translators can be attached for people who are blind. Paper documents can be enlarged using photocopiers or magnification devices.
People who are Deaf or who have a Hearing Impairment
Deafness and hearing loss can be caused by a wide range of factors, including physical damage, disease during pregnancy, or exposure to very loud noises.
There is a distinction between people who are deaf and those who have a hearing impairment.
Those hearing up to three years of age (when language begins to be learnt) often have comparatively good speech and lip-reading ability.
Similar to vision impairments, the development of computers has greatly reduced the effect of a hearing impairment in the workplace. Equipment, such as the simple paper and pen, as well as Telephone Typewriters and e-mail, have made communicating with hearing impaired co-workers relatively easy.
Neurological disability
A neurological disability is associated with damage to the nervous system that results in the loss of some physical or mental functions.
A neurological disability may affect a person's capacity to move or manipulate things or the way they act or express their feelings. The way they think and process information may also be significantly influenced. The brain and the spine are the areas of the body most closely associated with neurology.
Heart attacks, serious infections, and lack of oxygen to the brain may also result in a neurological disability.
People with a Brain Injury
Acquired Brain Injury, or ABI as it is known, is perhaps the most widely known neurological disability. A person may acquire a brain injury in a number of ways. ABI can be the result of an injury to the head or brain, a major cause being road accidents. Individual responses vary greatly, depending on which part of a person's brain is injured.
It is often wrongly assumed that people with a brain injury have an intellectual disability; this is rarely the case.
Common Questions
What types of job are/aren’t suitable for people with disabilities?
People with disabilities work successfully in a wide range of jobs and industries. As with other people, suitability for a particular job depends on the individual possessing the necessary skills, abilities and personal attributes. If you use the services of a Specialist Agency, they will match the right person to the right job.
Will we be expected to spend more time training and supervising a person with a disability?
No. All new employees require training. Sometimes, depending on the tasks they have been allocated, a person with a disability may need some extra assistance with initial training and on-the-job support. Specialist agencies recognise your time constraints and will provide a support worker to cover any extra training and supervision needs of the worker so that employers are not disadvantaged.
Will the work be up to standard?
Yes. Jobseekers with disabilities want, as much as anything else, a job in which they can take pride. Quality of work is as important to their reputation as it is to an employer’s reputation. Training methods used by specialist agencies emphasise that the worker must learn to do the job to the required standard before learning to produce at full speed.
Will a person with a disability be able to perform complex tasks?
Yes. It’s a common myth that people with disabilities are only able to perform simple, repetitive jobs. People with disabilities work successfully in all areas of the workforce in manual and technical jobs, and in clerical and professional positions. Many are tertiary or trade qualified and hold senior managerial positions.
If required, using the on-the-job training provided by specialist agencies, enables complex jobs to be broken down into easy-to-teach and easy-to-learn steps to train the worker to your standards.
What if, due to their disability, a person is unable to work at full productivity?
Currently the majority of Australians with a disability employed in the open workforce work at productivity levels equivalent to their co-workers and receive a full award wage.
However, there are some very motivated and able jobseekers who, due to the effects of their disability are not as productive. This is where the supported Wage System (SWS) can help. Employers can employ SWS-eligible people with a disability at a wage which equates to their independently assessed productivity. What this means for employers is that, dollar for dollar, a worker with a disability is just as productive as workers who do not have a disability. What it means for SWS-eligible jobseekers is that they are able to compete fairly for jobs in the open workforce. (See Supported Wage System for further information)
What questions can/can’t I ask about a person’s disability?
Clients of specialist agencies will have agreed to disclosure of relevant information to prospective employers. The agency consultant will be able to answer most, if not all, of your questions before you meet with their client, avoiding any awkwardness or embarrassment to employer or jobseekers.
During a formal job interview questions should be framed as for any other job applicant to ascertain the individual’s ability to perform the essential requirements of the job. Questions relating to disability should only be asked in order to identify whether any adjustments will be required to assist the person to do the job. Inappropriate and unnecessary questioning may be in breach of the Commonwealth Disability Discrimination Act or state legislation.
How can we be sure that a person with a disability will 'fit in'?
When you recruit through a specialist employment agency, they will look over the worksite and lilies closely with management and co-workers to ensure any concerns are dealt with before employment commences.
How should a person with a disability be treated at work?
Treat a person with a disability with respect, as you would any other employee.
This can include making sure they are included in workplace events and social events.
How will co-workers respond?
If you have recruited your employee through a specialist employment agency, they will be happy to talk with co-workers. There are a number of Disability Awareness workshops and accredited Co-worker Training courses available.
What happens if it doesn’t work out?
Nothing. Its win/win or no deal. Specialist agencies value highly those employers who are prepared to give people with a disability a ‘fair go’ and will make every effort before, and during employment, to ensure that both employer and employee are happy. However, as with any employee, there will be occasions when things don’t work out. In these situations your normal procedures for dealing with performance problems would apply.
Research shows that employees with a disability rated average or better on job performance, work safety, and attendance, plus there was no increase in compensation costs (Du Pont). It was also found that employees with a disability have a higher annual retention rate and a definite positive effect on staff morale (Pizza Hut). So the odds are in favour of a person with a disability working out.
