Disabled People Work and Small-Medium-Size Enterprises

The UK Government aims to get one million more disabled people into paid work by 2027. Small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) dominate the UK business population and have been a more robust employer of the unemployed compared to larger firms. Consequently, it is critical to understand how SME employers experience the recruitment and retention of disabled people but the SME employer voice is largely missing from disability employment studies. It is also important to know how disabled people experience employment in SMEs. The government has consulted on strengthening the right to request flexible working, in efforts to address work-life-balance, but this does not prioritise disabled people as beneficiaries despite flexibility being the key adjustment that enables many to work.

My PhD research found that disabled people often feel welcome in SME workplaces and consider smaller employers to be more accommodating of their needs because of close interpersonal working relationships. It was this closeness that reduced a fear to 'disclose' their impairment, thus reducing a dilemma for people with hidden impairments in particular. Disabled people were also positive about informal approaches to receiving workplace accommodations, and flexibility to arrange their working hours, location and tasks around impairment effects. On the whole, SME workplace cultures tended to be viewed positively, suggesting that larger employers could learn from this. It was also evident that SME employer experiences are nuanced and informed by the sector in which they operate, the level of knowledge they have about their legal obligations to provide reasonable adjustments, their understanding of disability as either socially created or as an individual problem. Employer attitudes and values are shaped by earlier proximity to disabled people (either through having a disabled relative
or previous experience of hiring disabled people) and these prior relationships are an important proxy for inclusion. The research found that employers were also more inclined to consider recruiting people from the same impairment category. The study also found evidence that small employers often worry unnecessarily about the cost implications for their business and making adaptations. Promoting schemes like Access to Work (AtW), which offers practical advice or financial support to businesses and disabled workers may encourage more small employers to recruit disabled people.

My fellowship has three main aims, which will allow me to build an academic career that engages with and informs disability employment policy and practice. First, I hope to make a significant contribution to understandings of inclusive employment practice. I will focus on submission of two articles in high-ranking journals. Second, I will build connections with policymakers and non-academic audiences who can influence SME employer behaviour. As part of the dissemination process, I will organise an online workshop with policymakers, SMEs, disabled people, and stakeholder organisations including the Federation of Small Business, CIPD and ACAS. Third, the fellowship will provide professional development opportunities, including training, building international relationships, and occasional research-related teaching opportunities relevant to my research. The various activities will feed into the development of a three-year Early Career Fellowship proposal to conduct international comparative research on disability employment policy focussed on the SME business population.

Overall, the fellowship will enable me to develop my academic career whilst contributing to a much needed policy focus on the role of SMEs in the recruitment and retention of disabled people.