A struggling economy and job market worsened by the Covid-19 pandemic has left the youth unsure about whether they’ll find employment after school or university.
Those with disabilities have an even tougher time finding possible employment.
Although many companies do offer disability learnerships, most fail to utilise these opportunities to their full potential. Instead they boost their Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) scorecard with disability learnerships without considering the personal impact that such learnerships can have on individuals with disabilities.
For business leaders, this short-sighted approach needs to shift to facilitate greater inclusion for the workforce.
Learnerships are perfect for the youth to gain valuable workplace experience while earning a living wage and opening the door to further skills development possibilities. Programmes specifically designed to include the disabled workforce could be the path to unlocking even greater business value.
Disability learnerships are intended to create an environment in which individuals with disabilities can develop skills they never dreamed they could have, making a meaningful contribution both to society and to the company they’re working with.
This requires learnership programmes to be designed in a manner that appreciates the potential of learners with disabilities while considering that their needs are different than that of the rest of the workforce.
A change in mindset is required to enable learners with disabilities to thrive.
Companies with disability learnerships might spout the usual Community Social Investment messaging about good intentions and developing segments of the workforce that have been traditionally overlooked. But most are doing it for the scorecard value without following the learnership through to its intended conclusion.
This is because organisations are not taking an integrated approach to the development of their disability learnerships and recognising the important role that these programmes can play.
Here, organisations need to examine what skills they need, and how they can potentially empower learners with disabilities to develop skills instead of simply executing on the easiest way to earn scorecard points.
To properly facilitate a learner with disabilities, it is necessary to look at their holistic development. This means focusing on the whole person, their disability and how they manage that disability, both at home and in the workplace. Without an understanding of how they manage their disability at home, they are going to struggle to get to work, making it unlikely that they will finish the training.
As such, a specific disability support process is useful to look holistically at that individual and plan how to grow and develop their skills while addressing the challenges they face in the workplace.
This involves looking at the individual’s home circumstances and medical records and finding a way to support that, while looking at what other skills will help to grow that person.
It is necessary to help the individual build confidence within themselves and their newly found abilities.
- Without confidence, they will struggle to deliver in the workplace.
