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PEOPLE WITH A DISABILITY

There is no consistent definition across the APS of what constitutes disability for the purpose of EEO data collected by agencies. Some agencies use a specific definition, based on the impact of the disability on how the person works, for example, while others leave it to individuals to decide whether to disclose a disability for the purpose of EEO data. There are also different types of disabilities that are likely to affect employment in different ways, for example:

• sensory, physical, psychological, and medical
• disabilities of different severity
• episodic, continuous, short term, and degenerative disabilities
• disabilities that are acquired pre or post employment.

In addition to these definitional issues, it needs to be stressed that reporting of data on disability like other EEO data is voluntary and it is important when considering the data relating to people with a disability to understand that it is an approximation only of the incidence of disability, however defined, across the APS.

Over the past decade, the data shows a consistent decline in the employment of people reporting a disability as a proportion of APS employees. In absolute terms, the number fell each year until 2001—02, before recovering slightly in 2002—03 and 2003—04, but this slight recovery still left a continuing decline in those years as a proportion of ongoing employees. Currently, people with a disability represent 3.8% of ongoing APS employees, down from 5.8% ten years ago. While the decline in absolute numbers can be partly explained by a reduction in the number of APS 1—2 positions, where people with a disability have historically made up a greater percentage of employees, there has been a decline at all classifications, as Figure 8.6 indicates. This contrasts with the picture for Indigenous employees (Table 8.7). During 2003—04 representation was stable overall, but continued to decrease at the APS1—2 and SES levels, and rose slightly at the APS 3—4 levels.

Figure 8.6: Ongoing staff: Proportion of people with a disability by classification, 1995 to 2004

Source: APSED

Engagement and separation rates for people with a disability have changed slightly over the 10 years to June 2004. However, for each of the past ten years, except for 2002—03, there has been a consistent pattern of separations outnumbering engagements. The engagement rate in 2002—03, however, was unusually high. In 2003—04, the representation of people with a disability in ongoing engagements was 2.2% (compared with 3.0% in 2002—03) and their representation in ongoing separations was 4.5%.

Agencies with relatively high proportions of people reporting a disability are EOWA (10%), the Office of National Assessments (ONA) (9.8%), Questacon (9.6%) and the Australian Industrial Registry (AIR) (8%). None of these agencies is large, and so the actual numbers of people with a disability they employ is relatively small. Ten agencies reported that they employed no people with a disability on an ongoing basis. These agencies were small except for one medium-sized agency (AEC). Figure 8.7 below shows the proportion of people reporting a disability in agencies with more than 1000 ongoing employees.

Figure 8.7: Proportion of people with a disability in agencies with more than 1000 ongoing employees, 2004

Source: APSED

AGENCY SUPPORT FOR THE EMPLOYMENT OF PEOPLE WITH A DISABILITY

The agency survey asked agencies about their strategies to recruit and retain people with a disability. The employee survey asked about employees’ perceptions of whether their agency supports the employment, development and promotion of people with a disability.

Recruitment of people with a disability

Table 8.12 sets out the number and types of strategies agencies use to facilitate the recruitment of people with a disability.

Table 8.12: Agency strategies to recruit people with a disability

Source: Agency survey

Note: Results in this table do not include those agencies that did not respond to the question about the particular strategy.

The use of measures to facilitate the recruitment of people with a disability was more common than for Indigenous employees, with 85% of agencies using at least one measure.⁶ Most agencies reported using a combination of strategies to facilitate the recruitment of people with a disability. Thirteen agencies did not have any strategies in place, although two of these agencies were developing strategies.

Most of the agencies that did not have strategies to facilitate the recruitment of people with a disability were small, except for four medium-sized agencies. There is a relationship between agency size and the number of strategies used, with larger agencies more likely to have used multiple strategies.

The most common strategies used to facilitate the employment of people with a disability were ‘providing assistance during the application process’, ‘appropriate accommodation made to any testing situation’, ‘providing information and/or access to advice on reasonable adjustment measures in the workplace’ and ‘seeking expert assessments on reasonable adjustment in relation to specific cases’.

Retention of people with a disability

Table 8.13 sets out the frequency of strategies used by agencies to retain people with a disability.

Table 8.13: Agency strategies to retain people with a disability

Source: Agency survey

Note: Results in this table do not include those agencies that did not respond to the question in relation to the particular strategy.

The large majority (90%) of agencies reported that they had at least one measure to retain people with a disability, more than for Indigenous employees (72%). The majority of these agencies had more than one strategy in place. However, five medium and four small agencies reported that they had no strategies for retaining employees who have a disability.

There has been a 14 percentage point increase during 2003—04 in the frequency of strategies used by agencies to retain people with a disability, particularly in the use of access to contact officers and skills development, and access to flexible working arrangements. ‘Flexible working arrangements’ remains the most commonly used strategy; it is used or being developed by all but five small and five medium agencies.

Employee perceptions

This year’s employee survey asked respondents to indicate their level of agreement with the statement ‘my agency actively supports the employment, development and promotion of people with a disability’, as it applies in their agency. Fifty-five per cent of all respondents agreed with this statement. This result was much lower than similar questions in relation to women and people from all cultural backgrounds, but similar to the level of agreement about agency support for Indigenous employees.

The proportion of employees that agreed with this statement in large agencies ranged widely (from 23% to 75%) with the highest agreement rates at FaCS, CRS and BOM.

While of concern, the results in relation to agency support for people with a disability are broadly consistent with results in the Victorian public sector from the Victorian Government's People Matter Survey 2003 in relation to employees’ perception of disability issues in employment.⁷ While not directly comparable, the Victorian Government found that only 70% of employees agreed that ‘disability is not a barrier to success in my workgroup’, 15 percentage points lower than a similar statement in relation to gender, and 19 percentage points lower than a similar statement about cultural background.

Fifty-six percent of people who did not have a disability agreed that their agency actively supports the employment, development and promotion of people with a disability, compared to only 48% of people with a disability.⁸

The following represents a sample of the comments employees made about their agency’s support for people with a disability.

Given the nature of the duties undertaken by staff we have limited opportunities to take on and promote people with disabilities.

Greater attention could be given to the recruitment of persons with a disability.

During the past five years, I have not seen one person with a disability or an Indigenous person appointed.

While the agency employs such people I do not believe that they develop and/or promote people with a disability in all cases.

People with disabilities are not welcome. I've seen people with workplace injuries treated pretty shabbily.

Whilst [agency name] does employ people with disabilities such as myself, their support of such people via the use of adaptive technology accessibility as a priority when new products are developed e.g. the [agency intranet] , online leave forms and time sheets, leaves a lot to be desired. In addition it is personally a stressful thing for me to always have to play catch up when, as is the case most of the time, products are developed and released for staff use without access issues for staff such as myself even being considered.

JOB SATISFACTION–PEOPLE WITH A DISABILITY

Background information on the job satisfaction questions in the employee survey is found above at the section ‘Job satisfaction–women’.

Table 8.14 sets out the most important job satisfaction factors chosen by people with a disability, compared to those for people who do not have a disability.

Table 8.14: Most important job satisfaction factors, by disability status

Source: Employee survey

Note: The results in this table relate to factors chosen and rated by respondents. Data for factors chosen by respondents who did not go on to rate their satisfaction with those factors is not included.

Of the most important job satisfaction factors chosen by people with a disability, four were common to people without a disability; they are ‘regular feedback/recognition for effort’, ‘good manager’, ‘salary’ and ‘good working relationships’. Some major differences emerge, however, when the proportions satisfied with those factors are compared.

The proportion satisfied with the factors that were chosen by employees with a disability, as set out in Table 8.14, ranged from 33% to 76%, with a rating of more than 50% being achieved for only one factor, ‘good working relationships’. The range for people without a disability was 52% to 86%.

People with a disability also rated ‘opportunities to utilise my skills’ among their most important job satisfaction factors. Their satisfaction with this factor, however, was only 44%, compared to 63% of those employees without a disability who also rated it as important. The result for ‘opportunities to develop my skills’ was also poor (33% compared to 60% for people who do not have a disability), this factor being just outside the five included in Table 8.14.

‘Flexible working arrangements’ was also just outside the five most important job satisfaction factors for those with a disability. Satisfaction with this factor was relatively positive (69%) but still well below that for employees without a disability (81%).

An examination of results of all 16 factors shows that 65% or more of people with a disability were satisfied with only four of the 16 factors. This is a poor result compared to people without a disability (65% or more were satisfied with nine of the 16 factors).

When the summary index results for people with a disability (57% scoring over five out of 10) are compared with employees who do not have a disability (75% scoring over five out of 10), there is a similarly large disparity in overall satisfaction.

The largest difference in any of the job satisfaction factors was in relation to ‘a safe and healthy work environment’, where only 41% of people with a disability who considered this factor among the most important were satisfied, compared to 75% of other employees.

The low job satisfaction levels of people with a disability are of concern. This is particularly an issue as they are consistent with a number of other results for this group reported throughout this year’s State of the Service report. These include:

• a higher likelihood of believing that they had experienced discrimination and bullying or harassment (see the ‘Bullying, harassment and discrimination’ section in this chapter)
• lower rates of satisfaction with how reports of discrimination, bullying or harassment are dealt with (see the ‘Bullying, harassment and discrimination’ section in this chapter)
• lower levels of satisfaction that their supervisor would support their use of flexible work practices (see the ‘Work-life’ section in this chapter)
• lower rating of the effectiveness of their supervisor at managing people (see Chapter 9).

These results are consistent with results reported in 2002—03. They are also consistent with generally poor satisfaction rates for people with a disability reported in a survey of the NZ public service conducted in 2000. This survey found that people with a disability were less likely to have rated their manager as ‘good’ at ‘encouraging and supporting’ their career development, more likely to have rated their ‘access to high-profile work’ as ‘poor’, more likely to have reported ‘being set unrealistic goals’, and less likely to have rated their jobs as ‘good’ at ‘providing a reasonable workload’. The NZ survey also found that people with a disability were more likely to have reported having experienced unfair treatment on the basis of a personal characteristic, and to have experienced unwelcome behaviour.⁹

6 It is not possible to compare this result with the result from the agency survey in 2003, due to significant changes to the corresponding question in 2004.

7 See <http://www.ope.vic.gov.au>. Caution should be exercised in comparing the results because of the differences in wording of the questions, and differences in methodologies between the two surveys.

8 For the purposes of the employee survey, a disability was defined as any physical, intellectual or psychological restriction or lack of ability (resulting from an impairment) to perform an activity in the manner or within the range considered normal. Impairment can include people suffering from ongoing illness or injury.

9 NZ State Service Commission, Highlights–Career Progression and Development Survey, 2000–Results for the New Zealand Public Service, April 2002.