The most common employee disability is invisible 

According to the US Census, about one in seven people is living with a disability. Given these large numbers, we need a better understanding of this population. What issues do they present with? What can be done? What is the experience like at work? Can we do anything to improve it?

The trends

Over the last 13 years, Mercer has gathered data, in partnership with Global Disability Inclusion, from more than 5 million employees to better understand the work experience for people with disabilities.

The data show that people with disabilities make up approximately 7% of the work force. When compared to their non-disabled co-workers, those with disabilities have significantly lower scores around the opportunity to advance, less likely to feel they could speak up at work and feel less that their role makes good use of their skills and abilities.

Taken further, those with disabilities were also less likely to feel like they were treated fairly at work. As a result of this, they also have significantly lower employee engagement scores: less proud about their organization, less likely to recommend, and less likely to wish to stay with the organization.

The good news about this research is that over time more companies are studying disability status as part of their Diversity, Equity and Inclusion research, with a low of 8% in 2011 and then increasing to 14% in recent years. In addition, more people are disclosing their disability status to their employers.

Despite these gains, however, employees with disabilities still consistently show lower levels of engagement and less of a connection to their organizations.

New research

While a number of organizations have been able to enact change in their organizations with heavy attention and action planning, others have needed help digging deeper into their disability inclusion space to better understand these employees and their needs.

A new more targeted, anonymous survey developed and launched by Global Disability Inclusion, with support from Mercer, found, like earlier studies, that 7% of the organization identified as having a disability.

What was intriguing was that only 1% reported having a visible disability, that is a disability that could be easily identified by an outside observer; 6% of the people reported having an invisible disability. For every one person with a disability you could see, there were six people with a disability that you couldn’t identify. A far greater difference than we originally anticipated.

But this begs the question, what were their presenting disabilities? This unique survey opportunity enabled us to surface more data than before. We found about half of those with disabilities identified a “Mental Health” condition as their primary disability. Half.  

• ^{Cognitive/Learning: Attention Deficit, Autism, language processing, dyslexia, etc.}
• ^{Hearing: Deaf, hard of hearing, utilizes hearing aids, etc.}
• ^{Mental Health: OCD, Schizophrenia, Bipolar, Depression, Phobias, Anxiety, TBI, PTSD, etc.}
• ^{Neurological: MS, Cerebral palsy, Epilepsy, seizure disorder, dementia, Parkinson's, etc.}
• ^{Physical/Mobility: Wheel chair user, limb difference/amputee, little people, etc.}
• ^{Vision: Blind, color-blind, low vision, etc.}

What can we do as organizations?

Recent advances in mental health care offer innovative solutions that allow for early and easy interventions. Innovative Employee Assistance Programs allow for multiple avenues to connect employees with the treatment they need. Whether an issue arises at home, at work or as a result of a predisposed condition, these EAPs allow for multiple modalities of treatment. There are typically three levels of support depending on clinical needs and employee desires.  

The first line of support is self-help tools such as online training, webinars and computerized cognitive behavioral treatment to allow employees to progress at their own rate. Should individuals need more support, individual coaching can be utilized so employees can get more guidance from a professional typically targeting sub-clinical needs. Finally, for those with more clinical needs, virtual or in-person mental health therapists can support individuals with sufficient sessions to evidence change (typically 8).  

By attending to mental health concerns early and providing the right level of care, innovative Employee Assistance Programs may help people resolve issues before they get worse by giving them skills and techniques to help better navigate mental health issues they may be experiencing. The more difficult it is for individuals to get the help they need and the more time that passes, the greater likelihood their issues will progress to potentially becoming a disability.