According to a recent article published in The Conversation, people who experience hearing loss and deafness in Canada are being unnecessarily excluded from employment opportunities. The overall population of people experiencing hearing loss around the world is growing, and the number of Canadians with hearing loss in the workplace is thus increasing, but only about 20% are employed full-time. This, according to the article, is due to workplace discrimination, a lack of accessibility, and isolation.
In an attempt to resolve this issue, the aforementioned article provides the following tips for helping colleagues who experience hearing loss feel included:
- Avoid assuming an employee with a disability is less able;
- Ask individuals with hearing loss about their preferred communication methods and provide reasonable accommodations;
- Create a sense of openness and flexibility to ensure that all employees feel comfortable requesting accommodations as needed.
I would argue that the first tip here is much easier said than done. To avoid making assumptions goes against the brain’s natural way of doing things. The brain loves to make assumptions.
Occasionally, this works well for us, for example when we can safely assume a hot pan will burn us. Other times, however, assumptions are the things that burn us. For example, a hiring manager might assume that a person who experiences hearing loss will not be able to carry out the duties of the job they are hiring for. If the hiring manager does not actually consider the person’s ability to carry out the specific duties, and instead assumes they are unable, this amounts to discrimination.
As it turns out, discrimination such as this constantly happens. There’s something called disability bias that gets in the way of employers hiring the best people for their jobs. Disability bias is the tendency our brains have to assume a person’s disability makes them unable to perform tasks more generally. Like other forms of unconscious bias, disability bias clouds our judgement and leads to poor decisions. The good news is that just like with other forms of bias, we can indeed disrupt these problematic thinking patterns if we take the right steps.
A little dose of awareness goes a long way
Our brains can be rewired into new ways of thinking if given the chance.
Even biased thinking can be changed – and unlawful discrimination averted – when leaders take steps to educate themselves about unconscious bias and methods for inclusion.
Resources:
How workplaces can create more inclusive environments for employees with deafness and hearing loss, November 2023
David C Baldridge, Professor of Management/Organizational Behavior, Oregon State University
Brent John Lyons, York Research Chair in Stigmatization & Social Identity, Associate Professor of Organization Studies, York University, Canada
Camellia Bryan, Postdoctoral Fellow, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto
Liu-Qin Yang, Professor of Industrial-Organizational Psychology, Portland State University