Abstract:
It is important that employees with disabilities are recognised as valuable contributors to the growth and profitability of organisations and ultimately the country. However, on the broad status of disability and equality, data reveals that despite access to guidelines, there has been very little progress regarding the awareness of and action to address the stigma and misconceptions about disability, nor enough work to enable the development of skills to accommodate persons with disabilities into the workplace adequately.
Evidence shows that employers still discriminate against employees with disabilities and do not fully utilise the talents and skills that persons with disabilities can bring to the workforce.
The ideal outcome is that managers should strive to create an inclusive workforce and to implement all labour and Employment Equity legislation meaningfully.
The goal of the study was to identify and describe the challenges experienced by managers of employees with disabilities. By law, employers are obligated to evaluate the effectiveness of their workplace strategy on the management of disability at regular intervals and make improvements where required. The study was motivated by lack of availability of research and understanding of the experiences and challenges of managers of employees with disabilities.
It was found that managers are predominately unable to effectively manage employees with disabilities because they are not trained nor provided with the requisite skills and knowledge to deal with issues of disability in the workplace.
The study from an EAP perspective was motivated by the minimal research on the involvement and role of EAP in disability management in the workplace. The potential role of EAP regarding disability management was identified in the study. The role for EAP in disability management and recommendations in the regard is likely to have implications on the practice of EAP in relation to the management of employees with disabilities within the workplace.
