Disabled employees displaying lower levels of engagement

Disabled employees have significantly lower engagement than their non-disabled peers, analysis of employee survey data has revealed. 

Employee experience platform Culture Amp found that very few organisations globally were collecting data on the experiences of their disabled employees. Only 7.6% of the companies using its product measure employee sentiment by disability status.

In 2022 only 5.7%, or 256 companies, used Culture Amp to survey staff asked about disability.

Among the organisations that did collect this data, disabled workers reported lower levels of engagement than their colleagues without disabilities.

For example, only 72% of disabled men and 62% of disabled women agreed that they felt valued for the contribution they made to their employer, compared with 78% of non-disabled men and 66% of non-disabled women.

Disabled employees also rated their productivity 10 percentage points lower than the rating non-disabled colleagues gave themselves.

They also felt less supported in making use of flexible working arrangements (77% of disabled women and 83% of disabled men, compared with 86% and 89% of non-disabled women and men respectively).

And they were also less likely to say their manager showed a genuine interest in their career aspirations. When asked about their employer’s efforts to make them aware of career opportunities at their organisation, disabled employees scored 17% lower than their non-disabled peers.

Culture Amp said employers wanting to improve the experiences of disabled employees should start by collecting data about disability status.

Aubrey Blanche, senior director of people operations and strategic programs at Culture Amp, said: “Not seeing disability won’t make it go away, and it certainly won’t stop the legacy of discrimination and exclusion present in our society and thus in our organisations.

“For organisations that have made a commitment to equity and inclusion, measuring and responding to the disabled experience is a non-negotiable. With estimates from 17% to more than 30% of the world being disabled… it’s a nearly indefensible talent strategy to ignore or fail to prioritise these employees’ experiences.

“What’s more, we know that when organisations design themselves to support people with disabilities, they actually build workplaces that work better for non-disabled people as well.”

Senior people scientist Heather Walker said: “As a disabled woman working in the tech industry, I can attest to the effort it takes to push back against oppressive cultural narratives of disability. I hope that seeing this self-rating is sobering for other disabled employees like it was for me.”

She added: “I hope companies do more to rid their workplaces of ableist practices that sustain exclusion on the basis of disability.”

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Culture Amp’s analysis was based on engagement benchmarks taken from its survey database, which includes responses to 40 million surveys and answers to almost 1 billion questions. Its benchmarks have minimum thresholds of 20 companies and 20,000 responses.

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