Microsoft: “Employment of people with disabilities is good”

ANCOR is sharing this blog post on the power of inclusion by Microsoft because people with disabilities face unemployment at higher rates than their peers without disabilities. Many of our members assist people with disabilities with finding employment, which includes persuading businesses to consider the individuals they support as applicants. Of note, Microsoft shares in this blog post that they are amending their supply contracts to require all suppliers pay people with disabilities minimum wage or above.

As written by Microsoft:

“Our mission at Microsoft is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. That includes the 1+ billion people with disabilities around the world. We believe that people with disabilities are a strength for our company and a talent pool that adds not just diversity but expertise and empathy that make our products, services and culture better. Under this guiding principle, over the last several years we have launched employment programs focused on bringing in the untapped talent of people with disabilities. One of those programs is our Supported Employment program run by our Real Estate and Facilities team. Since the program started, over 270 supplier positions have been filled by external staff with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) on Microsoft campuses globally, and that number is steadily growing. The learnings have been immense and have helped shape our approach to external staffing. We are sharing these learnings with our supplier base of over 30,000 organizations around the world.

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People often ask about the impact on business. Employment of people with disabilities is good for values and good for the bottom line. There are many examples of employees with disabilities who are more loyal, reducing the cost of turnover, the cost of recruitment and the cost of onboarding. The numbers show that companies that champion disability inclusion are more profitable, according to The Disability Inclusion Advantage-Getting to Equal, October 2018. But numbers are only part of this story. Equally important is the impact that hiring will have on the life of someone who faces barriers to employment. With an unemployment rate for people with disabilities that is twice that of the national average, the opportunity is real and the time is now.”