Disability in the Labour Market: An Exploration of Concepts of the Ideal Worker and Organisational Fit that Disadvantage Employees with Impairments

TLDR

Disability is associated with large, persistent adverse employment effects. The article investigates the source of the deep, enduring employment disadvantage faced by disabled workers. The authors examine how historically constructed notions of the ideal worker, informed by gendered organizational analysis, lead to job designs that mismatch formal descriptions with disabled employees, as illustrated by four Employment Appeal Tribunal cases. The mismatch between job design and disabled employees is central to organizational resistance to adjustments and radical inclusion.

Abstract

The adverse employment effects that attach to disability are empirically well established. They are large and persistent. This is a conceptual article that investigates the source of this deep and enduring employment disadvantage. Debate begins by examining the origins of ideas that have shaped approaches to work study and have influenced concepts of what constitutes an ideal worker. Drawing on feminist critiques of organisational analysis that have highlighted the gendered character of processes, practices and values, it explores the relatively neglected position of disabled employees. With reference to transcripts from four Employment Appeal Tribunals brought under the Disability Discrimination Act, it illustrates how standard jobs, designed around ideal (non-disabled) employees, create a mismatch between a formal job description and someone with an impairment. We suggest this mismatch is central to the organisation’s resistance to implementing adjustments and also to any radical approaches to include impaired employees in the workplace.