Tips for employers on inclusive hiring

How employers can build inclusive hiring practices that attract and support talent with disabilities

Guest blogger: Lillian Brooks

For talent acquisition leaders, HR managers and department heads accountable for hiring outcomes, disability inclusion can feel like a high-stakes balancing act between speed, risk and fairness. The challenge is that many employers still treat inclusive hiring practices as compliance work, which leads to missed talent and uneven candidate experiences for new hires with disabilities. Done well, disability-inclusive hiring strengthens workplace diversity and improves how teams collaborate, adapt and deliver. The disability employment benefits show up in performance, retention and reputation, and they reward employers who build inclusion with intent.

What Inclusive Culture Looks Like in Practice

Inclusive culture is not a slogan or a one-time accommodation. It is a day-to-day way of working where access is assumed, tools are usable and people can ask for what they need without penalty. Supportive structures make that real, including accessible work environments, clear disability inclusion policies and employee resource groups that create feedback loops.

This matters because disability is far more common than many teams realize, with the true number of disabled employees being closer to 25%, meaning your “standard” process already serves disabled candidates and employees. When inclusion is designed in, hiring becomes more consistent, managers feel less uncertainty, and new hires ramp faster.

Adopt These 7 High-Impact Practices That Remove Barriers to Hiring

1. Make accommodations routine, not exceptional: Create a simple “request, respond, document” workflow that HR and hiring managers can follow in under 48 hours. Stock a small accommodations menu (flexible start times, alternate formats, noise-reducing options, captioning) so managers aren’t improvising under pressure. Cost concerns are often overestimated; the U.S. Department of Labor notes nearly half of workplace accommodations come at no cost to employers, which makes it easier to commit to fast responses.

2. Publish disability-friendly job descriptions: Rewrite postings to focus on outcomes, not physical assumptions (for example, “move packages” becomes “manage inbound inventory with appropriate equipment”). Separate “must-haves” from “nice-to-haves,” and remove vague requirements like “excellent communication” unless you define what that means in practice. Add one plain line such as “Accommodations are available throughout the hiring process and on the job” and specify a contact method that doesn’t rely only on the phone.

3. Fix your career site and application flow for accessibility: Make your website navigable by keyboard, use descriptive link text, add alt text to images and ensure forms work with screen readers. Run a basic accessibility check quarterly and also test your application on a mobile device using only a keyboard to catch friction fast. If you use timed assessments, offer an untimed alternative by default or clearly explain how to request extra time.

4. Build inclusive recruiting practices into every stage: Standardize interviews with a skills-based scorecard, share interview agendas 24 hours in advance and allow multiple formats (video, phone, text-based) when feasible. Train interviewers to focus on essential functions and avoid “culture fit” proxies; SHRM recommends an accessible hiring process that includes accommodations in interviews and accessible technology for assessments. This reduces bias while improving candidate experience.

5. Create internship programs for disabled individuals with real conversion paths: Partner with local workforce agencies, disability-led campus orgs and vocational rehabilitation providers to source candidates. Design internships with a defined project scope, a single point-of-contact mento, and a conversion decision date (for example, “offer/no-offer by week 10”). Treat internships as a pipeline, not a charity, track conversion rates and performance like any other early-career program.

6. Offer structured career planning opportunities from day one: Add a 30/60/90-day growth plan to onboarding and schedule quarterly career conversations that cover skills, accommodations need and next-role readiness. Tie these plans to your tuition support benefit: employees should know what certificates or degree pathways map to promotions, and managers should know how to approve time for learning without penalizing performance.

7. Use low-cost incentives to sustain adoption: Recognize managers who hire inclusively and follow the accommodations process well—small rewards work when tied to measurable behaviors (timely responses, accessible interview setup, documented development plans). Budget a modest “accessibility line item” per team so managers don’t delay small changes while waiting for approvals.

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For years, Lillian Brooks worked as a special education teacher with a focus on teaching children with learning disabilities. She created the website, Learning Disabilities, to offer information and understanding to parents of children with learning disabilities, as well as adults who are in need of continued support in order to succeed.