This webinar aims to raise awareness to HR
managers/practitioners about invisible disabilities, by sharing
experiences and good practices.
Background
Many disabilities are less apparent than others
and there is much more to disability than meets the eye. For example,
people with learning difficulties, mental health conditions, and autism,
are not necessarily visible. Therefore, people may not realise that
others suffer from a condition or disability unless they are
specifically informed of them. These types of conditions demand a new
way of approaching disability. Acknowledging the presence and validity
of invisible disabilities is a key component of this awareness effort.
Many
people with invisible disabilities deal with critical judgments and
discrimination due to a lack of understanding. Fear is a major reason
why people with disabilities — invisible or otherwise — do not disclose
them. Those who are already employed may be afraid of opening themselves
up to discrimination. Another reason for silence is that people with
invisible disabilities may think that co-workers will not believe that
they have a disability, and job seekers may be reluctant when asked on
an application if they have a disability. Many fear that answering yes
will reduce their chance of getting the job.
The COVID-19
pandemic has disproportionately affected many who have historically
faced significant barriers to employment, including people with
invisible disabilities, compounding the economic hardships they faced
before the pandemic. Traditionally, people with disabilities face
persistently lower rates of employment compared to their peers without
disabilities. In addition to the increased health risk associated with
the pandemic and increased risk of exposure in many in-person
workplaces, people with disabilities have been confronted with lost
wages, job loss and long-term unemployment.
Human resource
management practices play a particularly important role in making the
Indonesian labour market gender equal and inclusive. A better
understanding of hidden disabilities can improve the staff wellbeing in
the workplace. People would feel more comfortable to talk about their
condition, ask their employers to change their desk chair, shift time,
or work site to help them have the best experience in their career.
Decisions and actions of HR professionals could open doors for
disadvantaged groups of people to employment and allow them to utilize
their skills fully. Building a gender equal, non-discriminative, and
inclusive workplaces free from discrimination starts with awareness of
HR professionals.
Against this backdrop, the United Nations
initiates to implement a project “Employment and Livelihood: An
Inclusive Approach to Economic Empowerment of Women & Vulnerable
Populations in Indonesia”. The project is funded by the UN Multi-Partner
Trust Funds (UN MPTF). Four UN agencies, International Labour
Organization (ILO), UN Development Programme (UNDP), Joint United
Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), and UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR)
implement the project. This webinar series is one of the activities in
the project.
The webinar series is in collaboration with the
Ministry of Manpower, Association of Indonesian Employers (APINDO),
Indonesia Business and Disability Network (IBDN), Indonesia Business
Coalition for Women Empowerment (IBCWE), the National Movement for
Competent Indonesia (GNIK) and other like-minded organisations. One of
the topics is “Invisible disabilities in the world of work: How can we
create a more inclusive work place?”. In this topic, we would like to
share good human resource management practices that promote gender
equality, non-discrimination, and inclusiveness at workplaces, with the
human resource directors, managers and practitioners as the target
audience.
Objectives
This webinar aims to raise
awareness to HR managers/practitioners about invisible disabilities, by
sharing experiences and good practices. The participants will learn how
to assure fair recruitment, avoiding biases and unintended
discriminations for people with invisible disability. By having the
awareness, it is expected that the audience can make their workplaces to
be equal, non-discriminative, and inclusive for everyone.