EEOC commissioner pushes hiring of people with disabilities

A new bill to promote diversity in the Senior Executive Service would take important steps toward improving the presence of people with disabilities in SES ranks, but agencies can do more to hire and promote disabled employees, Equal Employment Opportunity Commissioner Christine Griffin told Government Executive.

"I think it's a good opportunity," Griffin said of the legislation introduced by Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, and Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill., in October. "I'm happy to see disability in there….We need to really start focusing on getting people who are in the pipeline advanced."

The legislation would provide centralized oversight of agency efforts, create and promote mentoring programs for potential senior executives, and set up three-person panels to review and report on SES appointments.

Griffin said such efforts were important for people with disabilities because they are underrepresented both in the federal workforce as a whole and in the SES in particular. The number with targeted disabilities hit a 20-year low in fiscal 2006, falling to 0.94 percent of the workforce, or 24,442 overall. More than half of federal workers with targeted or severe disabilities are in General Schedule Grades 1 through 8, as compared to one-third of all federal employees. People with disabilities hold only 0.46 percent of positions above GS 15.

Griffin said it was essential to promote employees with disabilities because such promotions would "demonstrate to the other SES members that people with disabilities can do the job." She said that kind of action was crucial to overcoming societal prejudices.

"I think some of the factors are whether it's managers, supervisors, etc., they don't look at their employees with disabilities as someone who should or needs to advance," she said. "I think there is a widely held perception that they're less qualified."

Challenging such perceptions would help bring more employees into the workforce at a time when the government will need many more new workers, Griffin noted.

"This government has to get a grip now because [the Office of Personnel Management] is predicting this retirement tsunami," she said. "Here is an untapped pool of people who would love to work…. What I've found over time, there are very few people with disabilities who can't work. I would think that as a society, we would embrace that people do want to work and don't want to be on benefits…. We're in an age where technology is so available and unbelievable. There's no reason they can't be accommodated."

Griffin said the government in particular should do more to accommodate disabled employees because it has access to adaptive technology that could be unavailable or expensive for private sector employers. She cited the Computer/Electronic Accommodations Program at the Defense Department, run by Dinah Cohen, as an example of one that can help disabled employees contribute fully to their agencies.

Gaining access to the workforce is key to winning full equality for disabled Americans, according to Griffin. "Seeing you out and about, while that's good, it's really only in the workplace that people get to know you and know you're the same as them," she said. "It's not just economic. It's who you are. What is the first thing we say to each other: What do you do. People with disabilities miss out on that whole societal piece."