Disability Awareness Handout C
Do's And Don'ts For Supervisors
Managers are being called upon to confront the perceptions and behaviors of their workers regarding disabilities. Before they can take on this responsibility effectively, managers must confront their own perceptions of what it means to have a disability and the extent to which workers with disabilities can and should be an integral part of the work environment. Managers can serve as role models to help eliminate prejudices among subordinates, but this role cannot be achieved until managers face up to their own perceptions and attitudes.
The most important aspect of supervising and managing employees with disabilities is treating them in a manner that is equitable to the way you treat all employees. Just because a job accommodation may be required does not mean a supervisory accommodation is necessary. The following are tips for effective supervision:
Do
- Respect the employee as a person.
- Ask the person who has a disability which is the best way to accommodate his or her physical limitations.
- Expect the same good work habits, the same quality of work and the same production levels from workers with disabilities as you would from others.
- Give honest feedback to the employee who has a disability. Everyone makes mistakes, and everyone wants feedback to improve his or her performance.
- Include employees in all activities, such as staff meetings or picnics.
- Expect the employee to have the same ambitions as others.
Don't
- Be afraid of employees with disabilities. They won't break, and you can't catch their disabilities.
- Feel sorry for the person's disabilities. Get to know him or her by discovering their abilities.
- Feel like the person is more fragile emotionally than others. Constructive criticism produces growth.
- Assume the person can't perform a certain task. Ask how he or she will do the task. Help the person figure it out.
- Talk down to employees with disabilities or treat them like children.
Empowerment techniques
One of the most difficult challenges managers may face is altering the perceptions and opinions of co-workers. Individuals within the work group may be uninformed about a specific disability or about disabilities in general, and the resulting prejudices not only will impact the performance of workers but also violate Americans with Disabilities Act rules regarding perceptions of people with disabilities.
The formation of work groups or teams with interdependent tasks is one technique to help remedy this problem, by promoting greater contact between the worker with a disability and co-workers. Assigning tasks and responsibilities to a team rather than individuals has the potential to help workers with disabilities become a part of the mainstream. Too often these workers are isolated socially by the nature of their jobs; this prohibits coworkers from gaining any knowledge or a better understanding about them and their disabilities. Although the move toward interdependent tasks and self-managed work groups has become more popular due to its many benefits for organizations, such efforts also could be an ideal means to fully socialize workers with disabilities within companies and offer employees the chance to get to know their co-workers better.
Disability Awareness - Handout C