Diversity an Individual Responsibility?

Diversity is an individual responsibility. We diversify our lives by taking full advantage of the richness of opportunity this world has to offer. The workplace becomes more inclusive as we serve as examples for others to emulate and continue to be the forbearers of the next generation of professionals, still waiting to come to the fore. Together, we can maximize inclusion, and we will.

As employers, you may want to affirmatively include people with disabilities for similar reasons. People with disabilities come from all different backgrounds, all different races, and all different socio-economic perspectives. People with disabilities come from everywhere in our society. Many of the same arguments for including race and gender diversity would also extend to including disability diversity.

I feel that sometimes a lot of bias is really motivated by the unconscious discomfort that people have with obvious disabilities. People without disabilities see someone who has a disability and are uncomfortable.

In our society, we have so many devices, accomodations, and innovations that were developed initialy as a way of providing inclusion for people with disabilities. There is a litany of improvements, starting with voice recognition software.

Thinking about disability as a form of diversity helps to overcome any such prejudices.

http://www.eeoc.gov/types/ada.html