A guide will appear in Ukraine that will help enterprises adapt their work teams for hiring of specialists with disabilities. On 30 April, experts of the Confederation of Employers of Ukraine presented draft recommendations for employers “Development and implementation of an internal corporate policy on integration of persons with disabilities”. The guide covers the entire set of questions that arise from the moment of preparing to hire to creating physical conditions and a psychological atmosphere for effective work of employees with disabilities.

The draft recommendations have been prepared by the Confederation of Employers of Ukraine within the framework of the project "Establishing a consultative system for the integration of persons with disabilities into the workplace". This project is implemented with the support of the International Labour Organization’s initiative funded by the Government of Belgium, titled "ILO Support to Ukraine: prevention of labour exploitation and human trafficking, support to entrepreneurship development and social partners" as well as the ILO RBSA project "Promoting inclusive and sustainable reconstruction in Ukraine".

“Ukraine has lost half of its labour potential over 10 years. Our goal is to promote the quickest possible re-launch of the labour market, and to decrease shortage of skilled professionals. Today, at least 1.5 million persons with disabilities have no job. The road of such people to the labour market requires addressing many questions. To accelerate this process, we prepare enterprises and explain how they should create physical and psychological conditions that would enable workers to do their jobs as effectively as possible. For that purpose, companies should develop special policies, and we will be teaching them to do that in a correct way”, said Oleksii Miroshnychenko, President of the Confederation of Employers of Ukraine.

The first step in policy development consists of self-auditing. “We suggest that employers conduct self-assessment that includes, according to our recommendations, several stages. First of all, legal readiness should be assessed, that is conformity of internal documents with legislative requirements. When an employer realizes that the legal environment allows implementing an integration policy, it is very important to assess the employer’s own resources – workplace adaptation sometimes does require resources, though small”, said Olena Stepanenko, expert at the Confederation of Employers of Ukraine.

The next stage includes assessment of the staff willingness to accept an employee with disability, especially if the company has had no such experience yet. Then, space accessibility assessment and adaptation of HR processes follow.

The document defining the inclusivity policy should set forth approaches to job placement of a person with disability, and establish internal standards, rules of conduct and communication within the team. “We advise to develop a policy implementation plan and monitor its execution from time to time, for example once a year. It will allow to make business more resilient to challenges”, Olena Stepanenko said.

The recommendations will be useful not only to heads of enterprises of any ownership form and HR experts, but also to corporate responsibility managers and internal trainers working with business.

“A curriculum has already been developed on the basis of the guide. Participants of the trainings receive the course materials, video instructions, and a package of internal documents – in fact a finished policy with all documents”, Oleksii Miroshnychenko said.

“Creation of a special policy is a great step made by business on its path to inclusion”, said Svitlana Zapara, First Deputy Head of the National Mediation and Conciliation Service of Ukraine.

Stefan Tromel, Senior Disability Specialist at the International Labour Organization, pointed out that enterprises often need a quick advice concerning the development of a policy on adaptation of employees with disabilities. “Perhaps, the Confederation could play the role of such an advisor – for example, open a hotline that an employer could call and say: “We have a specific situation – what should we do?”. Besides, it is essential to revise the recruiting process – so that persons with disabilities receive information about vacancies”, Stefan Tromel noted.

Obtaining state funding for workplace adaptation will be easier if the requirements on having an individual rehabilitation programme is cancelled.

“The procedure for providing subsidies from the Fund for Social Protection of Persons with Disabilities is regulated by a governmental resolution issued in 2006. The document defines that the need for creation of a special workplace and requirements thereto shall be established by an individual rehabilitation programme for persons with disabilities. In reality, the number of persons with disabilities for whom an individual rehabilitation programme exist is very little, and it is hard for an employer to obtain state support for adaptation of such people”, said Yurii Ivanov, Head of the Right to Work Division at the Ombudsman’s Office.