Many associate the low participation of persons with disabilities (PWDs) in the workforce with the employers’ attitude towards PWDs. Employers are said failed to acknowledge the disabled population as the talent pool of skilled workers. However, little attention has been given to the issues and challenges that employers faced in hiring and managing PWDs. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to explore employers experience in hiring and managing PWDs at the workplace and issues that they faced. To uncover these issues, input from 19 employers were gathered through an on-site semi-structured interview. As cited by the employers, among the crucial issues employers faced in hiring PWDs include the difficulties to locate potential PWDs, PWDs lack of needed skills to perform task and employers’ lack of communication skill to deal with PWDs. In terms of issues relating to managing PWDs at the workplace, the findings showed that PWDs who been hired need extra training in order to perform the given task. Apart from that, employers also shared that they are facing difficulties in dealing with PWDs negative attitude and mentality, communication problem, difficulties in handling PWDs, managing PWDs safety, matching work with PWDs ability, negative perception from co-workers and management and cost in managing PWDs. Based on the findings, several suggestions and recommendations were put forward to increase participation of PWDs in the workforce.
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In-Text Citation: (Manaf, Othman, Saad, & Jamaluddin, 2019)
To Cite this Article: Manaf, A. R. A., Othman, S. Z., Saad, Z. M., & Jamaluddin, Z. (2019). Is it Right to Blame Employers for not Hiring Persons with Disabilities? International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 9(2), 1–9.
Copyright: © 2018 The Author(s)
Published by Human Resource Management Academic Research Society (www.hrmars.com)
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