Creating inclusive environments in employment for people with disabilities
What is the aim of WAM?
The central aim of WAM is to widen access to mainstream employment for graduates with disabilities while working with and supporting employers to create a more inclusive workplace.
Participating employers collaborate with WAM to offer ring-fenced full-time positions for graduates with disabilities paid at the appropriate level. This partnership creates a space where employers are supported by WAM in disability auditing their HR and recruitment practices and to ensure graduates with disabilities are fully supported in the workplace. Since 2005, The WAM programme has placed over 560 graduates with disabilities into a range of multi-national and public sector employers in Ireland. In the past two years alone, WAM has worked with the Civil Service, ESB, NTMA, Central Bank of Ireland, Bank of Ireland, Pfizer, Salesforce, Diageo, Meta, Allianz, Enterprise Rent-a-Car and many more.
In June 2021, AHEAD commissioned research on Employer Attitudes on Recruiting and Hiring People with Disabilities and the results showed that only 37% of employers have strategies to pro-actively recruit people with disabilities. Ireland’s employment equality legislation permits employers to take positive action measures to integrate people with disabilities (alongside people over the age of 50 and members of the travelling community) into employment.
How does the WAM programme operate?
For over 15 years the WAM programme has been in operation. WAM has found that the most effective method of breaking down barriers in hiring people with disabilities is by ‘just doing it’! Engaging in the process of recruitment and having a graduate with a disability in your workplace challenges any practices, processes, policies and attitudinal barriers that may exist and subsequently improves and changes these and provides opportunities for people with disabilities to fully participate in the workplace. AHEAD can support employers every step of the way to ensure that their inclusive recruitment runs smoothly.
What is a disability?
In our survey, we asked employers, ‘What is the first disability that comes to mind?”. The majority of employers responded with physical disability, wheelchair user, blindness, autism and Down Syndrome. Most of these are visible disabilities, when in actual fact, most disabilities are invisible! For example, mental health conditions, dyslexia, ongoing illnesses, dyspraxia and ADHD to name just a few. Many people also don’t realise that conditions like diabetes are technically classed as a disability under employment equality legislation and employers have a legal obligation to reasonably accommodate employees with this condition.
In 2020, we released statistics on graduates placed through WAM which gives a detailed analysis of the disability profile which is available for download here. The highest cohort of placed graduates was those with a specific learning difficulty (dyslexia) at 21%, with mental health difficulty placing second at 19%. The third highest is physical disability at 15%, significant ongoing illness at 14%. Blind/visually impaired represent 10% of our graduates, deaf/hard of hearing representing 7% and ASD representing 5%. Dyspraxia/dysphagia represented 4%, neurological/speech and language difficulty at 3% and then ADD/ADHD at 2%.
How does WAM work for employers?
- Start engaging with WAM by attending our employer training events, learning from our network of employers, and start initiating conversations internally in their company and with the WAM Team.
- Identify and ring-fence graduate level roles for exclusive advertising on AHEAD’s WAMWorks Database.
- Work with WAM to identify inclusive recruitment processes suitable for the role.
- Student and graduates with disabilities registered on the WAMWorks Database apply following the criteria outlined in the application process and share any reasonable accommodations required for every step of the recruitment process. AHEAD can advise employers on providing any reasonable accommodations requested.
- Employers conduct all CV screening and interviewing in line with their mainstream practices, ensuring reasonable accommodation is put in place. Disability equality or pre-interview training is provided if requested by the employer.
- When successful candidates are identified by the employer, WAM undertakes a comprehensive needs assessment to identify any workplace supports required in line with the Employment Equality Act.
- Graduates undertaking WAM placements should always have a mentor, a volunteer within the company who is on a different team and a similar level to the new recruit, to help them settle into the company.
- WAM provides pre-placement training both face-to-face and online with the graduate, manager and mentors prior to the graduate commencing work.
- WAM supports all parties involved in the placement process from the beginning of the placement until its completion.
You can find more information in our brochure.
Testimonials from employers and graduates
- 80% of our WAM graduates secure employment as a direct result of WAM
- 94% of WAM graduates gain confidence in their ability to work in a mainstream environment.
“There are benefits to your immediate work area, in terms of getting a graduate with a relevant skill set, but there are also benefits beyond your own unit/branch in terms of challenging perceptions and bias and promoting equality which is important for any manager” - Line Manager of WAM Graduate.
“It got me back on my feet and into employment, which I have continued in for the last three years. Gained great confidence to return to the workforce and learned how to manage my disability.” - WAM Graduate
To read more about statistics and information on the programme over the last number of years, you can download our WAM statistics report here.
Additional Resources for your Organisation
Free training webinars
During the pandemic, WAM moved its employer training events online in the format of short webinars. These ‘WAMinars’ are freely available to use as training resources within your company on a variety of topics, such as autism, dyslexia, hybrid working, unconscious bias, mental health and much more!
Visit our YouTube Channel for a full playlist of our WAMinars
Discover your assistive technology
Curious to know if there are technologies to assist you in doing your work more efficiently? Or perhaps you or a colleague has a disability and you are keen to know what assistive technology could benefit you? Try out our AT Hive, where you just have to answer three simple questions and it will point you in the right direction!
Visit our Discover your AT Tool here.
Employment Manager
AHEAD
