'All I want is a chance': Plea from jobseekers with disabilities

Wednesday, 17 August 2022

Workbridge offers employment support to overcome 'barriers' to beneficiaries with health issues eager to work.

Despite being a qualified barber, Caitlin Sheehan struggled to find work that didn’t make her feel miserable every day.

She wasn't diagnosed with ADHD until she was 20, and despite life being “a lot easier” since, for 18 months she struggled to find work.

Last week, National Party leader Christopher Luxon confirmed Jobseeker beneficiaries with a disability or a health problem could face sanctions under National's plan to get young people off welfare.

The policy promise has drawn criticism from advocates, who have hit back at ableist rhetoric and notions of laziness ascribed to those forced onto Jobseeker benefits. And now, some in the community are speaking out in the hope of changing the narrative.

* Disabled woman secures job after Covid-19 sparks rise in working from home option

* Job-seeker tool launched for people with disabilities amid 'employment crisis'

Caitlin Sheehan was a client of Workbridge, who helped her find a new job and move off the benefit.

Sheehan, 22, found the barbering industry “not very supportive” and other previous employers were not accommodating to her needs.

“With ADHD, the worst thing I deal with is time blindness. My body clock doesn't run the same … so it was constantly being told off and being in stressful situations,” Sheehan said.

“I wanted a job that I was going to do long term and not wake up and feel miserable about.”

Sheehan wasn't diagnosed with ADHD until she was 20, and despite life being “a lot easier” since, for 18 months she struggled to find work.

Sheehan is one of more than 700 people with a disability being supported by Workbridge – a disability-owned and led organisation, supporting people in the disability community into employment.

Within three months of working with the organisation, she had her first interview with Beam Mobility and was offered a job fixing e-bikes.

“It’s the first job where I’ve made it past two months and I’m still waking up pretty excited to go to work.”

The job was hands-on and offered something different every day.

Workbridge chief executive Jonathan Mosen says the biggest challenge facing jobseekers with disabilities is “attitudinal”, and there is not enough education for employers who shy away from employing those with a disability.

Sheehan said she liked to tell people about her diagnosis when applying for jobs but previous experiences had made her lose her confidence.

Workbridge, which celebrated its 90th anniversary last week, advocated for people with a wide range of disabilities and ages.

It helped Sheehan to present her ADHD in a positive light, rather than focusing on what she would struggle with, she said.

Emily Mason, 52, has had help from Workbridge to find employment after an injury to her ankle left her unable to partake in full-time work.

“The last job I had, I lasted six shifts before I quit and it’s the only job – touch wood – that I’ll ever quit.”

Last year, almost 1 in 10 employed disabled people said they felt they had a ‘high’ or ‘almost certain’ chance of losing their job or business in the next year, according to Stats NZ.

Workbridge chief executive Jonathan Mosen said there was not a lot of public education for employers who often wanted to avoid employing a person with a disability.

While more than a million people in Aotearoa are estimated to have some form of long-lasting impairment, only 42.5% of disabled people aged 15 to 64 years old were employed in the June 2021 quarter. This was in comparison to 78.9% of non-disabled people in the same age group, according to Stats NZ.

Grzegorz Smuga is unemployed after being diagnosed with an ocular disease, but is eager to get back to work.

The median hourly earnings from wages and salaries for disabled people was $25.22, compared with $27.81 for non-disabled people.

“People think employing a disabled person is a health and safety risk or they think people aren’t as productive… We need to confront those ideas,” Mosen said.

“It’s not the big frightening risk that people think it is.”

Smuga spent decades working in high-stakes logistics roles. He says his disease has nothing on his experience.

The biggest barrier faced by the disability community was “attitudinal” and having had his own experience of being totally blind, Mosen said people did not know the alternative ways that enabled people to work with a disability. Meanwhile, funding was also available for more expensive technological assistance.

Whanganui resident Emily Mason faced barriers getting employment after she suffered an injury to her ankle, snapping both the tibia and fibula, about 14 years ago.

The 52-year-old previously worked for Treasury as a systems accountant but her injury left her on masses of painkillers from the day of her injury, right up until she left.

“I just couldn’t do it any more.”

She was told by employers she had no ambition and by the time she began receiving support from Workbridge, “I was broken”, she said.

Grzegorz Smuga and former Prime Minister John Key at the Allied Pickfords Christchurch branch building opening ceremony after the earthquakes in 2013.

Mason struggled to find part-time employment until Workbridge advocated for a full-time role at the then-district health board to be split into two roles.

She said she felt “free to do my mahi” at a workplace that supported flexible work hours, allowing her to “work to my disability”.

Being trusted with her work was “just so freeing”, she said.

Mason is currently working as a trustee for Kai Hub and although she hoped she could start a new role with Health New Zealand, she had struggled to get financial support from Work and Income in the interim. Support for her injury, including a wheelchair, walking stick, handrails and paths in her garden had all been paid for herself.

For Grzegorz Smuga, the journey to be employed in a new job was an ongoing one.

Since a restructure at his work led to his redundancy in October 2019, he had applied for at least 40 jobs and had been selected for about four in-person interviews, but never heard back from any.

Not one call had been made to his referees and even after requesting feedback from jobs where he was unsuccessful, Smuga said there was no response.

In 2013, Smuga was diagnosed with a rare genetic eye disease – retinitis pigmentosa – and although his extended vision had not changed, his peripheral vision had gone, making him unable to drive.

Intersectionality was a “big issue”, faced by people with disabilities, including gender, age, ethnicity, Mosen said.

“People can be disadvantaged in multiple ways, it can make it even harder.”

The 63-year-old spent almost 40 years working for moving company Allied Pickfords where he took on various managerial roles including project manager and customer service manager.

He tells the story of how he flew across the country to salvage an important building project, just three days before it was due to be opened by former prime minister John Key.

Working 14-hour days, Smuga said the building was finished with just four hours to spare when Key arrived to cut the ribbon.

He was trusted with the project because of his long experience and expertise in the field and was often dealing with clients directly – not something many were asked to do.

“My eye disease, it’s nothing compared to my expertise… I just need to be able to prove myself,” he said.

“All I want is chances, chances to talk to people.”

Smuga said he hoped sharing his story would help others have their skills recognised, and hoped it would stop potential employers from “assuming that people with any kind of impairments are not valuable”.

The labour shortage market had “opened doors in some ways” for disabled people, with some employers getting in touch with Workbridge for potential employees, Mosen said.

“There’s a lot of education to do.”