Disabled employees can bring a number of significant benefits to the workplace and employers need to recognise the contribution they can make, it has been suggested.
According to Remploy, the employment services provider for disabled people, several myths exist with regards to the employment of people with disabilities.
One is that disabled people take more days off work as a result of ill-health, while another is that expensive modifications have to be made to business premises in order to accommodate them.
A spokesperson for the organisation insisted that workers with disabilities are actually less likely to be absent from work than their non-disabled counterparts.
And she added that while some workplace modifications may have to be made, the average cost of these alterations is less than £200.
"Once employers are given the facts and specialist support if they need it, they report the experience of employing disabled people as a very positive one," she remarked.
According to the Office for National Statistics’ Labour Force Survey, which was conducted in 2005, almost one in five people of working age in Great Britain have some form of disability.
