Disability Management Career Awareness Survey

by Henry Harder and Donald C. Voaklander

Introduction

Disability Management (DM) is a new and burgeoning field that has not yet coalesced around established educational and credentialing requirements. In the past few years attempts have been made by various institutions to address the educational needs of this field. For example, the non-credit programs at Simon Fraser University ( http://www.sfu.ca/cstudies/appliedsciences/dmp/ ) and Mohawk College (http://www.mohawkc.on.ca/dept/cehs/disability.html ) have attempted to meet this need. Little information is available specific to what education is actually required to fulfill this function adequately, what kind of education prospective employers and existing worksites would like to see, where eventual graduates of programs will find employment and how satisfied organizations are with the status quo, or even how many worksites offer DM services.

In order to address this gap in our knowledge the National Institute of Disability Management and Research in conjunction with the University of Northern British Columbia, McMaster University, Ryerson University, Mohawk College and funded by Human Resources Development Canada surveyed employers, DM providers and unions in Canada to determine: current levels of education of DM providers; the need for education of future providers; the current and future needs of DM provision in the workplace; the anticipated demand for this profession into the future; as well as the evidence of diversity and employment equity programs at worksites. (1)

Methods

Instruments

Employer, provider and union specific 36 item surveys were developed with face validity established by the investigators. Time limits did not permit pre-testing of the instruments among the target population. To ensure all relevant information had a possibility of being obtained, at the end of each survey, responders were asked to provide any further information they thought relevant to the investigation.

Population

Surveys were distributed by a single mail-out to individuals involved in DM either from a provider, employer, or union perspective. The providers consisted primarily of insurance companies, consultants and other firms that offer DM services. The employers were drawn from the forestry, manufacturing and public sectors. The unions were the unions involved with these employers. Contact lists were derived from registers maintained by the researching organizations. Considerable overlap existed across provider, employer and labour groups.

Respondents had the option of filling in the paper survey and returning it by post or logging onto a website and completing the survey via an internet interface.

Response frequencies and cross tabulations were conducted for survey items. Chi-square analysis was used to determine univariate significance across providers, employers, and unions. For continuous variables studentÕs t tests were used to determine significance.

Results

Subjects

A total of 992 surveys were mailed out to individuals and organizations involved in DM. Thirty-eight of these were returned uncompleted as individuals had retired, moved to other jobs, died, or the company of employment had ceased conducting business. Of the remaining eligible subjects, 625 were employers, 194 were service providers and 135 were unions. A total of 297 surveys were completed giving an overall response rate of 31%. The best response rate was for employers (33%; n = 204) and unions (33%; n = 44) followed by service providers (25%; n = 50). Seven percent of surveys were completed using the internet interface.

Provider and employer respondents were significantly more likely to be primarily urban based (65% and 61% respectively) than union respondents (43%) (p<.05). Table 1 indicates in which labour sectors the respondents were involved in. Apart from the natural resources sector, the distribution of respondents varied significantly across industry groups. Table 2 illustrates the types of DM education obtained by respondents. In general, union respondents reported lower levels of DM education. Provider respondents had significantly greater years of experience (13 years) versus employer (8 years) and union respondents (8 years) (p<.001).

Disability Management Services

Eighty-two percent of responding organizations reported that the work-sites they were involved with offered DM services for types of injuries regardless of whether they were work related. The majority (64%) of these services were offered through a combination of internal and external resources. Only 11% of employers had staff dedicated to the role of coordinating DM services. Employer DM responsibilities were most often shared with staff that also provided claims management, human resources, occupational health nursing, or health and safety tasks. For providers, 26% of respondents had staff whose sole task was providing return to work services. Provider DM responsibilities were most often shared with staff that also provided claims management and human resources tasks.

Education

The majority of workers providing DM services were educated at the baccalaureate level (36%) followed by college diplomas (22%) and high school diplomas (11%). The most common method of obtaining specific DM training was through workshops (65%), on the job skill development (48%), and certificate level training (30%).

Satisfaction with DM Services

Seventy-nine percent of employers reported that there was room for improvement in the way DM services were managed for their organization. For those who used external providers, 28% indicated that they were very satisfied with the abilities and knowledge of those providing DM to their organizations. Most employers and providers (47%) reported that more training opportunities were needed for internal/external DM management practitioners while 26% felt that the number of trained practitioners needed to increase. Sixty-three percent of employers and providers indicated that they felt that there is presently a shortage of well-trained DM practitioners. The majority of respondents (79%) reported that the need for well-trained DM practitioners will increase over the next five years.

Diversity and Employment Equity

Sixty-one percent of employers reported that they employed someone who was responsible for employment equity and the recruitment of persons with disabilities. These responsibilities were often shared with labour relations (34%) or employee benefits (24%) tasks. Eighty-four percent were satisfied with the level of training of persons providing employment equity tasks while 88% felt current employees met their needs in this regard. The majority of employers and providers (53%) indicated that they foresee a need for greater numbers of workers providing employment equity services.

Discussion

It is clear from the data acquired from this survey that the majority of those surveyed offered DM services at their worksites. Most of the time these services are provided through some form of internal/external partnership. For example, a worksite may provide some aspects of the return to work process but contract out more difficult cases. When services are provided internally they are most frequently provided by someone who is also involved in other duties. On the management side this tends to be HR duties and on the Labour side these tend to be union local or worksite specific duties such as sitting on the safety committee.

The majority of DM providers state that they are educated at the baccalaureate level, but then report that most training in DM has been received in workshops. We believe this to be due to the fact that most HR personnel would have a bachelor's degree but then would need more specific training in DM, which, up until recently, was mostly available in a workshop style of education.

While most worksites do indeed provide DM services there also seems to be a general agreement that there is room for improvement in the provision of these services. Most respondents agreed that more training and more access to qualified competent DM providers is desired. They see a growing need for such providers over the next 5 years and state that better educated and more competent providers are key to the success of this field in the future.

With regard to the diversity and equity component of the survey it was clear that most organizations have someone responsible for diversity/employment equity and for the recruitment of persons with disabilities. Once again this function is typically combined with other functions such as labour relations or employee benefits. Most of the organizations surveyed said that while their needs were well met in this area, they did anticipate an increased need for services in this regard. The finding that satisfaction with current levels of activity in employment equity was high, was surprising given the poor record across Canadian employers for hiring persons with disabilities. The 1996 census showed that among persons with disabilities the employment rate for men was 41% and for women 32%, while the rate for those without disabilities was approximately double with 83% for men and 70% for women (Government of Canada Report, 2002).

Conclusions

The survey results indicate that there is a need for more DM service providers. Also, there is a concomitant need for specific training in DM. It is less clear at what level such training should take place. The survey results indicate that there is a need at all levels of the educational continuum with the baccalaureate degree coming out slightly ahead. However, this may more accurately reflect concerns about pre-requisites and cost of education rather than an evaluation of the appropriate level of learning required. Further research is needed to clarify this point. It is clear that a distance learning delivery model is desired by all parties.

Employers, unions and service providers are all at least partially dissatisfied with the current level and quality of service provision. Nevertheless, all see a growing need for this function within Canadian workplaces. It certainly appears that the future looks bright for this emerging professional field.

Footnotes

(1) Research was conducted by the Disability Management and Community Health Programs within the College of Arts Social and Health Sciences at UNBC. Analysis

Reference List

Government of Canada Report. (2002). Advancing the Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities. Government of Canada, Cat. No.: RH37-4-2002E.

Simon Fraser University Disability Management Program http://www.sfu.ca/cstudies/appliedsciences/dmp/

Mohawk College Disability Management Program http://www.mohawkc.on.ca/dept/cehs/disability.html

E-Mail: Henry Harder, University of Northern British Columbia

International Journal of Disability, Community & Rehabilitation
Volume 2, No. 1 Canada
www.ijdcr.ca
ISSN 1703-3381