Hiring of People of All Abilities

Challenge

Approximately 15% of the world’s population experiences some form of disability. This population often faces more adversity than others when it comes to employment.

Actions

In 2018, we established an executive steering committee to provide direction and create connections with internal partners such as our Workforce Accommodations and Accessibility teams. These vital partnerships have helped us to foster wide-ranging disability inclusion programs that make our recruiting efforts consistent with the overall employee experience – including job definition, technology, and physical space adaptations.

Over the past two years we have also dedicated two executive development program teams to these opportunities. As part of their work, the teams put together a playbook identifying over 8,000 positions within our company for the various populations of people with disabilities. From there, they created a job assessment to identify candidates and “A Leader’s Guide to Hiring All Abilities”.

Additionally, we have external partnerships to align our hiring approach with external candidate readiness. These relationships have included vocational rehabilitation centers across the nation that, in turn, connect us to local community resources partners.

These relationships go beyond simply partnering with organizations to hire talent of all abilities. We also partner with local and national organizations to enhance their capabilities through our pro bono support while helping our staff members to develop personal connections with people of all abilities. This exposure includes a hiring guide that challenges myths about people with disabilities and shares important clarifying statistics related to this untapped talent pool.

Outcomes

The work from the executive development teams is ongoing and has transitioned to fully staffed teams who make this part of their day jobs. Our dedicated Director of Disability Inclusion leads our enterprise disability strategy effort including the new disability internship program, as well as managing the Diversity Equality Index, creating learning and development resources, and evolving our work around accommodations, accessibility, compliance, and cultural readiness initiatives.

Contact

Andrea Eselunas, Director for Disability Inclusion Programs, UnitedHealth Group

Quote

UnitedHealth Group is honored to stand with the world’s leading companies committed to advancing diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Our mission is to help people live healthier lives and help make the health system work better for everyone. Diversity and Inclusion starts with a workforce representative of the people we are privileged to serve and a culture of appreciation for the unique background and experiences of each of the members of our team. I’m proud of the actions we’ve taken to expand diversity and create inclusive workplaces where our employees are empowered to share their unique perspectives.

David S. Wichmann
Chief Executive Officer, UnitedHealth Group
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