Barriers, benefits to disability hiring Published Oct. 21, 2011 By Robert Liddy Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center Equal Opportunity director Kirtland Air Force Base -- The president issued Executive Order 13845 in 2010 to increase the employment of people with disabilities. One of the key obstacles to meeting hiring goals, according to federal officials, is the perception about the ability of people with disabilities. We are here to hire them for their skills and abilities. Employees are valued based on their abilities to produce. No one knows who may become disabled in his or her lifetime. More than 80 percent of all persons will experience a disability through disease, accident or the aging process. We face challenges in hiring and retaining disabled workers because of misperceptions about a person's capability, along with a lack of awareness about reasonable accommodations. Some mangers and federal employees act on the belief that we are hiring people with disabilities because they have a disability. In reality we hire and develop them because they have abilities and skills, and the government has an obligation to hire and work with them. When we hire persons with disabilities because of their knowledge, skills and capabilities, we begin to tear down the barriers to success. Some would argue that managers must change their views of disabled workers. The real change is when they recognize that we would miss so much in life if we excluded people with disabilities. Consider this short list of people who made significant contributions to our society, such as presidents Franklin Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson and John F. Kennedy, entertainers, including Tom Cruise, Michael J. Fox and Whoopi Goldberg and scientists, such as Albert Einstein, Galileo and Thomas Edison. The real question each us must come to grips with is whether they achieved prominence because of their disabilities or because they had abilities. "Attitudinal barriers continue to be the biggest problem," Office of Personnel Management Deputy Director Christine Griffin said. "The only way to get rid of attitudinal barriers is to hire people with disabilities." President Obama's Executive Order directed federal agencies to take steps to meet the goal of hiring an additional 100,000 disabled employees over five years. Kirtland Air Force Base has made some progress. Kirtland AFB has developed a plan to promote employment opportunities for qualified individuals with disabilities. Agencies need to live up to the other requirement in the directive and improve retention of disabled workers. Some available strategies include addressing training needs in an individual training plan, and using the computer electronic assistance program to provide work productivity tools or reasonable accommodations. Many of these productivity tools help a capable person perform her or his job using technology and ensure the accessibility of physical and virtual workspaces. Meeting the directive's goals fits the strategic mission. It will take the commitment of ever y commander, supervisor and manager to meet this goal and develop and retain qualified employees. We are engaged in disability hiring issues because we are being held accountable for success. These efforts have been in place for a long time. The Office of Personnel Management is working on veterans' hiring initiatives, promoting telework for disabled employees and presenting a series of training sessions with the Equal Employment Opportunity Council to help agencies comply with the executive order. For more information, call the AFNWC/EO office at 846-5369.