How Remote Work Opens Opportunities for People With Disabilities

By Nyaka Mwanza 

Unemployment and underemployment disproportionately impact people with disabilities and chronic health conditions: Just 40 percent of adults with disabilities who are between the ages of 25 and 54 years — prime career time — have a job. This rate is around half that of people without disabilities who are at work (79 percent). 

When seeking and maintaining a job, people with physical and mental disabilities may face myriad hurdles. Remote work, however, provides more opportunities and greater workplace equity for people living with disabling conditions. Fortunately for many, COVID shattered the facade that working remotely was a detriment to outcomes, and now remote work is more feasible than ever.

Accessibility and Flexibility

Working remotely can remove the barriers faced by some people with disabilities in accessing the traditional workforce. Having a work setup that accommodates a person’s disability can be a game changer, and an at-home setup may be able to better meet their needs than that offered by an office. In a GitLab report, 14% of those surveyed reported having a disabling condition, and of these people, 83% reported the ability to work from home was what kept them in the workforce.

Symptoms and complications of some chronic conditions can range from embarrassing to painful, like frequent bathroom trips from irritable bowel syndrome or rheumatoid arthritis numbness and tingling. Working from home allows people to work from a safer and healthier environment that caters to their specific needs. 

Remote work also affords people the flexibility to work when their symptoms are more manageable and take breaks when they’re more severe. Likewise, remote work allows people with chronic health conditions the flexibility to schedule health provider visits, which may be frequently needed.

Productivity and Time

Getting dressed and ready for work can be more difficult and time consuming when living with a disability. Commuting can be a complicated and even dangerous affair, as well. Everyday tasks with a disability can add hours and undue stress to a person’s day. Remote work alleviates what can add up to be a significant amount of time, stress, and use of energy.

What’s more, a Stanford University study showed that employees who worked from home were more productive than those that worked from their company’s offices. When a company’s staff work remotely (in part or fully), it creates equal opportunity for everyone to contribute in the workplace. Working from home also encourages a better sense of work-life balance and workplace satisfaction — and a happy staff is a more productive workforce.   

Redefining Disability in the Workplace

COVID’s work-from-home mandates showed the world what people with disabilities have known all along: Working from home is not only viable, it’s beneficial. Organizations have the opportunity to create a productive, diverse, and inclusive workplace comprising all groups, including people living with disabilities. Hiring people with disabilities and normalizing flexible work-from-home culture doesn’t just make sense, it makes dollars. If just 1 percent more people with disabilities joined the U.S. labor force, the GDP could get a boost of up to $25 billion.

Plenty of evidence shows the benefit of workplace diversity on a company’s bottom-line and outputs. But it’s not just beneficial to employers. Working from home allows people with disabilities to participate in the economy in a way that’s less likely to exacerbate their health conditions. 

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