Agencies strive to tap talent of disabled employees

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The National Security Agency headquarters in Fort Meade, Md., is one of the most buttoned-down facilities in the nation. When I arrived at the first checkpoint one morning in late July to conduct interviews, the guards summoned a Hummer in case I tried to make a run for it while they searched for my name on a clearance checklist. But for people with disabilities seeking jobs, the complex might be one of the most accessible places in government.

NSA is working to reverse a troubling trend in federal hiring. Despite agencies' access to hiring authorities and funding for computer accommodations to bring employees with disabilities on board, their numbers have declined steadily for more than a decade. Advocates in government say those statistics are an embarrassment and a major barrier to breaking down societal stereotypes about people with disabilities. They say agencies should increase the disabled proportion of workforce to 2 percent by 2010.

'A Terrible Job'

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's latest workforce numbers suggest that even a seemingly modest goal could be a significant challenge. Christine Griffin, an EEOC commissioner who has played a leading role in putting disability employment on the front burner, doesn't hold back on the subject. "We actually have laws and regulations that say to the federal government, 'You need to do a good job in this area.' And frankly, despite those laws, we're doing a terrible job," she told an audience of disability and diversity managers and human resources officers at a July symposium called Two Percent by 2010 in Washington.

Griffin presented some startling figures. In fiscal 2007, the ranks of disabled employees shrank to 0.9 percent of the workforce, down from 1.2 percent in fiscal 1996. Between 1997 and 2006, the workforce increased by 135,732 people. Yet the number of employees with disabilities fell from 28,671 to 24,442. The Cabinet-level departments with the most disabled employees in 2007 were Treasury, with 1.7 percent; Veterans Affairs, with 1.5 percent; and Education, with 1.4 percent. Those with the fewest were Homeland Security, with 0.4 percent; Justice, with 0.4 percent; and State, with 0.3 percent. Except for Justice and Education, where percentages stayed the same, the numbers in all other departments declined between 2006 and 2007.

It's not only that few people with disabilities are getting in the door at federal agencies, they also are not rising through the ranks, Griffin said. There are 7,806 members of the Senior Executive Service, but only 93 are disabled. The average grade for General Schedule employees is 10; disabled employees lag with an average grade of 8.5. Those numbers are especially disturbing, she says, because the office is the key place to dismantle stereotypes about who disabled people are and what they can do.

"You can't have anything that the rest of America has unless you have a job and you have money," said Griffin, who uses a wheelchair. "They look at us and say, 'Isn't it great they get to go to a restaurant?' But it hasn't changed their views of what I'm capable of doing. . . . I see employment for people with disabilities as critical to changing society's view of us as people, as human beings. . . . That's where this revolution is going to take place."

Click here to read the rest of this story, which appeared in the Oct. 1 issue of Government Executive Magazine.

For a photo gallery of NSA's toolkit for employees, click here.