BUILDING INCLUSIVE WORKPLACES FOR PEOPLE ON THE AUTISM SPECTRUM OR WITH AN INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY
People with intellectual disabilities or on the autism spectrum are the most underemployed and unemployed populations in Canada. Most data point to a stark reality: as few as 1 in 4 individuals in these groups are employed, with employment rates hovering around 20–25% for decades – despite years of provincial and federal government investment in employment initiatives to assist persons with disabilities enter and remain within the labour force.
RETHINKING THE APPROACH: WHY RWA EXISTS
Ready, Willing and Able (RWA) was launched in 2014 as a new approach to enabling inclusive employment. RWA would work directly with employers, helping them understand the benefits of a diverse and inclusive workforce. RWA shifted the focus from preparing persons with an intellectual disability or autism to get ready to work, to one that focused on preparing employers to hire.
RWA’s approach is simple but effective: identify the labour force needs of employers and help employers address that need by connecting them to a pool of qualified candidates with an intellectual disability or autism. A pool of candidates that were overlooked by most employers. In making that connection, RWA offers practical, individualized support to both employer and job seeker.
A decade later, RWA is an international award-winning initiative, that has successfully connected over 5500 real job opportunities from employers, to jobseekers with an intellectual disability or autism. Real jobs for real people who are ready, willing and able to work.
At RWA we know that inclusive hiring works best when it's grounded in three principles:
- Hire for Real Employer Need:
People with intellectual disabilities or autism are ready, willing, and able to work. RWA supports businesses in finding candidates to fill their existing labour force needs within their company. It’s not about altruism or tokenism. It’s not about creating special jobs for special people. It’s about building strong, diverse teams that meet the operational demands of the business.
- Provide Individualized Support
Success in employment doesn’t start or stop at hiring. Job coaching, onboarding support, accommodations, and follow-up are critical to retention and long-term success. RWA works with supported employment community partners across Canada to ensure every candidate and employer gets the right kind of support for their individual needs.
- Focus on Long-Term Inclusion, Not Short-Term Fixes
RWA helps businesses build their capacity to inclusively hire, retain, and advance employees. We want employers to hire inclusively because it makes sense for them, and that means making inclusive hiring part of standard practice, not a special project.
THE ISSUE OF WAGE SUBSIDIES
Employer wage subsidies -financial incentives provided to employers to hire individuals from targeted groups – are a long-standing tool in supported employment across Canada. RWA is, however, built on the evidence that such subsidies are not an effective long-term strategy for inclusive employment, particularly for individuals with an intellectual disability or autism.
The evidence around wage subsidies for people with intellectual disabilities and autism has been mounting for almost three decades. Simply put, evidence shows that subsidies have barely moved the employment rate and opportunities, as intended. At best, subsidies offer people temporary access to the labour market for work experiences. But this ignores the unintended effects that subsidies can have on the jobseekers we want to succeed: namely, jobs disappearing when the subsidy ends, stigmatizing of job seekers, feeding discriminatory stereotypes about low productivity, limiting career mobility and opportunity, and creating a segregated system of employment for people with an intellectual disability or autism.
RWA does not provide or support the use of employer wage subsidies. Here are some of the reasons why:
1) Subsidies Rarely Lead to Long-Term Jobs: Multiple studies have shown that subsidized jobs often end when the subsidy ends. For people with an intellectual disability or autism, this can mean cycling in and out of temporary roles -never gaining meaningful stable, long-term employment.
2) Subsidies Can Reinforce Stigma: Paying an employer to hire someone can send the wrong message—that the person is a risk, a burden, or less productive. This undermines confidence in the employee and the potential of inclusive hiring.
3) Subsidies Distort the Labour Market: Wage subsidies pull focus away from real employer needs, encouraging hires for financial reasons rather than workforce diversity. They also create a system where people with disabilities are treated as a separate category of workers. This can result in individuals with access to subsidies “crowding out” people who do not have access to those subsidies and pulling an employer’s focus away from hiring for potential, to hiring for incentives.
4) They Redirect Funds from What Works: RWA holds the position that resources used for subsidies could (and should) be more effectively spent on workplace supports, onboarding, and accommodations that directly benefit both the employer and the employee.
THE RWA MODEL- AN ALTERNATE APPROACH THAT WORKS
RWA’s model is built on more than a decade of partnerships with employers of all sizes – from small local businesses to national and multi-national corporations. More than 5500 hires have been realized without the use of a wage subsidy. By focusing on employer needs, providing individual supports, and making inclusion a part of general employment practices, RWA has shown that the hiring of persons with disabilities does not need to be subsidized. In fact, the business case is clear, businesses build better teams, more inclusive workplaces, and better opportunities for all their employees, when their firms include workers with intellectual disabilities and those on the autism spectrum as part of their general workforce.