Predictors of employer attitudes toward people who are blind or visually impaired as employees

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Negative employer attitudes are often identified as the biggest challenge to employment faced by people who are blind or visually impaired, yet limited research has been conducted in this area. Little is known about the factors that predict employer attitudes toward this population. OBJECTIVE: The primary purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship between employer attitudes toward blind and visually impaired people as employees and knowledge about how they can perform specific job tasks (i.e., utilizing job accommodations/assistive technology) in a multivariate model. METHODS: Employers in four states completed a telephone survey that included instruments to measure attitudes and knowledge. The sample came from two sources: a randomly identified list of employers in the four states and employer contacts of vocational rehabilitation (VR) agencies in two of the states. Data for the multiple regression analyses was available from 181 employers. RESULTS: Three variables significantly predicted employer attitudes: having hired someone who was blind or visually impaired, having communicated with the state VR agency, and knowledge. CONCLUSIONS: These findings support the importance of VR agency personnel having meaningful interactions with employers. Two potential focus areas of these interactions are increasing knowledge about job accommodations that can enable blind or visually impaired people to perform necessary job tasks and on-the-job training experiences.