Organizational diversity and disability management: Dutch cases

Recent EU initiatives promote employability of the growing number of the chronically ill and disabled employees. While HRM professionals and managers could play a significant role in the prevention of job-related problems and in promotion of early job-continuation, the chronically ill remain largely invisible as a group. Unlike some other groups, distinguished by gender, age or ethnicity, chronically ill are less distinct, seen as less homogenous and are thus less ‘visible’ to the employers and HRM. Yet, as we argue in this article, the chronically ill do form a group with distinct characteristics and aims.
Our research among the employers and HRM in The Netherlands aims to disclose the causes of invisibility of the chronically ill as a group and to deepen the understanding of the chronically ill employees as a distinct diversity group. We argue that the invisibility of chronically ill employees as a group may be explained by four main factors. First, by the fact that chronic illness is often literally invisible as its symptoms are often not manifest; second by the fact that chronically ill employees form an internally heterogeneous group; thirdly by the fact that employers and HRM are not always trained to recognize such a condition. Finally, discrimination at the work place and stigma attached to chronic illness may inhibit disclosure.