| By :
Martin Hofschroer
British businesses could do more to hire employees from disadvantaged groups, according to Europe's largest human resources and development professional body. Research by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) and KPMG revealed that companies are continuing to overlook people from disadvantaged sections of society such as the long-term unemployed. The study discovered that 19 per cent of organisations ignore applications from ex-offenders, while 16 per cent will not consider young candidates aged 18 and under with little or no educational or vocational qualifications. In addition, nine per cent of businesses said that they will not consider recruiting people aged over 65 or older and this contributed to the overall 32 per cent of employers who actively ignore applications from certain disadvantaged groups. Gerwyn Davies, CIPD Public Policy Adviser, said that employees from some disadvantaged groups were preferable to regular employees in certain personality traits such as loyalty. He said: "For example, employers with experience of employing ex-offenders consider them at least as productive as other workers and a majority of employers consider them to be more loyal than the rest of the workforce." Organisations looking to improve employee loyalty should hire performance improvement consulting experts as they can help improve performance whilst increasing morale. Businesses looking to recruit may benefit most from hiring disabled workers as the CIPD found that they often outperformed able-bodied employees across a range of areas. The CIPD reported that disabled employees are deemed to be more loyal and are considered to offer better customer service and produce a higher quality of work compared to able-bodied colleagues. Mr Davies called on the government to make people from disadvantaged groups more employable as 33 per cent of businesses said that would be more likely to recruit from such sections if more was done to improve their employability. He said: "Individuals from other target groups are in many cases being unfairly excluded from the recruitment process. More must be done therefore by policy makers, working with employers, to challenge these often inaccurate and negative stereotypes." Mr Davies said that employers were most supportive of a policy that created a six-month internship for certain disadvantaged workers, which paid at the national minimum wage rate and was joint-funded by the organisation and the government. Employment statistics show that there is an 11 per cent pay gap between disabled and non-disabled men and a 22 per cent gap between disabled women and non-disabled men.
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