The "glass door" and disability inclusion

While the "glass ceiling" halts career growth, the "glass door" remains shut for millions of people with disabilities before they even start.

The numbers are clear: In Norway, people with disabilities are 30 percent less likely to be employed, while wheelchair users face a 50 percent lower chance of even being invited to an interview. These disparities aren't new—they have remained stubbornly stagnant, both in Norway and globally, for decades.

Hence, the crucial questions are: Why does the door remain closed, and what can leaders do to open it?

Why does the door remain closed?

Many leaders harbor an unconscious fear that employees with disabilities are less productive or carry high costs. This is often explained by the "ideal worker" norm, which involves expectations about a universal, able-bodied baseline for productivity.

By clinging to an able-bodied norm, leaders ignore the fact that productivity is very often a function of the (work) environment, not just the individual. There are numerous examples where people’s disability are – or are effectively turned into – a valuable resource for the company, e.g., because of their personal interests or specialized problem-solving skills, or because they increase diversity and hence collective intelligence in work teams or organizations. Also, people with disabilities have higher retention rates and lower absenteeism than others, despite many leaders’ expectations of the contrary. 

The "glass door" persists because leaders design workplaces for an expected (theoretical) average that excludes the specialized problem-solving and cognitive diversity that disabled employees inherently bring to the table. 

What can leaders do to open the door?

Research indicates that the core issue is often a lack of knowledge and confidence in the leadership role. Inclusion is not a technical checklist of universal design; it is a social and relational task.

Studies show that leaders who hire people with disabilities are more likely to do it again. Further, inclusion expertise is cumulative; the more experience leaders gain—both through successes and challenges—the more capable they become. 

Remaining silent about disabilities in the name of "politeness" only creates distance and isolation. Instead, being authentic and straightforward when interacting with people with disabilities creates psychological safety where friction and mistakes can be discussed without the entire initiative being labeled a failure.

To succeed, leaders must dare to discuss what is difficult with disability inclusion. If leaders pretend that inclusion processes are always seamless, they create a "perfection barrier" that discourages others from even trying. 

A leader’s job is to protect the result, not necessarily the "standardized" way of achieving it. Whether an employee uses captions in meetings, works non-traditional hours, or requires physical adjustments, these should be viewed simply as different paths to the same high goals.

4 steps to open the glass door

1. Walk through your recruitment process as if you had a visible or invisible disability. Is the first point of contact an invitation or a barrier?
2. In your next 1-on-1 conversation with an employee with a disability, ask: "What part of our current way of working is unnecessarily difficult for you, and how should it be improved?"
3. Share examples of when you personally needed accommodations (e.g., during illness or life crises). This normalizes the need for support in others.
4. Stop viewing adjustments as "extra measures." See them as different tools used to achieve top results.