Dr. Kirk Adams urges employers to track disability inclusion year-round

National Disability Employment Awareness Month is drawing attention to disabled workers, but Dr. Kirk Adams says employers need quarterly checks on hiring, advancement, accessibility and accommodations. He cites 2025 labor data showing persistent gaps in employment and unemployment for workers with disabilities, especially Black workers with disabilities.

Why it matters: - National Disability Employment Awareness Month can become more than a yearly awareness campaign if employers use it to measure whether disabled workers are actually getting hired, promoted and supported. - Disability gaps remain in the labor market. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said 38.1% of people with disabilities ages 16 to 64 were employed in 2025. - The employment gap is especially stark when disability overlaps with race. In 2025, the unemployment rate for Black workers with disabilities was 11.8%, compared with 7.3% for white workers with disabilities.

What happened: - Dr. Kirk Adams, immediate past president and CEO of the American Foundation for the Blind, called on employers to make disability inclusion part of quarterly leadership reviews. - Adams said employers should examine hiring, advancement, accessibility and accommodations during the other 11 months of the year, not just during October. - The U.S. Department of Labor’s 2026 theme for National Disability Employment Awareness Month is “Celebrating Value and Talent.” - Adams said employers can make disability inclusion part of how they hire, equip, promote and retain people every day of the year.

The details: - Adams wants leaders to ask four recurring questions: whether applicants and employees with disabilities are advancing, how long accommodations take, whether employees can use required digital tools and who fixes barriers when they are reported. - Adams said barriers can build up across the built environment, workplace technology and social expectations. - A hiring platform that screen readers cannot navigate can block applicants before their talent is considered. - An inaccessible training course can limit advancement and learning opportunities. - Manager assumptions about capability can also close off opportunity. - Adams said organizations should examine how disability intersects with race and other experiences when evaluating who gets hired and who advances. - Adams previously led The Lighthouse for the Blind, Inc. in Seattle and the American Foundation for the Blind. - Adams now serves as managing director of Innovative Impact, LLC, advising organizations on disability inclusion and accessible work. - Adams is the author of The Disability Dividend: Supercharge Your Bottom-Line Through Disability Inclusion. - Adams said he is available to discuss practical measures employers can take, the obstacles blind workers encounter and the economic case for inclusion.

Between the lines: - The message is less about celebration than accountability. Adams is pushing employers to treat disability inclusion like an operational metric, not a seasonal pledge. - The quarterly cadence matters because annual awareness campaigns can miss slow-moving barriers in hiring systems, training, tools and management practices. - The race data suggests disability inclusion strategies that ignore other forms of inequity may miss the workers facing the biggest obstacles.

What's next: - Adams is urging employers to put disability metrics on quarterly leadership agendas and keep asking the same questions across the year. - The real test, Adams said, is whether leaders still act on the answers in January, April and July. - Employers that respond may need to review accommodation turnaround times, digital accessibility and escalation processes for barriers.

The bottom line: - Disability Employment Month is a reminder, but Adams wants employers to turn awareness into measurable, year-round accountability.