Despite ongoing reforms across Australia’s disability employment landscape, many people with disability continue to face barriers accessing and sustaining meaningful, paid work in the mainstream labour market (i.e. outside supported employment settings). Mainstream and specialist employment services for people with disability have largely focused on the supply side – that is, people seeking employment. In contrast, the demand side (employers) has received far less attention. Partnering with employers to create sustainable job opportunities is critical to increasing employment for people with disability.

This synthesis was undertaken to identify what effective employer engagement looks like and how it can improve employment and retention outcomes for people with disability. The evidence highlights that many of the elements contained within a coherent package of support for employers align with established good practices in human resource management. Five core themes emerged as empirical patterns across the evidence base:

• relational brokerage and employer capability-building
• inclusion across the whole employment journey: the importance of flexibility and adjustments
• retention as a foundation for career progression
• governance and organisational embedding
• employer engagement practices relevant to specific disability cohorts.

These patterns are shaped by three enabling and moderating factors – contextual conditions that influence whether, when, and how employer engagement practices work:

• intensity and resourcing of employer engagement work
• provider-employer relationship maturity and co-production
• system alignment and scaling of employer engagement activities.

These themes and enablers point to a series of implications for employment service providers:

• employer-facing diagnosis and segmentation
• a menu of employer supports across the whole employment journey
• sustainment infrastructure (post-hire support, supervisor capability, progression planning)
• the potential for translation of existing resources into practical actions.

A full report is also available.