People with facial disfigurement often experience discrimination in the workplace.
Research carried out here at UEL and published in 2012 (Stone & Wright)
found that declaring a facial disfigurement reduced the chances of being
called for interview for a job requiring a high degree of customer
contact. This was not apparent for a job with little customer contact.
For comparison, declaring oneself to be a wheelchair
user reduced the chances of being called for interview for a range of
jobs regardless of the level of customer contact.
This
is consistent with other observations that an individual with a facial
disfigurement receives lower evaluations in areas such as social skills
and confidence and a range of work-related competencies (e.g., Stone & Wright) .
The
charitable and campaigning organisation Changing Faces have launched
a campaign “what success looks like” which aims to boost the
self-confidence of people with facial disfigurement applying for jobs
and to raise employers expectations. You can read about the campaign
here if you are interested. People with facial disfigurement are encouraged to write in with their
stories, so if you know of anyone who might be interested to contribute
their story please do ask them to have a look at the Changing Faces
website.
Anna Stone
