This trap is set – often unwittingly - by job coaches and supporters when they focus on a person’s challenges while ignoring the structural issues in the labour market. It often results in people with disability being pushed into ‘work readiness’ activities that don't lead to real jobs.
The Work Readiness Trap is endless ‘work readiness’ activities without real access to employment opportunities. Often this trap is set for people with disability by people working with them in employment services where there’s a heightened focus on a person's barriers and challenges. There’s often an underlying belief that a person with disability is not truly capable of work. This may result in people being pushed into non-mainstream activities such as segregated disability offerings like Australian Disability Enterprises (ADEs), day programs, long term volunteering framed as experience. People may be encouraged to engage in placeholder qualifications or activities unrelated to their goals. Ultimately, the Work Readiness Trap is caused by the job coach or employment service viewing the person with disability as the barrier to employment, rather than acknowledging the systemic and structural barriers they face in the traditional labour market.
The Work Readiness Trap can show up in different ways, but it usually happens in a similar pattern: a person with disability is actively seeking work but faces repeated rejection in the traditional labour market. In response, the support they receive shifts to “fixing” or minimising their disability to fit into existing ways of working. This causes too much focus on getting ‘ready’ for work, without offering genuine opportunities into work and the cycle continues.
Paul’s goal was to become a chef. When he signed up with an employment service, his job coach believed he would never reach that goal without first improving his literacy. Paul has an intellectual disability that affects his ability to read and write.
Despite this, his job coach enrolled him in a hospitality course without the right supports, and Paul was unable to complete it. For more than two years, the focus remained on trying to “fix” Paul’s perceived deficits rather than supporting his strengths. He stayed in the system service, with no meaningful progress toward employment.
Everything changed when Paul was assigned a new job coach who took a different approach. They focused on hands-on work experience that allowed Paul to build his skills, show his capability and experience the challenges of working in a real kitchen. Together, they then approached employers and customised a role that played to Paul’s strengths—allowing him to work as a sous chef without the need to read recipes.
Paul’s success wasn’t the result of becoming “ready,” but of being given the chance to succeed on his own terms.
*Paul’s name has been changed and accompanied by a stock photo Image source: Creative Vix, Pexels
The Work Readiness Trap is caused by the idea that the person is the barrier to employment. This can lead us to believe that individuals must first improve their capacity before they can be offered any opportunities. For example, someone is told they ‘need’ better literacy or numeracy before they can start applying for jobs. They ‘need’ stronger interview skills before being considered for an interview, or they ‘need’ to develop better people skills before entering a workplace.
It demands that people prove they are work ready by minimising or masking their disability until they fit a narrow idea of employability.
It only blames the person for their situation. It doesn't see that our society, including how we hire people, has unfair barriers (called ableism) that make things harder for some.
To really make things better, we need to do more than just focus on what each person can and can't do – and change the systems around them that stand in their way.
Not all barriers can or should be solved through capacity building — and that’s okay. People are not problems to be fixed. Everyone deserves access to meaningful employment.
Image: BSL
We also know that people with significant disabilities often thrive through hands-on learning. The more real-world opportunities they have access to, the more they can grow and develop their work skills. It is crucial that we don’t create barriers to meaningful experiences by expecting people to meet an arbitrary standard of “readiness” first.
The Work Readiness Trap also manifests when people spend years in employment programs or segregated work environments that never lead to meaningful employment. Time passes, yet progress stalls, with the belief being that the person simply needs to “perform” better or isn’t ready to work despite their ongoing engagement and clear goal of employment. This can cause profound emotional and psychological stress, including feelings of shame, frustration, and exhaustion.
In both cases, genuine opportunities that reflect the individual’s strengths and aspirations are not offered. Instead of challenging the systems that exclude people with disability, the focus remains on changing the individual.
There are five things that people supporting people with disability can do to avoid the Work Readiness Trap.
When supporting people with disability into employment, this mindset is critical. Believing in someone’s potential lays the foundation for meaningful outcomes. It also pushes us to think flexibly about what work can look like. Ultimately, we need to ensure we aren’t the ones becoming the barrier to someone’s employment success.
What are the specific things this person needs to thrive in employment? To create meaningful and sustainable opportunities, we need to invest time and effort into understanding what each person needs to do their best at work.
When we take the time to explore what helps someone succeed, the tasks they enjoy, the environments where they thrive and the strategies that support them to engage, we are far more likely to find the right fit.
We uncover these conditions through real-world experiences, followed by intentional reflection with the person. This process highlights their capabilities, unique skills and the practical supports that allow them to thrive, all crucial in matching them with the right role.
Too often, we place a heavy focus on identifying a person’s barriers and challenges, this approach is not helpful when it comes to finding employment. How can we expect to match someone to meaningful work if we are only looking at what they can’t do?
Image: BSL
Instead of viewing a person with disability as the barrier to employment, we acknowledge that it’s often the systems and structures within the traditional labour market that create exclusion. While we work toward long-term systemic change, we also focus on finding creative, practical solutions that minimise these barriers in the short term.
For example, traditional recruitment processes may not offer the best platform for someone with a significant disability to demonstrate their strengths, capabilities, and alignment for a role. A creative response might involve working with employers to bypass or adapt formal interviews, or to use alternative formats such as video resumes, visual resumes or work trials that better highlight the individual’s potential. No matter the context, there are always opportunities to challenge systemic norms and design more inclusive pathways to employment. It’s important to recognise the specific barrier an individual is facing in employment and act within our control and context to remove it.
Recognising when someone will benefit from a customised approach is key to making meaningful employment matches and avoiding the Work Readiness Trap.
You can watch resources on how to identify business needs and negotiate customised positions for young job seekers with disability from Sara Murphy on Customised Employment and our Milton Tyree webinar series on engaging with employers to secure meaningful and sustainable employment.
Customised opportunities involve rethinking traditional hiring processes. This might mean spending time exploring someone’s conditions for success and what they can contribute, working with employers to offer a different hiring process and co-designing a new role with an employer that fits a person’s skills and the employer’s needs. Conventional employment pathways can create unnecessary barriers for people with significant disability. Take a personalised, strengths-based approach for a more inclusive and effective employment journey.
‘Place-train-and-maintain’ means first finding a real job that the job seeker wants to do. They get to see what it's like, both the good and the hard parts. Then, they get the training and support they need to keep doing the job well.
This is more consistent with the social model of disability – a way of viewing the world that sees the barriers people face when trying to live their lives as the problem to fix.
The opposite is ‘train-and-place.’ This is when people with disability get training so that they can navigate the recruitment process and handle workplace demands before placing them in work. This can lead to many people with disability getting caught in the readiness trap. Train-and-place aligns with the medical model of disability – a way of viewing the world that sees people as disabled by their impairments or differences and focuses on what is ‘wrong’ with the person, rather than what the person needs.
The Work Readiness Trap describes a cycle where people with disability are kept in a constant state of "preparation" for work, without real access to meaningful employment. Despite being willing and actively engaged, they are often labelled as "not ready," due to systemic barriers and low expectations of people with disability rather than their actual ability.
This trap is set – often unwittingly - by job coaches and supporters when they focus on a person’s challenges while ignoring the structural issues in the labour market. It often results in people with disability being pushed into ‘work readiness’ activities that don't lead to real jobs.
Ultimately, avoiding the Work Readiness Trap requires shifting the focus from ‘fixing the person’ to fixing the systems that exclude them and ensuring access to real, meaningful employment opportunities.
