The impact of employer attitudes on hiring Veterans with traumatic brain injury (TBI): A quantitative analysis

Abstract: This quantitative study investigates employers' attitudes in employing, recruiting, and developing TBI veterans. TBI veterans face a variety of employment barriers through employers' biases, misconceptions, and stigma regarding productivity, adaptability, and performance about workplace demand. Unlike possessing strong discipline and relevant skills acquired through service, many veterans face barriers to getting meaningful jobs, limiting career development and financial security. All such barriers point towards a strong necessity for an empirical study of employers' perception and its direct contribution towards career development for veterans. The current research is grounded in Goffman’s Stigma Theory, explaining social label and stereotype processes and contributing to creating marginalization, and Bandura’s Social Learning Theory, with an observation of behavior and bias development through social processes and reproduction in work settings. With these lenses, the current work considers the intersection of work experiences and employer stigma for TBI-stricken veterans to research recruitment, maintenance of jobs, and career development opportunities. The investigation employs a quantitative, correlational design with survey data collected from employers in various industries. Employers' attitudes towards TBI veterans, employers' willingness to promote and recruit them, and accommodation success in the workplace will be captured through surveying. Analyses of correlation and regression will then evaluate whether or not stigma is a predictive variable for work and whether workplace size, workplace sector, and having a background in employing disabled veterans will serve to moderate such an impact. The information derived through such a study will inform HR training, workplace inclusion programs, and policies to counteract stigma and promote employment opportunities for workers with TBI. The long-term impact of stigma and the efficacy of workplace interventions in countering biases can be examined in future studies.