for its efforts to offer employment opportunities to certain members of the disability community, on closer inspection of what the job entailed, it’s clear that the effort is weak and disappointing. Sephora will employ these 150 staff only in the warehouse. It’s the lowest level job available and one which ensures that those of us with differences remain hidden away from public view. It would appear that decision-makers in Sephora’s US corporate office have been sorely misled by disability stereotypes and made the assumption that people with disabilities are not capable of more than packing boxes. While this role may be ideal for some, the assumption that all disabled job-seekers don’t have the competency required for higher-level work is completely incorrect. Where were the job opportunities in the boardroom or, heaven forbid, in customer-facing sales roles? Performative inclusion (in this context) is when a brand or business uses and objectifies a disabled person or people to look more socially responsible and of a higher moral standard. While the inclusion of disability is rarely a bad thing, the problems begin when that particular business strategy is not thought through, poorly executed, and simply tokenistic. While performative inclusion is all about looking good in the public’s eyes and ticking the diversity box, true inclusion is about employing people with disabilities at all levels of the business in a variety of roles. One silver lining about this mistake is it’s an excellent learning opportunity for other brands who want to be more inclusive of the disability community but aren’t sure about how to do it.  Here are a few ways your business can employ people with disabilities without being tokenistic: Hire at all levels of the business and for a variety of roles  Just like the non-disabled community, people with disabilities come with a huge variety of skills and capabilities. While the warehouse may be the perfect environment for some, so are the finance, PR or HR departments.  Include disabled talent in your advertising and marketing material Just like customer-facing staff, including people with disabilities in your advertising, marketing, and other public communications is further evidence that you value disabled consumers and acknowledge their spending power. It also helps to normalise disability, which makes sense since around 20 per cent of our population identify as disabled. Don’t make a big fuss if or when you do  If you wouldn’t send out a press release to announce the hiring of a non-disabled person, it’s probably not necessary to make a big song and dance that you’ve employed a person or people with disabilities. It shouldn’t be a big deal that a business is just doing the right thing. Hire a disability consultant Businesses can easily avoid making these kinds of mistakes if they welcome input from a person or people within the disability community. While hiring only warehouse staff might have seemed like a great PR move to some non-disabled people, as someone with a disability, I noted this embarrassing blunder immediately.   No doubt Sephora had the very best of intentions and genuinely thought it was doing the right thing. However, it’s a mistake many other businesses can learn from and ensure they don’t make in the future. Lisa Cox is an award-winning writer, author and media professional who is challenging and changing the way disability is represented in mainstream popular culture like media, marketing and advertising. Visit: lisacox.co