Disability Pride Month: Building An Inclusive Workplace
Not only does July mark Plastic Free July, a time for sustainability champions to come together and reduce our collective plastic pollution, but it is also Disability Pride Month!
Disability Pride Month originated in the US and was founded in honour of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) being passed in July 1990. The ADA is a comprehensive legislation protecting the civil rights of Americans, and essentially acts as an equal opportunity law for those with disabilities, modelled after the Civil Rights Act.
Having an inclusive workplace is so important and yet it’s not often discussed what this looks like in practise. Discussions around inclusivity are often focussed around race, gender and sexuality, and these are definitely important topics that should be considered at length and actioned accordingly. However, it’s important that inclusivity discussions involve those with disabilities, and so we wanted to make space for these important conversations.
5 Top Tips For Building An Inclusive Workplace
1. Hire diverse candidates in senior roles
Even if companies have a certain percentage of marginalised candidates in their overall workforce, when you breakdown where these employees are distributed within the company, they are often found in more junior roles. It’s important to be able to look upward and see yourself represented, and to give marginalised employees the opportunity to not just exceed in their own right, but to also forge the way for others like them. Of course, this top tip stands not just for those with disabilities but also in terms of race, gender, sexuality, etc.
2. Make your policies well-known and included in your onboarding
Your employees deserve to know their rights and they deserve to know the different ways your company will be supporting them – without them having to take on the admin labour of seeking this information out.
Some good questions to start you off…
What paid sick leave are people entitled to? Is your work environment a safe space where people feel they are able to actually take their sick leave if needed? Do you have a network for people with disabilities to connect? Is training provided for all employees to ensure that employees are using inclusive language and are equipped with the tools needed to create an inclusive environment? Is there budget to provide specialised work equipment if needed?
Once the infrastructure and internal policy is in place, make sure you communicate this far and wide – make managers aware, have resource guide available, include relevant info as part of your onboarding experience so people are aware of the support services you offer.
3. Don’t be afraid to ask for what people need
We’re all constantly learning about how we can create the most inclusive work environment possible, and all disabilities and people are different. In order to best accommodate people, it’s important to have and maintain open and honest conversations to ensure that employees with disabilities feel safe, supported and empowered in the workplace.
Have you considered having a quiet time in the office for those with sensory processing disorders? What about moving office furniture to better accommodate wheelchair users? Or perhaps adding braille to different items in shared spaces, or briefing people on how to behave around guide dogs? Small actions like these can have a massive difference for those who require different accommodations to thrive at work.
4. Not all disabilities are visible
We’ve said it before but we’ll say it again: all disabilities and people are different. There are a lot of stereotypes and misconceptions of what people feel a disability ‘should’ look like, which opens up people living with non-visible disabilities to numerous microagressions and barriers to success. To name but a few examples, interrogations about people’s right to use a disabled parking space, or uncomfortable conversations beginning with “but you don’t look like you have XXX”.
The shift to the term ‘non-visible disability’ emerged following criticisms of ‘hidden disabilities’ and ‘less-visible’ as appropriate and inclusive terminology. For instance, ‘hidden’ can imply that a person is deliberately hiding their disability and can also imply that the disability is something to be ashamed of – spoiler alert, it’s not. Similarly, ‘less-visible’ can be invalidating to the lived experience of some people and does not include those whose condition is completely non-visible, e.g. mental health disorders.
Keep an eye out for people wearing a green sunflower lanyard! This is a sign that people have a non-visible disability, and is a discrete way to make the invisible visible. More info on this here.
It is important to note that just because a disability is not visible, it does not mean that the disability does not exist.
5. Adapt as needed
You might have had a policy that’s been working well for ages, and that’s really amazing! But people and disabilities are complicated and often changing, so it’s important that your business and policy is able to adapt accordingly. What channels can employees use to inform decision makers if a policy is no longer working, or could be improved? Can this channel be anonymous if desired?
In order to adapt as needed, having those open and honest conversations with the demographic impacted by the policy changes is an absolute must! Of course having the hard conversations is important, but actually taking action following these conversations is crucial to making people feel valued, appreciated and empowered.
For more ideas on what you can do to make a difference in your workplace, check out these resources from CPD Online College and Independent Living. And if you’re a business looking to hire talent with disabilities, you won’t want to miss the awesome work that our partner impact organisation Astriid do with connecting people with long-term health conditions with employment opportunities!
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