Archives: disability

A lot of disabled people in the workplace don’t “declare” their disabilities. Even I don’t share all of mine (I collect them). To help people be their best at work, we have to create a safe, open space that shows how we can help, not just that we can.

It’s no use being willing to help people and having a supportive attitude to creating reasonable adjustments if you sit waiting for your people to come and ask you for them.

The best way to support disabled people (and, frankly, the whole workforce) is to let everyone know the things that you’re prepared to do.

Someone with chronic pain may need a better chair and a footrest. If you’re willing to do that, tell everyone (especially new starters).

Someone with sensory sensitivities may work better if they’re allowed noise-cancelling headphones in the office. Tell everyone it’s OK to wear headphones.

Someone whose condition causes fatigue, or fluctuates on a daily basis (like many chronic, hidden disabilities do), may benefit from being able to be flexible with the days they come into the office. If that’s cool, make sure everyone knows.

Someone who suffers (and suffer really is the right word) with endometriosis might really benefit from being able to adjust their working pattern based on their cycle. As a male manager, I know that my female team members may well not want to talk about “that sort of thing” with me and they may not want to talk to anyone about it. By telling people that’s ok, it opens the door for people to be able to either open up about it, or just request that adjustment.

Disabled people don’t need much. Almost every adjustment you may ever need to make for us won’t cost you very much at all.

What we want, what we need, is to know that you care enough to offer us options.

And it’s not going to hurt to show people you care.

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This post first appeared on my Linkedin profile.

When people make a big effort to do something, it can leave them tired in the evening. When many disabled people make a big effort, the after effects can last a lot longer than that.

People with mental health issues or anxiety disorders can push themselves to do something, only to have the knock-on impact hover in their minds for days.

People with physical health problems can push themselves to do something, only to be flattened by the effort and barely able to function the next day.

People with depression can push themselves to do something, only to find that the effort of masking can leave them hollow the next day or even longer.

And disabilities don’t come in tidy little boxes. (I can tick all of those boxes at various times.)

Yesterday, I travelled into London to spend my first day in the office for almost three years. It was strange, exciting, scary, wonderful, joyful, fearful.

The physical effort of driving for two hours there and two hours back (no way I could cope with the train yet!) put more strain on my concentration than I’ve had in a long time.

The physical effort of being on a different, less supportive chair with a desk not setup how it is at home caused a bit of a flare in my chronic back and neck pain. (My fault for not spending more time adjusting.)

The mental effort of smiling, being cheerful, engaging with people in a more casual, off-the-cuff, interruptive kind of manner stretched by introverted tendencies a chunk.

None of these is a reason for me not to have gone. None is a reason to find an excuse not to go another time. None is something that would prevent me doing it again.

But today is a tough day.

If you have disabled people working in your organisation, just be mindful that the impact of the things you (collectively) do may well be far greater than the impact you (personally) experience.

Make space for disabled people to feel able to recover well, whatever that looks like for them. Make space for them to be able to adapt: I had no idea which bits of yesterday would be hardest, but I know them now and I know how I would need to deal with it again.

Allowing our people to work, rest and recover in the best possible way will, in the short term and the long run, help productivity, loyalty and (ultimately) the bottom line.

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This post first appeared on my Linkedin profile.

Harper Lee tells us “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” The question we have to ask is this:

How often do we actually walk in another’s skin and how much do we just project our thoughts and feelings onto them instead?

How often does someone look at a person in a wheelchair and think how awful it must be because they can’t imagine being deprived of their mobility?

How often does someone immediately dismiss the views of another person because they don’t match with their own?

How often does someone think they’re being compassionate when they’re actually being patronising?

I certainly know how often people used to call me “brave” because of the way I dealt with (deal with, but less obviously now) cystic fibrosis and its life-altering, life-shortening effects.

But I’ve never been brave.

It’s not brave to wake up an hour before everyone else because I need to fit in a physio session and nebuliser.

It’s not brave to take time off work when you’re too ill to get out of bed.

It’s not brave to spend months of a year in a hospital room.

It’s life.

But almost no one stopped to properly walk in my skin and understand that it’s not brave to simply live your life. No matter how you deal with the adversity thrown at you, it’s not brave. It’s life.

Next time you find yourself dismissing someone’s views, next time you find yourself feel sorrow or pity or sadness for a disabled person, next time you find yourself in a tough conversation at work, don’t project your views onto them.

Stop and really think about what it’s like in their skin. It’s likely to be very different than you first think.

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This post first appeared on my Linkedin profile.