The empathetic understanding of the experience of other human beings is as basic of endowment of man as his vision, hearing, taste, touch and smell .

Heinz Kohut

As you will have read from my previous post, one of the things which I’m constantly reiterating is that an employer’s provision of accessibility adjustments for disabled colleagues is not a cure all to magically eliminate a disabled colleagues day to day challenges in doing their job! Nor does providing  such adjustments mean that colleagues can be treated as having no greater difficulties than  others even if they have certain adjustments!

Accessibility adjustments (such as screen reading software for sight impaired colleagues) is a key item in making work accessible, but it is only half the story.  There are multiple factors to facilitate a disabled colleague’s needs and ensure that they are included in all aspects of working life.

In my experience there are two key prongs – much like the two prongs of a meat fork (get it). *Disclaimer when I refer to “meat fork” in this post I also include any meat substitute forks having2 prongs …

 The two prongs are –

1. Implementing   appropriate accessibility adjustments.
   
   
   
2. Supportive, informed and empathetic colleagues.

I believe  these two prongs are essential to enable a disabled colleague to have access to their job (though please note they are not the only things that are needed). 

They are quite different but interdependent. The lack of one prong makes the other obsolete. It’s like trying to grab a nice steak (beef or cauliflower)off the barbeque with only one of the prongs of the meat fork. Chances are it’ll be impossible, or at best, you’ll drop the steak on the floor on its journey from sizzling barbeque to HANGRY plate holder. Nobody wants to incur the wrath of the hangry plate holder now do they.

Prong 1:Implementing Appropriate Accessibility Adjustments

In my view this is the prong which is improving most amongst employers. Increasingly with the Equalities Act 2010 employer’s often have on their radar that they need to provide certain accessibility adjustments to disabled individuals (referred to as “reasonable adjustments”).

I think what has helped with this immensely – particularly for disabled colleagues with less specific accessibility needs – is the adoption of specific accessibility software built into our daily tech.

As I’ve previously noted, iPhones are inbuilt with an array of accessibility features for people with visual, hearing, neurological  and mobility disabilities. Further Microsoft is increasing its variety of accessibility features as standard on all of its builds. This therefore means that some aspects of accessibility software is already available and owned by the employer as standard. For some disabled colleagues this may be sufficient and therefore it shouldn’t be too difficult for employers to provide for those individuals (assuming such individuals agree those adjustments are appropriate). In addition, more tools are being implemented to assist people with neurological disabilities (e.g. dyslexia and dyspraxia etc). Features such as Read Aloud – which reads out loud a certain sentence on the page to help dyslexic individuals or the dictation feature are also of value.

Having said this, each disabled person’s needs and accessibility requirements are different and employers should NEVER assume that the standard inbuilt software will be sufficient. For example, whilst there is screen-reading and magnification inbuilt software on Windows and Microsoft products this is  nowhere near as useful or effective as my ZoomText Fusion software.

Chances are that a substantial proportion of disabled colleagues will need more specific software such as ZoomText Fusion.

A few things which I think employers should consider to help with regard to providing appropriate adjustments are-

• Having members of the IT and HR teams whose role specifically includes being aware of the available adjustments. They don’t need to be an expert, but having an individual with some base knowledge is helpful in speeding the implementation process up. 

• Having contacts within or conversations with external accessibility adjustment providers who specifically deal with this so an employer knows where it can source more expert advice from when needed.

• Having ongoing conversations with the relevant employee. As the employee progresses  up the career ladder their role may change meaning extra or alternative adjustments will be required. Similarly, the effects or characteristics of an individual’s disability may change so similar conversations will need to take place in this instance.

As a side note, please could you do me a favour and re-read the 2^nd sentence in item 3? You may think there is nothing remarkable there. However, let me tell you, the fact that I contemplate a disabled colleague climbing up a career ladder, without qualification, caveat or deliberate dark sarcasm, would, even five years ago, have sounded remarkable to me as a disabled person.

For me, and disabled friends I’ve spoken to, the dream was actually to get a job – that is it. Many of us, even in the last five years,  didn’t even consider the idea of progression it felt that far-fetched . I’m not going to lie to you, I still live with these apprehensions now. That is the consequence of growing up in a working society that creates such inaccessible structures though I suppose…

Now though, things are slowly changing and with greater education within employers and wider society, generations below mine won’t even consider the frankly terrifying thought that there is a ceiling for disabled colleagues as compared to able bodied contemporise.

Something to think about hey….

Prong 2: Supportive, informed and empathetic colleagues

You’ll notice I’ve referred to “colleagues” here rather than the employer. That is quite deliberate.   

The key to creating a disability inclusive workplace is the attitudes of the disabled employees day to day colleagues. Of course, if every person in an organisation is supportive, informed and empathetic that is the dream scenario, but I don’t think that is a realistic assumption you can make about any organisation at this stage – hence the reason for this blog.

Many organisations  have now publicly committed to create a more disability inclusive environment and have internal policies, agendas and working groups to encourage this culture shift.  However such public commitments and internal policies are only as good as the people within and their wish to foster this change. 

In my view, if each person within an organisation doesn’t accommodate for disabled colleagues, the public commitments and internal policies are about as useful as a barber shop on the steps of a guillotine and these policies may continue to be seen as a simple “quota” device.

I’m not going to patronise you by telling you what you should and shouldn’t say to a disabled colleague (though stay tuned for a future post on some of the frankly absurd things that people have said to me which are just so clearly things not to say). However I set out a few tips that may help you if you are working with a disabled colleague. 

1. Ask Questions: Ask them if there is anything you need to be aware of (e.g. do they need documents in a specific form, or ask if they need a specific office arrangement or location near the lifts or bathroom etc). Most disabled colleagues will appreciate the fact you are considering their needs at all – even if you’re asking what you think is a “wrong” or “ignorant” question. 
   
   
   
2. End the Awkward: Guaranteed, that a disabled person will have heard worse questions than yours. The likelihood is that your question isn’t even that bad or awkward. People get into their heads when they speak to disabled people. The more you worry, the more likely your exchange will be awkward so just ask. You don’t want to be that proverbial person who gets so in their head that they forget to bring bullets  to a shooting yourself in the foot competition, do you?
   
   
   
3. Don’t dehumanise your disabled colleague When Interacting On A Personal Level: Just because your colleague is disabled and works differently it doesn’t mean you have to interact with them differently to other colleagues. The beauty of being supportive is that once you work with a disabled colleague enough the helpful things you can do will become habit. You wouldn’t interact with someone differently because of their gender, race or sexual orientation, would you? So why would you interact differently with someone who is disabled? 
   
   
   
4. Don’t assume they are experts on disability or that is all they can converse about: Because disability is such an awkward conversation for many, once you break the barriers down and get to know someone better, there is often a tendency for people to use them as an outlet for all their disability related conversations. Of course, ask questions to better inform yourself and talk about disability but don’t exclude your conversations to that. Just because I am sight impaired myself, it doesn’t mean that I’m the person whose an expert on Stevie Wonder, David Blunkett  or Helen Keller. Similarly, I’m not the person to ask about whether you should go to the opticians for a stronger pair of glasses… Being disabled is just one part of a person, it isn’t their defining characteristic so don’t make someone feel like it is.

I imagine most of the above is obvious to you, but as I will keep saying small things done by a lot can make a huge difference. Remember my friends, thousands of candles can be lit by the flame of a single candle!

*Disclaimer  – The thoughts on this post are mine. They are based off the life experiences, difficulties and challenges of a man having lived with, worked and experienced the world with a sight impairment who is lucky enough to use these for the betterment of disabled individuals and society in general. Other  individuals may have alternative  views to those of my own which will be just as valid as my own.