How can you ensure that your team understands the needs of employees with disabilities?

Communicate openly and listen closely - asking the right questions is only one part. Listening actively helps you to not make assumptions.

To ensure understanding, prioritize education on disability issues, offer training on inclusive practices, encourage open communication for feedback, provide accessible resources and tools, actively involve employees with disabilities in decision-making, and regularly assess and adjust policies and accommodations to meet evolving needs.

To ensure that your team understands the needs of employees with disabilities, it's important to provide proper training and education on disability awareness and inclusion. This can include workshops, seminars, or online resources to help team members better understand different types of disabilities and how they can support colleagues with disabilities. Encourage open communication and create a safe space for team members to ask questions and seek clarification on how to accommodate the needs of employees with disabilities. Additionally, consider implementing policies and practices that promote accessibility and inclusivity in the workplace, such as providing assistive technologies, flexible work arrangements

It has to start at the top. It has to start with senior management and managers. Everyone watches their actions and language. If they are open and interact with the (disabled) employees, other employees will follow suit. If the management is rude or off-putting then sadly, others will follow suit. So it is imperative that it has to start from the top down. Sad, but true.

I always emphasise how important communication is. From providing interview questions in advance of an interview and allow notes to be bought in to ensuring agendas are always available ahead of time, employers can and should create an environment where everyone is kept in the loop.

On your internal learning and development have a organisation wide disability awareness module. For managers of disabled colleagues make it mandatory.

In my opinion, it is not enough to just follow equality laws. If you want to create a culture of understanding you have to be proactive and go above and beyond regulatory standards. Anti-ableist practices allow teams to be proactive in creating cultures of inclusion and psychological safety. Until we dismantle ableism through education and cultural shifts we will never be able to properly understand the lived reality of being disabled in society.

To ensure that your team understands the needs of employees with disabilities, you can: 1. Provide training and education on disability awareness and sensitivity. 2. Encourage open communication and dialogue about accommodations and support needed. 3. Implement inclusive policies and practices to create a supportive work environment. 4. Offer resources and tools to help employees with disabilities succeed in their roles. 5. Foster a culture of respect, understanding, and empathy towards all team members. 6. Seek feedback and input from employees with disabilities on how to best support them. 7. Address any issues or barriers promptly and proactively to ensure inclusivity and accessibility for all team members.

I see a lot of organisations who want to make their disabled or neurodivergent employees the font of knowledge, making them design training. A lot of the time though, they're doing a job completely unrelated to learning, training, and EDI and don't have ambitions to get into this field. Therefore hiring lived experience experts to deliver this training and take the weight of your employees is vital.

This part is the key and can make this easy to do. Often this goal is what makes people over reach or over react. I often in these matters think of a cartoon I once saw. It was about snow shoveling that showed a person in a wheelchair waiting as they cleared the steps first. The caption read if they did the ramp first everyone could use it.

The key is to ensure that the (Disabled) employee have what they need to be successful. There is no tool or accommodation out there that can give them an unfair advantage over others, but everyone seems to think so!! This thinking has got to stop.

In the UK, employers have to follow the equality act 2010 which means that all employers must make workplace adjustments. Using the term "reasonable" can really minimise what employers should be doing, when in reality virtually everything is reasonable. If someone is asking for flexibility, the technology and equipment they need then employers should be getting this sorted asap.

Ask any employee who you recruit whether they have any additional requirements, even if they haven’t shared a disability. If they share a disability ask them if they have a workplace adjustments passport or list of adjustments from a previous employee or educational establishment. If they are newly disabled then get a workplace assessment done by an expert

Yes, ensure that the (Disabled) employee has mentors and managers who believe in their ability to advance and promote their career, but far too often are the low low low glass ceiling that faces the disabled employees. It is very hard for us to move up compared to our unequal peers in the workplace. This has got to change sooner than later.

Many disability confident employers in the UK are running several initiatives 1. Reverse or circular mentoring where senior executives mentor disabled employees and in return the mentee educates the senior executives on disability 2. Create and run a personal development programme for disabled employees sponsored by an executive. 3. Many organisations are running dedicated career development programmes to move disabled employees into more senior roles.

Employee networks are a great way to ensure collaboration and sharing ideas. Also creating opportunities for mentorship and upmentoring can really help with skills and career development. With these though, there needs to be buy in at the very top. If no one is listening to what is discussed in these meetings then they're a waste of time. Ensure buy in, ensure follow-up, and ensure action.

This is important, always ensure open communication and backup for a disabled employee to foster an inclusive workplace for the person involved. Many people often have misunderstandings on what it is like for us and we often have to deal with more internal and external struggles as a disabled person. But often times we are still the most dependable employee....but we are rarely rewarded for our efforts and time put into our work.

This article speaks with an “us and them” tone. Take off the complicated lenses… just ask! Ask us (a person with disability), like you would any staff member - what do you need, how can I support you, how are you feeling in your role? #HumanInHumanResources

Make sure that in on-boarding and on any employee portals, you clearly list the person to contact if an employee needs to ask for an accommodation. It’s scary enough to have to speak up and ask for what you need to be most successful, but not knowing where to go add an additional obstacle that doesn’t need to be there.

Ensure that every step in your company is mutually inclusive and accessible, from job applications, to interviewing, to on-boarding to retention, and yet most companies fail to see and accommodate this. Then wonder why issues keep coming up, over and over again!!

By actively engaging employees with disabilities, providing accommodations, avenues, or fostering an inclusive culture, and seeking external expertise, your team can then get a better understanding of their needs and create a conducive environment where they feel normal and thrive against all odds.

Post COVID another important dimension that is added to businesses is that, there is no longer requirement of physical presence on job rather it can be done remotely. It has enhanced the era where everyone can contribute with equal impact. Policies must be clearly defined for have and have nots when one business is set to open doors for all employees. Policy should direct all employee which thing can be accepted and which cannot. By creating coexist n collaboration culture , including people with disabilities business can reach the new horizons never conquered before.