Disability Inclusion in Workplace

In the spirit of International Day of Persons with Disabilities, sharing 4 major tips on how you can actively support your colleagues with disabilities.

1. Stay Informed: Learn about different types of disabilities, and how each condition can affect people in different ways. Recognize that there is diversity within disabilities. Understand that each country defines disability differently, learn what are some of the conditions considered as a disability in your country. You can do this through a simple online research. Often we are unaware of some of the disabilities prevalent today.
2. Show you care: Show your support by infusing accessible practices into your daily work schedules. Make your emails, presentations, word and excel documents accessible. Use alternate text for images, and captions for audio files despite who the recipients are. Modify working arrangements to include flexibility, physical accessibility and assistive technology that will benefit all. Plan your team meeting and team outings in an accessible place, involve them while deciding the place.
3. Speak up for People with Disabilities: Bystander effect at workplace will encourage toxic behaviors. If you notice discrimination, bullying or exclusion of disabled colleagues, make sure to speak up and report to your line manager. As hiring managers and recruiters, ensure equal payment for people with disabilities.
4. Bust unconscious bias and myths: Some of the bias and myths regarding disabled people that exist in workplace include; "We can recognize a disabled person, by looking at them", "Disabled people do not have relationships, get married or have children", "People with Disabilities have a higher absentee rate". The truth is many conditions are invisible and hidden like mental health conditions, autism or hearing loss etc. People with Disabilities have the same relationships as everyone else and please do not assume that their partners will also be a disabled person. 90% of employers said that they did not think employees with disabilities were any more likely to take time off, according to a study by Reeds and Disability Rights UK.

Do you have any tips and advice you would like to share for supporting your disabled colleagues? Send your comments further below.