DISABILITY

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It's probably true that most of us on here are aware of at least some of the myriad of laws dealing with disability and / or inequality. It's all about treating people fairly and recognising merit and valuable experience regardless of any other factor.

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Yet in today's busy business world how many of us have had the time or inclination to gain a deeper understanding of the law, and especially of the spirit of the law? As we reach for a more equal society based on merit and valuable experience, I have recently found it is vitally important to have more than just a cursory understanding of the spirit of the law, to understand the difficulties and challenges and utter frustrations of the individuals involved, who should be protected by the law.

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In fact I am shocked to discover that although the social world is thankfully more equal than before, the business world is most definitely not. For the last 30 years I have been involved on the frontline of this business world and now, much like a biblical revelation, I find many of my perceptions on fairness and equality to be completely blown out of the water.

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For those of you who know me personally, this might come as a bit of a shock (not nearly as much of a shock as it was to me) but I have been recently diagnosed with an incurable and progressive physical disorder that makes movement and travel increasingly challenging. Yes, super fit me, I'm still in shock.

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Now, please, I do not want anyone to tell me how sorry they are for me. I'm giving out this revelation because what I have since discovered in the business world. You know all those laws about disability we spoke about earlier, you know all that valuable experience we spoke about earlier, you know all those lofty ideals about fairness and equality we spoke about earlier … none of them actually matter. This is actually quite disgusting and a seriously unpleasant testament to people engaged in recruitment, both on the client side and the agency side. Because once they discover you have a physical impediment then as if by magic there suddenly appears, for example, internal policies that demand office attendance whereas before there were no such requirements, whereas before the focus was on experience and ability and the prospect of delivering sustainable business benefits, now suddenly none of that matters.

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What a complete waste of time. What a complete waste of experience and skill and ability just when we need it the most. What a complete disregard for the law and the rightful spirit of the law. Those involved in recruitment, on the client side and the agency side, do their organisations a grave disservice by actively ignoring experience and skill and ability.

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Importantly, I am just one person with one set of frustrations. Yet when I look out across the world I can see many people just like me, standing in disbelief with frustration and growing anger at the fact that all our experience and skill and ability is actively ignored by people who pay lip service to fairness and equality and subconsciously have absolutely no intention of living up to the spirit of the law.

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People like us, individuals with an incredible amount of experience and skill and ability, people with great heart and hope and dreams, people already facing the most unbelievable disappointment and challenge, are being forced further out of the frame by ignorant automatons who seemingly despise fairness and equality, hiding behind vague apologies with zero intent.

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Is this what we have become? Our experience and skill and ability are meaningless and pointless and are a burden because we do not fit in with the seeping grey mediocrity lorded over by people making insidious decisions with no intention of fairness and equality, hungry for power as they quietly chip away at the legislative bedrock, hoping no one sees.

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I see. Yes, there are many people like me across the entirety of the world who see what is happening, pushed out of work, marginalised with echoes of those vague apologies, adding to the bitterness of being ignored, anonymous and forgotten, an embarrassment perhaps to a world with no real belief in fairness and equality.

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Does this matter to you?

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It most certainly does. Because as my diagnosis and this entire set of circumstances was a shock to me … tomorrow it may be a shock to you.

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I remember one day many years ago someone had collapsed in an underground station in London. It was appalling to see all those people stepping over and around the fallen woman, desperate as they were to get from A to B, desperate to ignore the impediment. Out of all those people I was the only one to stop and pick her up and help her to the top of the escalator. I told her I would always pick her up because sure as hell if I fell I would want someone to pick me up.

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Yet here I am, looking around … and what do I find? I am invisible.

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As a society, we need to be better than this.