I’ve worked at Business Disability Forum for 11 years and as a Senior Disability Consultant, I currently lead the organisation's global agenda. I’ve also been lucky enough to be part of the PurpleSpace story since the very beginning, in part due to my role as a member of the Advisory Board to the Secrets & Big News project team.
The Secrets & Big News project started in 2014 and much of the public narrative at the time and in the years preceding, was about disability at the time was about cost…the cost of welfare reform, the bedroom tax etc. This was coupled with an insidious narrative in the tabloids where disabled people were often characterised as scroungers and a drain on the public purse.
It wasn’t all bad and there were lots of stories about the sporting achievements of our Paralympian athletes or the bravery of our service personnel injured in the line of duty.
At the same time, back at Business Disability Forum, employers were telling us that they wanted to collect data about disability but were finding it difficult to do so.
Government figures at the time suggested that disabled people make up about 12% of any workforce but even the employers with a long track record on disability inclusion would report that their official statistics indicated that between only 0-5% of their employees were disabled.
So we were thinking "Where are the missing people?" and decided to find out by gauging the experiences of 55 employers and over 2,500 of their disabled employees.
What the research told us
When we asked disabled employees about why they shared information about disability, the majority of respondents (57%) said that they shared information because they needed their employer to make an adjustment for them.
When we asked disabled employees about what stopped them sharing information about disability, many told us that if they did not need a workplace adjustment, they saw no reason to share something that did not require an action.
But most strikingly, of those respondents who had not shared information about their disability with their employer, the vast majority of respondents (60%) said the main reason why they did not share was related to fear. For example, they worried that if they told their employer there may be repercussions either now, or in the future.
Interestingly, those in the public sector were more worried about repercussions (68%) than those in the private sector (50%).
What’s changed?
- There is now more employee led advice on the benefits of sharing information about your disability with your employer. PurpleSpace in particular have developed advice on how and when to share information and to encourage improving individual disability confidence.
- We’ve also seen network led video campaigns that encourage employees to be themselves and share relevant information health and disability at work. Campaigns by Shell, Barclays, Fujitsu are particularly noteworthy and there are many others.
- We're seeing a shift in language away from the term ‘disclosure’ which can imply that having a disability is akin to having a secret or a piece of big news. At Business Disability Forum we’re also noticing more employers opting for more neutral language like ‘sharing’.
How can disability networks and Employee Resource Groups apply this knowledge to drive change forwards?
As network leaders you have an opportunity to encourage your employer to:
- Understand that sharing information about disability or health is more than a simple box ticking exercise for disabled employees.
- Not make decisions about resourcing of disability-related work (including your network) based on the official numbers. The numbers will be inaccurate and low and your network will be under-resourced as a result.
- Invest in an effective and well publicised process for making workplace adjustments.
Lastly, spend some time reading the ‘Secrets and Big News’ research summary and if you’re a PurpleSpace member, login and download the full report.
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