The stigma behind disclosing disabilities at work

Understanding hidden disabilities

Hidden disabilities (sometimes called ‘non-visible’) are any disabilities that are not immediately visible. This can include:

• Neurodivergent conditions
• Chronic health issues such as fatigue, chronic pain, arthritis
• Mental health conditions
• Hearing loss
• Vision impairment

It is estimated that around 70-80% of disabilities are non-visible. This contrasts with how most disability is portrayed: simplistically and usually signalled by a picture of a wheelchair user. This can mean colleagues with invisible disabilities are more able to hide them that their colleagues who use wheelchairs or have assistance dogs. However, this is a double-edged sword: hiding or masking one’s disability can be exhausting and dehumanising.

What are your responsibilities as an employer?

As employers we have legal responsibilities to ensure that disabled colleagues are not discriminated against, but true inclusion goes much further than legal compliance.

An obvious place to start would be reasonable adjustments, for instance:

• Ensuring your workplace is accessible to all current and future employees
• Flexible working in the true sense: flexibility around work location, working hours, and how the work is done
• Using technology smartly to make it easy for your colleagues to succeed in their role

You can also ensure ‘compliance’ by ensuring you have clear policies and procedures, and regular training for all employees to equip them to be inclusive.

However, we want to go further than our basic legal responsibilities. Instead of just considering ‘reasonable’ adjustments, what about innovative ways of working that mean everyone can perform and thrive? Our Inclusion Passport (part of our Members’ Resources) is a great way to empower your managers and colleagues to have good quality inclusion conversations in 121s, identify ways of working that ensure people can thrive, and provide a record that can move around with a colleague (as their ‘passport’ within the organisation) if they move roles or managers.

How else can your workplace become a safe place for disabled colleagues?

Here are some suggestions for actions you can take using our six pillars of inclusion.

• Engage your employees with awareness-raising campaigns such as UK Disability History Month 16th Nov to 16th Dec, or Disability Pride Month in July each year. Start your engagement journey by gathering anonymous demographic data and using it as your baseline measurement of progress.
• Equip your employees to be inclusive colleagues and managers with line management training such as our CMI level 5.
• Empower colleagues by involving them in inclusion activities: staff network, committees, Inclusion Allies programmes and reverse mentoring.
• Embed disability inclusion with clear, best practice policies and regular training to ensure employees feel confident to use them.
• Evaluate your progress against your baseline. What has made a difference? Where are your gaps?
• Evolve your approach by making data-driven decisions and drawing from best practice.

What should you do next?

If you’re already an Inclusive Employers member speak to your account manager about our inclusion passport and our disability resources.

Speak to us about our inclusive recruitment audit: a comprehensive audit of your recruitment process followed by practical recommendations for improvement and comprehensive training to empower recruitment teams and hiring managers.

Empower your line managers to build and sustain inclusive high performing teams with our CMI Level 5 Award in Managing Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.