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What would you think, if a manager was physically assaulting a staff member? Would it be okay to do nothing? Of course not.

Would you think, if that staff member had to take leave to recover from their injuries, that the manager should not be held to account for their conduct? Of course not.

Yet this exactly what staff with disability experience when they are refused the attention to their needs that they are entitled to. The assault is not physical, however. It is emotional. But the consequences are no less catastrophic upon the staff member’s wellbeing. In fact, the emotional harm done endures far longer than physical. For people who have been physically assaulted the emotional trauma of the assault remains long after the body has healed.

Post Traumatic Stress is a real consideration

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is experienced long after the conflict zone has been exited. For a long time, PTSD has focused on a threat to physical being only. We now recognise Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD), which “relates to the trauma model of mental disorders and is associated with chronic sexual, psychological, and physical abuse or neglect, chronic intimate partner violence, victims of prolonged workplace or school bullying”.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_post-traumatic_stress_disorder)

Prolonged workplace bullying can manifest in many ways – including the failure or refusal to provide assistance or an adjustment while insisting that the staff member with disability is being supported.

Disability can be traumatic

Staff with disability who need a workplace adjustment to enable them to do their best work are not asking for favours. They are asking for something they are entitled to have and which their agency is obliged to provide.

Living with a disability can include living with PTSD or C-PTSD because the psychological impacts of significant disability are rarely acknowledged or understood. This is especially so for acquired disability or chronic degenerative conditions.

To be ignored or refused or treated dismissively and without empathy can add, sometimes critically, to the stress burden a person with disability already experiences.

When managers do not act appropriately

Staff with disability report that the most common problem they encounter is unresponsive line management, and when they seek to address that problem, several things commonly happen:

• The line manager becomes even more unresponsive.
• Executives back the line manager; or refuse to intervene.
• The staff member feels blamed for ‘causing’ the problem – and sometimes they feel that they are being punished – especially if they complain.
• Their workplace adjustment matter remains unresolved.

Catastrophic consequences for staff with disability

Here are some consequences experienced by staff members with disabilities after being subject to abusive conduct by line managers:

• Ongoing physical pain and stress because their adjustment need has not been addressed – leading to reduced performance – and then a performance review
• Feeling they are not valued or respected – or treated with dignity or respect
• Depression and anxiety
• Workers Compensation leave for psychological injury – not infrequently having to return to the same abusive environment
• Traumatic memories and reactions associated with a workplace setting or senior staff seen as ‘perpetrators’ of abuse
• Having a reputation for being a ‘troublemaker’
• Fear of being ‘managed out’
• Emotional exhaustion
• Resignation in despair

This is still going on. Why do we think it is okay?

There are no processes to ensure that:

• A staff member with disability can obtain swift and effective support to ensure their entitlement to a workplace adjustment is respected and acted upon.
• Line managers and their executive managers who refuse or fail to support a workplace adjustment request are held to account and effectively assisted to change their attitudes and behaviours.

What staff with disability experience is assault

A refusal or failure to exercise proper responsibility and power on behalf of an agency to support the welfare of a staff member is unacceptable.

It is also a form of assault – because it causes harm. Emotional or psychological injury is mostly seen as the aftermath of a real (physical) assault. In fact, it is the immediate and direct consequence of an assault upon a person’s psychological wellbeing (their sense of dignity, sense of self-worth, sense of personal power and their expectation of inclusion as an equal).

Psychological assault is as serious as physical assault. An agency’s obligation to act to stop or prevent it is no different. An agency’s responsibility toward the ‘victim’ is no different. 

An agency’s response to the perpetrators of psychological assault is a measure of the degree to which it tolerates or condones abuse of power by its leaders. If it did not tolerate or condone such conduct it would have a mechanism in place to prevent and address it now.

It is not okay not to act.

Introduction

The NSW government has made an admirable commitment through its Premier’s Priorities to increase the proportion of staff with disability across the NSW Public Sector.

The goal is to hit 5.6% by 2025. It has been acknowledged that this is not going to happen at present recruitment rates.

I think the reality is that the actual level of employment of people with disability already exceeds this, and that what is happening now is wrongheaded and misdirected.

There is a focus on recruitment, and not retention. Recruitment is an easier matter to tackle, but it will not be enough. I am not opposed to making recruitment of people with disability more inclusive. That must happen. It’s just not the epicentre of the problem – which is retention.

Retention is a complex issue because it is primarily about cultural change. Unlike reforming talent acquisition processes, cultural change is difficult and requires sustained and focused effort over a long time.

Realities of the retention challenge

I am now a former public servant with an acquired disability who took a voluntary redundancy at retirement age. This was not an intent to retire. I calculated my self-interest, and this was the best option. Disability played a part, of course. Levels of disability increase with age and as we get to retirement age, we are more likely to have a disability. So, retirement will see more people with disability exiting the workforce. Retention of older workers is more complex matter, so I want to remove it from consideration in this context and focus more problematic retention issues that are disability specific.

I was the Chair of an active Disability Employee Network (DEN) for over 3 years, during which time I stepped away from recruitment to focus on retention. My concern was to ‘get our own house in order first’. I was dealing with a steady flow of distressed and frustrated staff with disability who would have quit, were it economically feasible to do so. Their concerns often had to do with how they were treated when they sought workplace adjustments.

I saw things improve very markedly over my term as DEN Chair. But concerns persisted, and instances of staff with disability being subjected to what can only be called abuse continued, albeit at a lower level.

My biggest concern is that managers are unaware of their responsibilities toward staff with disability, and lack the necessary self-awareness and empathy needed to handle matters raised in the most appropriate manner. 

Abusive conduct varies in the severity of impact and ranges from inadvertent to pathological – the latter extreme being mercifully uncommon, but not non-existent.

Staff with disability range from being resilient to vulnerable, and their ability to represent their interests effectively and independently varies. Conduct does not have to be extreme to be abusive. It can be unintentional and seemingly mild and still have a harmful impact.

This is not to suggest that a manger should walk as if on eggshells. Rather that their conduct reflects sufficient self-awareness, empathy and compassion so at least they can be approached with confidence when the need arises.

In the absence of such confidence an assured alternative must exist, along with an organisational will to act. While that will is genuinely expressed at senior leadership level, it is not enacted lower in the chain of responsibility – to a worrying degree.

Line mangers and their managers are the pivot point in retention of staff, regardless of whether they have a disability. They are the pivot point for performance as well. In this respect staff with disability are a bellwether – if an organisation can’t retain staff with disability, it has no idea how much other talent is fleeing poor management as well.

The secret to the retention of staff with disability

Workplaces in general seemed to be filled with goodwill, and a genuine organisational commitment to inclusion and accessibility will deliver desired success. There really isn’t a ‘secret sauce’ needed – openness, empathy and compassion will do wonders on their own. But, an organisation may need to give permission for goodwill to be activated – and be generous in funding adaptations that may be necessary to ensure accessibility (in terms of funds and how those funds are accessed). Such generosity is not about recklessness, but timeliness, efficacy and the spirit in which actions are undertaken.

That leaves the problem areas – where unkind managers can and will cause grief, injury, and eventual departure. An honest audit of an organisation’s business areas to evaluate manager attitudes and impact on staff must be a key part of getting one’s house in order.

Fixing problem areas will take time. If staff with disability work in those areas, it is important to know whether there are discrimination and work health and safety issues festering out of sight of senior responsible leaders.

The real challenge

In the NSW the PMES results show a consistently high level of Prefer Not To Say (PNTS) responses on the question of whether the participant has a disability. This may include people who are unsure whether they have a disability, as well as others who do not feel safe, even in the survey, to say they do. Across the sector, PNTS rates ranged from 20% to over 60% higher than rates disability in 2020.

Whether motivated by uncertainty or fear, the problem with being open comes down to a willingness to trust one’s supervisor/team leader/manager with personal information that might expose a vulnerability.

A vulnerability is always a risk factor if the response is unknown. If the response is expected to be adverse, a vulnerability will be concealed until talking about it becomes the least worst option. By then usually the preventable harm has been done.

Some managers will express surprise that a staff member lacks the confidence in them to raise a sensitive personal matter. That surprise may be genuine, but it reflects a problematic lack of self-awareness. 

For an organisation the challenge must be to achieve two critical objectives in ensuring managers are not the source of inadvertent or intentional harm:

• There is uniform awareness of legislation and policies concerning staff with disability – and there is a related effective mechanism to ensure accountability and correction in the event of a failure to comply with either.
• Managers possess sufficient self-awareness (and empathy) to allow a staff member to approach them on a matter related to disability. Failing that, staff members have an assured point of contact that the manager is aware of.

In conclusion

Retention depends upon two factors – an inclusive and accessible workplace experience, and managers who are sensitive to, and supportive of, the needs of staff with disability. The first is a relatively easy fix. The second is not – and it is more often glossed over because of success with the first.

The secret to enduring retention of staff with disability is having managers who possess the spirit and skills to respond to disability issues in an empathic and compassionate way.

There is abundant research on teams indicating that leadership is the vital element in retaining staff and hitting peak performance. Diverse teams are acknowledged as being more productive. The array of leadership skills must include self-awareness and compassion – two things that are neither sufficiently acknowledged nor selected for.

The attributes of managers impact all staff. Indeed, this is central to an organisation’s culture – and its reputation. The sensitivities exhibited at the recruitment phase of a relationship with an organisation are meaningless unless they are mirrored in decision-making and leadership roles throughout the organisation.

What is true for all staff is true for people with disability. Getting one’s house in order for disability benefits everybody. The best will come and will stay.

Normally an organisation has one Disability Champion – usually a senior executive. That’s okay if you are content that change will take place at a leisurely pace. But why would that be so?

In 2018 I attended the Australian Network on Disability (AND) National Conference in Sydney. The keynote speaker was Kate Nash, CEO of PurpleSpace, a UK based organisation dedicated to the establishment and support of Disability Employee Resource Groups (ERGs). At that time, I had been Chair of a Disability Employee Network (DEN) for 18 months.

Kate’s message shocked me. I had been a member of the DEN for over 6 years, and I had become accustomed to a slow process of change – not quite glacially slow, but not too far off that. 

Kate helped me see that making changes to ensure that staff with disability were included and afforded equal access to what they needed to give their best work should have a sense of urgency about it. An injustice should be remedied promptly, surely. It was okay to be impatient and to want to push an organisation into action. 

The legislation and policies that require and support disability inclusion and equal access don’t have a clause that adds “when you can get around to it.” And yet we would be forgiven for believing otherwise at times.

I am not naïve. I know that organisations have time and resource constraints – and changes do take time. But addressing the inequities experienced by staff with disability won’t happen unless there are people acting on an imperative that responds to legal and moral implications. Further, addressing such an imperative is either part of core business, or an optional extra. It can’t switch between either. And its certainly not an optional extra.

Early on I argued that responding to the needs of staff with disability should be a sub-category of work health and safety. That was not a popular notion. My logic was straightforward and simple. Staff with disability frequently experienced physical and psychological injury when refused workplace adjustments – or when requests were slow-walked through a needlessly elaborate process. Exclusion and discrimination cause harm – and remediating action should be prompt.

After Kate Nash’s wake-up call I got moving. I was blessed with the support of a truly exceptional Disability Champion, and she made me understand how potent a serious Disability Champion could be. 

In a presentation to my Board in February 2019 I observed that all executives had at least an implicit responsibility to ensure staff with disability were included and the means to do their work were accessible. The Board agreed. 

But why put the burden of ensuring this happened upon the shoulders of just one of their own? If one Disability Champion was a good idea why not enlist those senior leaders who acknowledged their implicit duty and are happy to make it explicit? I set what I thought was the bold objective of recruiting 30 additional Disability Champions in the ten months to the end of 2019. By 31 December 2019 I had doubled that number.

To be honest, not everyone who signed up walked the walk. But most did. A subsequent outstanding Executive DEN Champion helped immensely by developing an internal Disability Champions’ Network. But this faltered when he moved on. The potential had been demonstrated and the benefit had been proven. Running a Champions’ Network is not for everyone. But nothing should be stopping a community of Disability Champions from sharing the workload.

I stepped down from the DEN Chair role in March 2020, scarcely more than 12 months from that initial Board presentation. That presentation was a trigger point for a series of events that led to cascading change in attitudes – led by senior leaders. 

I have no doubt that the recruitment of multiple Disability Champions was a key factor. Senior leaders became more visible supporters. They began to attend the quarterly formal DEN meetings – because they were sent invites as Disability Champions. They were exposed to the discourse the DEN was developing.

This was a good beginning.

I am no longer employed in that organisation. I have had time to look back. I am content with what I achieved – but I barely tapped the potential to generate powerful change through an active network of Disability Champions.

As the DEN Chair I had a duty to convey the impatience of members for change that was their right to demand, and the organisation’s duty to deliver. I didn’t believe I was honouring my obligation if I was not being a ‘pain in the neck’ to the senior leadership. But I was always positive and civil. The leadership knew the problem – even with the best will, change is stubbornly slow moving.

We needed to create more points of action. Sixty Disability Champions can generate more change than one. That’s not a surprise. The amount of effort required to feed incentive to 60 or 120 or 240 Disability Champions is not that much. But it must be organised and focused – and in these days when time and resources are at a premium it can be hard to pull that energy together. It takes just a handful of Disability Champions to decide to make it happen.

The return on investment is subtle, but it is spectacular. It is not a thing in isolation, but a co-creative partnership with the DEN – and the many staff with good will across the organisation.

When I got seriously into promoting the DEN, I started to discover something I had never thought about, but which I knew intimately. I returned to work in late September 2019 after 18 months absence (10 in hospital and 8 at home doing physio) and walked into an embrace of boundless good will. I had some hard experiences with a few managers, but nobody else. This is a resource that underpins the fundamental decency of almost every organisation.

In healthy workplaces, staff look to leaders for clues about how to behave – often seeking no more than permission, or confirmation it is okay, to act with compassion and empathy. That’s most workplaces these days.

It will become apparent where the problem workplaces are – and here Disability Champions may need to address attitudes and values out of harmony with organisation’s values. But where there are problems for staff with disability you can be assured everyone is impacted to some degree.

Multiple Disability Champions who walk the walk are powerful engines for change. I’d like them all to be impatient, to know that its not okay that matters of justice, health and equity should be resolved more slowly than is reasonable. Some responses must be immediate. Disability Champions can make that happen. Other responses must take time – so long as things are happening, and the action request/demand not parked in a buried to do list. Disability Champions can get things moving and keep them moving.

A serious commitment to change cannot fall on the shoulders of a single Disability Champion. The burden of responsibility is too great. So too is the effort required to honour any commitment given by the organisation.

A Disability Champion is a personal affirmation of compassion and empathy. The legal and moral obligations are present regardless. It is the personal commitment of a leader in acknowledging the personal experience of a staff member with disability that makes the difference.

An Evolving Awareness 

Attitudes toward disability have been evolving steadily over the past 4 decades. They reflect a general cultural evolution to a greater sense of inclusion and pluralism – a most welcome movement away from culturally sanctioned discrimination. 

Cultures are neither uniform nor homogenous, so the process of change is uneven. Some will embrace it with enthusiasm. Others will resist with determination. The majority will adapt as need and opportunity arise. There is no absence of good will, just an absence of an imperative to act with any urgency. 

What is true of the community in general is true of organisations. This presents a challenge to activists and those whose role it is to initiate or strengthen organisational change. 

The Compliance Challenge 

Organisational change agents (DENs/ERGs and formal internal change drivers) have the advantage of working with a discrete community of employees under an obligation to conform to legal and policy requirements. But how persistent non-compliance is handled is another matter. 

Persistent non-compliance in disability inclusion arises for three main reasons: 

1. A failure of some staff to understand that compliance with legal and policy requirements is a core aspect of their role. This obligation may be articulated in a formal Code of Conduct, but it is rarely specifically highlighted and or regularly reviewed. 
2. An attitudinal disinclination to be compliant, or an intentional disagreement with the core message of the legislation or policy. This is usually the result of psychological traits that are acknowledged as problematic in a workforce generally, and which can be catastrophic in managers and leaders in their dealing with vulnerable employees. 
3. The reluctance of an organisation to treat non-compliance as a serious matter. The desired cultural value of tolerating non- conformity with one’s own beliefs and values is translated into what can be interpreted as an appetite for tolerating abuse in an organisational context. 

Two Sides to Accountability 

Staff with disability report problematic and persistent non-inclusive conduct by individuals described in point 2 above. It is this conduct that often leads to serious psychological harm and creates fear that inclusion is not an authentic organisational priority. 

DEN/ERG leaders see that one of their biggest challenges is encouraging an organisation to be effectively and systematically responsive to issues raised about non-inclusive and abusive managers. 

Accountability is highly valued as a trait, but it has two sides: 

• Personal accountability – individuals are self-aware of their attitudes and actions, and acknowledge and act when they cause unintended harm. Where this is lacking, the next point is crucial: 

• An organisation’s duty to ensure that failures in compliance with legislation and policy are promptly addressed, and persons responsible are assisted to meet and maintain compliance requirements. 

Making Inclusion Work for All 

Inclusion has, therefore, two challenges: 

1. The patient and positive delivery of the inclusion message that will be progressively absorbed and expressed through staff attitudes and behaviours; 
2. The addressing of persistent non-compliance with legislation and policy which expresses as exclusion; and leads to actual physical and psychological injury. 

The responses to these challenges must be concurrent and part of a thought- through strategy. They cannot be separated, as the continuance of the second challenge unaddressed, injures the first’s credibility, and slows it progress. 

Disability Inclusion is something people with disability are serious about. Disability is part of the spectrum of being human* – it’s like any other attribute that makes us who we are.

It’s not about what we can’t do. Even most people without disability can’t do lots of things – can’t sing, can’t dance, can’t draw, can’t cook and so on. Not being able to do something is not the point. Not being able to do what you can and want to do because of attitudes, behaviours and barriers is the point.

In a sense, the challenge of disability inclusion is about how we, as a person with disability, can work to change the attitudes and behaviours of others – and have the barriers removed.

We have to do it because we know, better than anyone else, the injustice of exclusion. We have the impatience and the determination to drive the changes needed. But we need allies, with whom we can make creating genuine inclusion a real art – a genuine act of creation.

I focus on employment because this is my area of expertise. I also focus on the sticking points in organisational culture and behaviour because fixing the hard things is not only necessary to ensure inclusion is uniformly experienced – it is a moral imperative for any organisation that claims it supports inclusion.

Michael Patterson

13 October 2021

* From Claire Cunningham https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04n611c