Responses from members of the Disabled Leaders Network (YDP0042)
The Disabled Leaders Network (DLN) is formed of UK university masters students, graduates and young professionals who all have lived experience of disability. Members join the network through the highly competitive Snowdon Trust Scholarship - and are either scholar holders, or candidates that were shortlisted. The network itself is in its infancy and is designed to be member-led - to become a space where disabled students and graduates can find peer-support, community and new opportunities with the support from the Snowdon Trust and partnering organisation the Global Disability Innovation Hub (GDI Hub).
Members of the DLN often comment on and discuss their experiences and challenges of transitioning into the workplace from university and some of the barriers and inequalities they have faced. The responses to the questions are representative of a couple of members of the network, who care deeply about this subject and wanted to contribute their experience as evidence in response to this inquiry.
Response 1:
Young disabled people face many barriers including not having had the chance to build up extra skills or gain work experience due to health issues and the inaccessibility of such practices. This particularly affects chronically ill disabled young people as often their poor health limits their ability to carry out extra-curricular activities, training or work experience especially due to the lack of flexibility or accessibility with such activities. Despite needing to adapt to online learning during the pandemic, many universities have not extended this thinking leaving many chronically ill disabled young people left in isolation both socially and academically. As such, they are often unable to take advantage of extra support or training that would later help them to get a job. In this way, young disabled people are at a disadvantage when applying for the same jobs as able-bodied young people who might have been able to take advantage of training and work experience opportunities. Likewise, the lack of flexibility and willingness to make adaptations within the job market can make it difficult for those with disabilities to enter the workplace. Employers need to do more to offer flexible working options, such as working from home or part-time, to enable young people with chronic health conditions to be able to do so. More needs to be done to create inclusive recruitment practices, such as job carving and non-prescriptive job adverts, in order to enable young disabled people to demonstrate their skills. There also needs to be greater understanding amongst employers as to invisible disabilities and chronic illnesses for which adaptations are often viewed as less necessary. There are many cultural stereotypes surrounding disability and chronic illness, especially when they affect marginalised groups such as women or people of colour, that employers need to overcome in order to foster an inclusive workplace.
Response 2:
It depends on the condition. In my experience, the following three types of barriers exist: physical, professional and social. These can be aligned to types of conditions affecting people's ability to succeed in the workplace. Conditions with physical symptoms, such as being in a wheelchair, present access problems, whereas hearing or visual impairments cause evident professional challenges when attending meetings or reading documents. Social challenges are particularly acute for those with hidden disabilities, who may struggle to open up about their conditions, suffer from imposter syndrome and/or have difficulty in communicating what support they require in the workplace. The question is often asked of disabled people ‘what can I do to help you?’. This is often a very difficult question for disabled people, and younger ones may not have had time to understand their symptoms or may still be working out their specific requirements in the frequently changing environments of young life.
I think there is space for working out better management systems that help young disabled people enter, and subsequently succeed in the workplace. For example, while there is a lot of provision for alleviating physical barriers, e.g. providing hearing aids or better accessibility, more could be done to manage people with less tangible symptoms. In the post-COVID era, chronic cognitive problems associated with many auto-immune conditions are a key example of this. It would be well worth management practices being established that can help support young people with hidden disabilities to enter and succeed in the workplace.
Response 1:
Young women, in particular, face many barriers to accessing healthcare and the UK currently has the largest female health gap in the G20 and the 12th largest globally (source: House of Lords Study). As a result, many young disabled women become very unwell before receiving a diagnosis and appropriate treatment. This presents a barrier to them accessing the workplace because they are often left to reach crisis point meaning they are unable to work at all or without many adaptations in place which the workplace does not often provide. If young women's health was made a priority, their ability to contribute to the workplace would be much greater.
Response 2:
The symptoms of some disabilities can create a chaotic life for disabled people, particularly in the young. The distinguishing feature of a young person’s life, particularly after graduating, is one of flux: moving location, moving job, finding new friends etc. To add to this stress, disabled people need to navigate the often, Byzantine bureaucracy of public services. The reasons for this difficulty are as numerous as the types of disability - inaccessibility of communication for the visually and aurally impaired for example. For those with cognitive symptoms the complexity of processes can take months to navigate. This presents a barrier in the workplace because of its toll on disabled people’s mental health and confidence.
Response 2:
It’s very important that you conduct your inquiry in this way, I.e., leaving it open to include those who are not on an EHC plan. This keeps the feedback into your consultation varied and diverse. Not all young people will have been enrolled into such a scheme, and many may be diagnosed as young adults rather than as children, which may negate them receiving enrolment on this scheme.
Instead, I’d encourage the committee to consider as wide a range of disabled communities as possible by analysing the impact of policy by sector, educational level and socioeconomic group. For example, it may be that the inquiry’s focus is biased towards the graduate experience, which may limit its conclusions. I would assume the committee is considering what its ultimate vision is for the UK’s disabled community, and work back from that to understand who else’s input is required. For example, not all those leaving education are suited for office-based work, but similarly will not be restricted in employment options due to their disability. Are there schemes for this disadvantaged group to find meaningful employment instead of the default option of social welfare?
Response 1:
From my own experience, UK universities offer very little careers advice that is tailored towards disabled students. The assumption is either that you are able to enter the workplace at a high performing level or that you are not fit for the workplace at all. There is very little support, certainly without being actively sought by the individual, for those needing to approach the workplace in alternative ways due to a disability or chronic illness.
Response 2:
My experience of university provision for disabled students was poor. There is a huge gap between the institutional marketing on inclusivity and what they do. For example, institutions want to demonstrate they are concerned with this issue, without actually providing resources - an example of ‘virtue signaling’. Often, staff at desk level lack compassion and empathy, which suggests that the values and ethos of inclusivity have not been imbibed by the institution.
The solution is cultural change, with an emphasis on compassion and empathy by desk level staff, rather than platitudes about inclusion. The impact of treating disabled people with compassion is hugely important and can mitigate the loss of confidence and frustration that will be the ultimate barrier to them succeeding in the workplace throughout their life.
Response 2: In my experience this has been generally good. I am a disabled veteran (Regular Army) and have moved to the civil service after I was diagnosed with a disability in the last few years. The Guaranteed Interview Scheme is a very good initiative that gets disabled people over the initial hurdles of applying and means they are less likely to face rejection, the personal toll of which on confidence can be multiplied for those with disabilities.
Of course, the same barriers exist in the civil service as they do in other sectors - physical, communication and social for example, but I am inclined to believe, from my own experience, that these are better dealt with by civil service departments than they are in other sectors of work.
This is due to a mix of policy and ethos working together. A colleague of mine told me about her experience with hearing impairment. An NHS prescribed hearing aid was completely ineffective, and the only solution was a privately bought one. This was beyond the scope of the reasonable adjustment policy guidelines, but colleagues worked to find another policy that could be used to provide some additional funding that could secure the required hearing aid. This was done through HR being flexible and having the ethos to help the individual rather than slavishly follow simple policies.
I am also aware of the DELTA programme, which is a civil service leadership programme that has been tailored to the needs of disabled people.
Response 1: The Disability Confidence programme can be very effective when carried out properly and can enable real cultural change within a company such that disabled talent is not only attracted but is, crucially, retained and supported. The key is to ensure this does not become a tick-box exercise and to encourage more employers, in more diverse sectors, to pursue the scheme. More needs to be done to actively encourage employers to pursue Disability Confidence and to carry out the necessary changes to be able to truly become an inclusive workplace for people with disabilities. The scheme also needs to be more thoroughly monitored to ensure that every facet of a business meets the necessary requirements; often one department or a head office might make the necessary changes whilst the workplace attitude towards disability goes unchanged in other departments. Many employers seem unwilling to progress within the scheme, settling instead for Disability Confident Committed status, as there does not seem to be enough incentive to encourage them to pursue the higher levels of the scheme that would bring about the most change. There are many organisations willing to support employers on the Disability Confidence journey and offer Disability Awareness training but, without sufficient incentive for employers, there will continue to be minimal progress in this area.
Response 2:
I would recommend the use of a professional marketing company to pursue a marketing campaign with target disabled groups by educational and socioeconomic background to enhance awareness with specified communications activity.
Response 2:
Everything starts at the board level with leadership's vision and ethos. If they embody values of compassion and empathy, and lead in the development of disability-supporting policy, then the rest of the organisation will follow. As a priority for action, I would urge the committee to emphasise to employers the importance of moving away from talking about disabled people to supporting disabled people with time and money.
September 2023