Why it is vital to build a genuinely inclusive workforce

Shaun: Welcome to this episode of Health and Safety Uncut. I am absolutely delighted to be joined by my friend and colleague, Diane Lightfoot. She's the CEO of the Business Disability Forum. Diane's responsible for leading and shaping all aspects of the Business Disability Forum strategy and delivery and for representing the organization at the highest levels of business and government. 

Diane is Co-Chair of the Disabilities and Charity Consortium, a group of nine major national disability charities in the UK. She's vice Chair of the Disability Confident Business Leaders Group and also sits on the steering board for the Lilac Review, the CMI Everyone Economy Advisory Committee and the steering group for the Global Business Disability Network, hosted by the International Labour Organization. 

She's a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and is a part of the steering group for the RSA Inclusive Work Disability and Ageing Network. Prior to joining Business Disability Forum in February 2017, Diane was Director of policy and communications for national disability charity United Response, where she also took on the strategic leadership of the organization's employment services as a whole. 

She's passionate about the role that good work has to play in transforming people's lives, and she's a huge, huge advocate for all things related to the disability agenda. Diane, thank you for being here. I'm super pleased to have you here. It's great to see you.  

Diane: Thank you very much all for having me and for the the glowing introduction. I'll try. I'll try and live up to that billing.  

Shaun: Brilliant. Well, let's start Diane by you. Tell us a little bit about you and your background and explaining why disability, health and safety, the well-being agenda are all really important to you. To you, the person. I know you and I see it in your eyes and hear it with what you say. But for people who perhaps haven't met you or seen you, tell us a bit more about you 

Diane: Okay, so, so I've been working in the disability space for over 21 years, but my interest in disability inclusion goes way, way back to when I was at university. 

So over 30 years ago when I had a holiday job working for a local Mencap holiday play scheme and it was working with children with learning disabilities and autism. And I made a real connection with a little boy with autism who when I first started looking after him, he was three. 

I think by the time I left university he was 5, though I kept in touch with him and he never made eye contact with anybody, at all. He would walk around the the playground or, or the fields in these holiday play schemes and he'd usually have like a little car in his hand and he'd be looking at that and he'd be sort of chuntering away to himself perfectly happily, but in his own little world. 

And I always used to chat to him when he was assigned to me on a one to one. And one day we went on a trip to Beale Reservoir down in Kent and I was chatting to him as I always did, and he suddenly turned to me and looked straight in my eyes and stroke my face. 

And after that, every time I saw him, he did that. And we, we communicated. And then of course, I forgot, forgot about disability, went to work, started a job. And many moons later, when I was 30, I saw the job at United Response and I remembered that experience working with Robert and, and I thought, well, this is a brilliant way of bringing my professional life kind of policy comms that that side of things at the time into my disability interest that had sort of been dormant for a long time. 

And then I joined United Response and I really saw and really realized how difficult it is if you don't work. And it made me realize that one of the first things that we say to people when we meet them is what do you do? And for so many people, well, with a disability generally, but particularly with a learning disability, that's a really hard question because fewer than 6% of working age adults with a learning disability are in work. 

And I think that's when I kind of got the bug on employment and disability inclusion. And then I was lucky enough to get this job 8 and a half odd years ago and, and, and I love it and I love working with businesses and just showing them that it doesn't have to be difficult and you can make such a huge change with small things. 

Shaun: Well, Full disclosure here for listeners, I am a trustee of the Business Disability Forum and I see that playing out in the work that you and the team do there. I think the work that you do, I didn't know that story, which is great to learn a bit more about you, but that that role of educate, inform, connect, and it got me thinking then, we talk about people being advocates for the disability agenda. What does that really mean? What? What would you, someone, ask you that question as I am now? What does it mean to advocate for or to promote the disability agenda?  

Diane: I think once you've started noticing things, you can't unnoticed them and you can then stay quiet or you can speak out. 

So even things like noticing when premises aren't accessible, when the physical environment isn't accessible. And, and just flagging that and just being just being an ally and advocate and saying actually, you know, is this inclusive? What about the people that will inadvertently not be able to do this or in this way or in this time? 

And as you kind of build your knowledge, you realise it's often really little, little small things. And one of the, one of the things that sticks with me is talking to one of our members a few years ago and he saw himself as not really knowing about disability, but was, was passionate in taking on the champion role. 

And he said, ‘Oh yes, we're moving offices. And there was one that was suggested, but I vetoed it because outside it was cobbles.’ And I thought, well, that's a fantastic example of you've, you've started to notice and you'll say you're using that to say, no, actually if we move here, this will not be great for lots of people who will say are a wheelchair user or who have a visual impairment or other mobility issues. 

So often it's just really little things that can make a huge difference.  

Shaun: Hmm, I really like that. Well, that leads me nicely to my next question, which is can you explain from your perspective the relevance of health and safety? This is a health and safety podcast after all, but the health and safety agenda and the link to disability, disability at work, I think that was a really good one. 

But what what's, what's your experience being on that broader elements of that?  

Diane: So firstly, of course, every employer has a duty of care to all their employees, including employees with disabilities, to provide a healthy and safe workplace. 

And that's about the physical environment. And we just talked about cobbles, which is one example, but it is also about the psychological safety and, and mental health and safety as well. And a few years ago now business in the community brought out report called what if your job was good for you? 

That was aiming to put mental health and safety on, on a par with physical health and safety. So, so that's really, really important. And it's also really important when you understand that over 80% of disabilities aren't immediately visible. So in a health and safety role, making sure that, for example, there is good lighting and signage and that there aren't trip hazards because you probably don't know actually who might have a visual impairment or a hearing impairment or actually mobility or balance issues. 

You just don't know these things. Specifically around disability, so one of the things we talk about a lot is workplace adjustments. And I'm sure your listeners will know, but just in case, those are often really small tweaks to how someone works or where they work or perhaps a piece of equipment or kit that makes a huge difference in enabling them to do the job. 

And the, the language in the Equality Act around adjustments is reasonable adjustments and it talks about removing barriers and we call them workplace adjustments because mostly requests are reasonable, but they might not be. And actually health and safety implications is one of the legal tests of reasonableness. 

So if somebody asks for something actually are there any health and safety implications of that? And one of our one of our favourite topics to our advice service around adjustments is always assistance animals. So whether they are registered assistance dogs, for example, that have a status legally or whether they are emotional support animals, which don't. 

Actually some of the questions that can help you decide whether or not it's reasonable to have them is, you know, is anyone else going to be allergic to them? Does anyone have a phobia? Are they toilet trained? Are they well behaved? Are they noisy? All these sorts of things. So that's a really practical application of health and safety in the workplace too. 

That's very good. You. So you mentioned then the Equality Act. So has the disability gap at work lessened since the Equality Act? Is it still lessening? Is it plateaued? What? What's from your perspective? Where with regards eyes 15 years on, right? 

Diane: It has lessened, but not very much. So it was just over 30%, I think when the Equality Act came in and it's now just under 28%. So it's a move in the right direction, but it is a tiny, tiny move. 

So I would say we really need to accelerate that pace of change because it is far too slow. And I've heard people say how many decades or centuries it would be to actually close it. But when you think about the fact that about 25% of the population has a disability, so the last Family Resources survey said 16.1 million, this is a really large minority group. 

So this is actually a talent pool. And there are too many people who are just being overlooked when they could provide such a great job to an employer. And we know employees are struggling with skills shortages. So yes, slightly improved, but not much. 

And you mentioned in my in my very long bio, thank you for reading that out the Lilac review, which is looking at what support is needed for disabled people as entrepreneurs. And we do know that disabled people are overly represented in entrepreneurship, not necessarily supported, which is. 

So that's another matter. But actually it's really important that people become entrepreneurs because they want to, not because that is the only route left to them. Yeah, exactly that. They just can't get a mainstream job.  

Shaun: Yeah, I think you got me thinking about a few things in terms of the disability agenda and adjustments being done in collaboration with should we say beneficiaries or people that are going to benefit from that. 

And including that, I've seen some great and heard some great examples of taking that that voice which you would expect to do, right. I think that's one perspective. I think the other thing is you got me thinking was around the role of the employer in creating an environment and a culture that people can speak up openly and say I need an adjustment and can or can you help me with that? 

What's your, what are you seeing across your members in terms of culture, engagement, communication around the disability agenda? Is that flat? Getting better? Getting worse?  

Diane: I would like to say amongst our members that it's, it's always, it's always improving. 

So we now work with over 600 members and members and partners and they by definition get it. They definition want to get it right. But that whole culture, and I mentioned the term psychological safety earlier, which some people love and some people absolutely hate, but people feeling safe to ask for what they need is one of the most important things in, in getting it right around disability. 

It hand in hand, obviously within providing what it is and a couple of stats that always stick with me is the first time we did our great big workplace adjustment survey back in 2019, 34% of people with a disability said they hadn't asked for an adjustment that would help them because they're worried their manager would treat them differently. 34%. And 31% said they hadn't asked because they were worried that their team would treat them differently. 

And so that's a third of people who are covering, masking, working around, not as productive and almost certainly not as happy in work as they could be if they just asked for that thing. So role modelling, making it feel safe, If you have senior champions that share working differently, share a health condition or disability, it makes a huge difference. 

And of course it takes time. You've got to, you've got to keep chipping away at it and keep those messages consistent because it's so takes a long time to build culture, but you can erode it at a stroke.  

Shaun: Yeah, yeah. Obviously adjustments come with cost in terms of time, effort, actual physical investment, which is a challenge to lots of businesses. 

What are you seeing in terms of the business case for disability improvements not notwithstanding is exactly the right thing to do, right, We know that. But what you see how what are the return on investments? I know you mentioned earlier on talent pool and you've mentioned about engagement. 

Any other people out there who are thinking about putting business cases together to kind of grow their disability focus? What? What would your steer to them be?  

Diane: Well, there are various reports that show that diverse workforces and I know diverse is a is a is a loaded term at the moment. 

Actually are more innovative, are more creative, are more productive and create better products and services for all your customers. On adjustments, yes, some are costly, but lots and lots are very cheap or cost nothing at all. 

So some of the things that cost nothing at all are things like different working patterns or hybrid working or home working or having a fixed desk in a hot desk environment. Really, really simple things that can make the most enormous, enormous difference to people. 

And I also say that, you know, we work with a lot of very large organisations, including large private sector multinationals and quite a few of those have entirely trust based approaches to adjustments. 

So if you know what you need, you can just order it. If you need some support, you can get an assessment. But they don't say why. They don't say why do you want to work flexibly. So it could be because you have caring responsibilities, or it could be because of fatigue or difficulty in accessing a train at rush hour. 

But they don't mind. They will do that for you. And I always say, you know, they wouldn't do that if it didn't make business sense. And one of my favourite things is that this this organization, which I won't name in a podcast because I don't have their permission to do it, was talking about this at one of our events. 

And somebody from the public sector was there. And of course, the public sector rightly very worried about public money and, and expenditure. And they asked and said, well, basically, aren't you worried that this system will be abused? And the answer was, well, no, because we design it for the 99% of people who don't ask for things they don't need. 

On the back of that, this government department around a year later introduced self-serve assistive tech adjustments. And the results of that are that they've massively reduced waiting times, they've reduced referrals and costs of occupational health, and they haven't seen a surge in people just getting stuff. They really haven't.  

Shaun: So very good. You know that's a case in point, right? Yeah. So you talk then about, you've talked in throughout the conversation about the difference different elements, this term of intersectionality or intersectional comes out quite a lot. What does that mean from your perspective, and how and how should people be thinking about that? 

Diane: I like to say that intersectionality is a fancy word for being human and we, none of us sit in one box. So I can say I'm a woman, which I am. I'm also middle-aged, which I am. 

I also have a long term health condition, so technically I am disabled under the Equality Act. I've got a form of blood cancer but under the Equality Act if I wanted to, to make a claim, which just to be clear, I absolutely don't, I would have to say I either have a disability or it's because I'm a woman. 

You can't say it's both. And actually we, none of us sit in one box. We're all hugely, hugely messy as human. So it's not about thinking, well, I've got a program about gender, or I've got a program about race and ethnicity, or I've got a program about LGBTQ+ or one about disability. 

Because you can sit across any one of those. And I remember one of our members telling us that they had a woman who's a wheelchair user who was offered to either go on a career development course for women or a career development course for disabled people. But it but she was saying, well, you know, I could go on both or either. 

So it's just recognising that we need to include people for everything that they are.  

Shaun: Yeah, the whole, the kind of the, the horizontal elements of who they are as well as the vertical kind of kind of looking at them, at them in their entirety. I, I think I totally agree with those, those aspects. 

I think when I first heard about the this concept of intersectionality, it just made absolute sense to me about, you know, being more than one thing and it surprised me that people weren't thinking about that, but they weren't any some areas still not. 

So I think anything we can do to raise that consciousness and that awareness of those multi elements of it, the better. Brilliant.  

Diane: Can I just add to that one specific and it is getting better, but one specific is around neurodiversity. 

So classically we would have thought of not deliberately, but thought of autism as being something that is very male, that is something that is very white, is probably something that's very straight. That was the classic image of autism. And actually that meant that people from different socio economic backgrounds as well, but also ethnicities and women and girls were just not getting the diagnosis or the recognition. 

And we are starting to realise that and realise that it manifests very differently. But there's still such a long way to go, and we have to consciously remember that, I think.  

Shaun: That's a good call out. Yeah, very good. Good. So if we look now back to the the focus that the Business Disability Forum has on industry, what are the current questions in industry that people are asking and particularly, particularly around disclosure of disabilities, supporting and encouraging people to be able to bring their whole self to work and to it to excel at work. 

What? What are you seeing? What you're seeing there?  

Diane: Well, one of the very hot topics is around reporting. So there is a UK government consultation at the moment on the proposal to introduce mandatory workforce and pay gap reporting. And we've been doing a lot of work with our members, both employers and importantly disabled employees to find out what they, what they think about that. 

And really interestingly, quite a lot of people were saying from both the employer and the employee side that when you have a really inclusive working environment, you reduce the need for people to actually say they have a disability or, or, or tell you as an employer because naturally they've got the support that they need. 

So there's a lot of discussion around how to make that work effectively, how to make sure that you are measuring the quality of the experience, not just the numbers, and making sure that there is that environment where people feel actually that they want to tell you when safe to do so, rather than feeling that they have to because there is a reporting requirement. 

So that's a very top topic at the moment. Another very top topic, another consultation, part of a consultation on benefits reform is access to work. So I talked about adjustments and at the moment access to work helps employers fund part or all depending on the size of the employer and the cost of making an adjustment. 

And it is hugely, hugely valued by the organizations and people that use it. It means particularly for smaller organizations, that the less common but costly adjustments so things like a British Sign Language interpreter can be covered. 

So we know there is a lot of concern about that, that might, might possibly be changed or restricted. So we're working very hard to feed that in and we'll feed that in to government at the end of the consultation.  

Shaun: Good. And there's, there's been a lot of conversation recently around D&I programs and around how they might be reduced, collapsed, removed. 

How does that two questions really, how does that fit in with the work you just mentioned then? And what's your, what's your kind of call out to people regarding that as a potential hot topic? 

Diane: So we're monitoring it very carefully as you'd expect, but what we are largely seeing, which I hope continues, is that people are continuing the work. 

They may be less keen to talk about it publicly because of some of the the well more than backlash that we've seen, which is really, really unhelpful obviously. But they are continuing the work. And I would say, you know, disability inclusion and inclusion across the piece is not a nice to have. 

It's not a fluffy thing. It's about meaning that you have access to the widest possible talent pool, in turn reach the widest possible customer base. And that when you have employed people, great people, you're giving them the environment and the tools they need to do a great job for you at the job that you have hired them and are paying them to do. 

So. You know, going back to examples of of the private sector companies that just offer adjustments, they wouldn't do that if it didn't make business sense. So anyone listening, please, please don't stop. Please, please keep carrying on because it's so important and it's fundamental to business success. 

Shaun: Brilliant. So now each episode I like to ask our guests what their kind of one key take away would be, or what if they were to ask someone to do something different from today, tomorrow, what? That would be What? What's yours, Diane?  

Diane: Hard to pick one. 

Shaun: But you can have two as it's. You  

Diane: OK? Brilliant. My, my, my first one is changing your mindset from why to why not from why should I give you this, this thing or or working environment you've asked more to why wouldn't you? 

Why wouldn't I give you what you need to thrive? And the second one is going back to the majority of disabilities not being immediately visible. If someone in your workforce or indeed a customer communicates or acts or presents in a way that you're not expecting, before you jump to a conclusion, just take a step back and think, could there be something else going on and could you start a conversation about whether they're OK? 

And is there anything else you can do to help?  

Shaun: That's brilliant. I think they're very two very, very practical tips. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for that insight. Thank you for all the work that you and the team at BDF do to keep disability on the, on the agenda, up the agenda and for the work that you're constantly doing. 

I have the benefit of seeing it first time, then I, I know I'll speak for many when I say thank you. So thank you for me and thank you from all the listeners.  

Diane: Thank you so much for having me, it's been a pleasure. 

 

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