The impact of workplace culture on disability monitoring

Disabled people in the workplace

There are 16 million disabled people in the UK. That’s 1 in 4 of us. 23% of working age adults are disabled.

The employment rate of disabled people is 53%. Compared to 82% of non-disabled people. This is called the disability employment gap. For the period from April to June 2023, it was 28.9%.

Disability facts and figures (Scope)

Disabled people face barriers as jobseekers. Once they are employed, they also face barriers in the workplace. And they are nearly twice as likely to leave their job as non-disabled people.

Understanding the challenges of disabled jobseekers (Scope)

Disabled employee retention report (Scope)

Retention of disabled staff toolkit (Scope)

Disabled employees worry about disclosing

If you want your monitoring to be as accurate as possible, people need to feel safe talking about disability in the workplace.

Unfortunately, disabled employees often have worries about disclosing their condition or impairment. 48% of disabled people worry about sharing information about it with an employer. Many have also experienced negative comments after talking about it at work.

We are using the word ‘disclosing’ because it is common use. But it’s important to note that some people have negative associations with this word. This is because it is also used to talk about criminal convictions. When people apply for a ‘DBS check’ they get it from the Disclosure and Barring Service. Because of this, we will use ‘sharing’ in the rest of the toolkit.

Let’s talk about disability at work report (Scope)

Setting yourself up for success

There are things you can do to make your monitoring as successful as possible. Remember that there will always be people who choose not to share.

1)   Assess where you are now

You should make an honest assessment of your current situation. For example, ask yourself what you know about your workforce. If you are at the start of improving inclusion, you might need to do some more work before you start monitoring.

2)   Create a statement of intention

A statement of intention can help you show your commitment. It can give your staff the confidence that you are not doing a ‘box ticking exercise’.

You can explain why you are doing this monitoring. And you can give information about your timeline and any limitations.

3)   Design a solid survey

Make sure that your survey has a consent statement before your questions. And a link to your privacy policy. Your organisation will have guidance about how to respect GDPR.

You also need to be completely clear about the anonymity of the survey.

The consent statement should refer to the intentions you set and the goals you have for the survey. Your staff’s first impressions are important. They need to understand what you are doing and why. This means they can make an informed decision about participating in the survey.