Lessons in safety - September 2024

WHEN THINKING about inclusivity, a common misconception is that it just means to include everyone and treat people equally. It goes beyond this - it is also about treating people fairly, based on their individual needs. 

In this article, we will look at barriers in the workplace for those with a disability or those who are neurodivergent, and the solutions we can implement. The challenge for a health and safety practitioner is that, unless your role also focuses on human resources or facilities management (and there are often organisational roles that combine these areas), you may feel you are limited in the actions you can take. However, health and safety links in very closely with wellbeing, so it’s important to understand how to spot inclusivity barriers in the workplace, and which expertise you can refer people to for further support. Reducing inclusivity barriers can in turn reduce one of the biggest causes of workplace ill health – work-related stress – as well as potentially preventing accidents from hazards that a disabled or neurodiverse individual may not be aware of. 

A 2022 survey conducted by the Chartered Institution of Personnel and Development in partnership with Reed on Inclusion and Diversity at Work in the UK revealed that out of 4,000 responders, thirty-one percent said that they thought their organisation was average or well above average in terms of how inclusive it is in comparison with competitors and industry peers¹. This shows that there is lots of room for improvement.

Barriers in the workplace 

For those who are not disabled or neurodivergent, it can be easy to overlook certain challenges individuals face in the workplace. Here are just a few barriers that can be faced:

1. Getting a job in the first place. Employers can easily reject a candidate because they are unsure how to adjust a role to meet a person’s inclusivity needs. The costs involved to adapt a workplace to meet an individual's needs, and the increased health and safety risks the organisation is taking on by employing the candidate may steer them towards selecting someone without those requirements.
2. Being a line manager, especially for large teams of people, is a time-consuming job. Often, line managers are too busy or unaware of the signs that employees need extra support or may not have the time to focus on inclusivity. This can lead to work-related stress, anxiety or depression in those individuals, the biggest reported cause of work-related ill health in 2022/23 ². 
3. Certain careers are known to be less inclusive than others. For example, those wishing to work as health and safety professionals and who are also visually impaired may not be able to see all of the hazards as someone who is not visually impaired. Some employers would simply hire someone who doesn’t have additional needs, as they may feel they are not able to carry out the role competently.
4. Some people do not have the confidence to tell their employer about their disability. This means the employer and line manager can only manage that employee based on what they have disclosed. Again, this can result in work-related stress, anxiety or depression in those individuals, who are struggling to conduct aspects of their role which their inclusivity needs prevent them from doing.
5. Younger employees, who are just starting out in their career may be used to a certain level of support from their school, college or university. They may struggle when moving over to a full-time job without the same support. This in particular can cause work-related stress and anxiety, as they struggle to adapt to the transition of the working world, while also trying to manage their disability.

Solutions – what can we do? 

1. Instead of rejecting candidates because employers don’t know how to adjust a role, we need to be looking at what the individual can do, recognise their needs, and offer support accordingly. As health and safety practitioners, it is important to work closely with Human Resources (HR) to be aware of any issues that may affect an individual’s personal health and safety and put in solutions to manage this from the point of recruitment. For example, HR providing a neurodiverse individual with interview questions prior to the interview to help them prepare; or arranging for a guide to help a visually impaired person find their way to an interview room.
   As health and safety practitioners, we can also positively influence employers by making them aware of inclusivity incentives that are available, such as the Access to Work scheme for providing funding for disability adaptations.
2. To ensure line managers are able to focus on inclusivity in their teams, they should be provided with enough time and the right resources to be able to support their workers accordingly. Inclusivity makes up part of wellbeing under the ‘health’ side of health and safety – as health and safety practitioners, we should be encouraging and supporting line managers to attend inclusivity training so that they can spot when their employees may be struggling, and helping to implement workplace adaptations that support an individual’s health, safety and wellbeing.
3. When it comes to employing people in health and safety roles, rather than taking the easier route and only hiring an employee who doesn’t have additional needs, the employer could partner the employee with a guide to help them conduct workplace inspections and identify hazards (as an example).
4. As an employer, you need to make sure you are encouraging and creating a safe space for the employee to talk. An employee who feels appreciated will always give their best. Health and safety practitioners can support this process by either being an additional point of contact for employees (where they do not feel confident speaking with a line manager or senior employee), or providing useful resources to help employers take positive actions following those conversations. For example, conducting risk assessments to help identify work environment issues that could affect a disabled or neurodiverse individual, so that solutions eliminating or reducing hazards as much as possible are implemented.
   Another key part of a health and safety practitioner’s role is about positively influencing workplace culture. Encourage employees to report issues – reporting of near misses caused by an employee’s accessibility issues may help to identify an unknown issue and enable the employer to address it. Encourage other employees to talk about inclusivity as part of health and safety committees or workplace briefings, so that others then feel more confident to raise inclusivity issues, and others have the awareness to support them in the workplace.
5. To ensure younger employees do not struggle in their first job after leaving education, it’s important to offer them the same level of support within the workplace. Sharing positive success stories from social media of people who have been able to work unaided by their disability or neurodiversity can help to motivate younger employees, and again making them aware of inclusivity incentives available to help them, such as coaching or neurodiversity support, can make all the difference. Again, even if it is out of the remit of your health and safety role, it is important to at least have an awareness of inclusivity issues, so that you know where to refer an employee for further support.

For any of the solutions above, it’s important to understand where you can provide support as a health and safety practitioner. Where it falls out of your job scope or area of expertise, you can refer an individual’s support needs to HR, counselling or an occupational health provider for further support. There needs to be more joined up working between health and safety, and wellbeing in order to tackle inclusivity as a whole.

Key takeaways

To conclude, organisations should be taking the time to ensure they are hiring senior leaders who care about inclusivity and have the time required to support their team properly – and at the same time, employers should be giving their line managers suitable time and support to be able to support their employees. As well as thinking about the picture, put yourself in the shoes of others, many people see the world differently. Health and safety should be an enabler, not a barrier.

References

1. https://www.cipd.org/uk/knowledge/reports/inclusion-work/. 
2. https://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/causdis. 

Natalie Sherborne, is product development manager at NEBOSH. For more information, visit www.nebosh.org.uk