Why Disability Awareness Matters at Work

Disabled people work in every kind of job. They are engineers, drivers, accountants, teachers, receptionists, managers and company owners. They are also customers, visitors, contractors and members of your own family. Disability is part of normal human life, not a rare exception.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that about 1.3 billion people, around 16% of the world's population, experience a significant disability. Many more people live with a long-term health condition that affects them only some of the time. Anyone can become disabled at any point in life, for a short time or for a long time, because illness, injury and age can affect anyone.

Why it matters at work

Most of the problems disabled people meet at work do not come from their condition. They come from barriers: a step at the entrance, a form that only works with a mouse, a meeting with no captions, or a colleague who assumes they cannot do the job. Many of these barriers are easy to remove once someone notices them.

Good disability awareness helps an organisation to:

• recruit and keep skilled people, including people who become disabled while they work there;
• serve every customer well;
• keep everyone safe, including in an emergency;
• meet its legal duties, which exist in many countries;
• treat people with dignity, which is right in itself.