Employers: influencing disabled people’s employment through responses to reasonable adjustments

Abstract

Obtaining reasonable adjustment(s) (RAs) legally requires disabled people to disclose their impairment(s) to their employer, the provision of which can be crucial to them performing the essential duties of their job. Yet, employers report a key barrier to employing disabled people is their lack of willingness to disclose their impairment(s). This article examines the lived experiences of disabled people’s employment endeavours identifying why this may be occurring. Disabled interviewees communicated that previous experiences with employers strongly influences their employment objectives, and willingness to disclose. The participants’ shared ethnographic experiences of employment demonstrate that RAs can be the predominant factor in their remaining employed and that prior encounters with employers have made them aware that employers are often unwilling to approve the RAs necessary for them to seek employment, to obtain employment, to perform their duties, to fairly compete with co-workers, to preserve their health, and/or to maintain employment.