It’s 2022 and 89 percent of companies have a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) strategy in their workplaces. These programs or departments are meant to create a safer, more inclusive work environment for people of all backgrounds and abilities. But how effective are these efforts?
Only 15 percent of DEI leaders feel their organizations provide a sense of belonging, inclusion, and psychological safety for employees (61 percent feel somewhat confident). Two-thirds of companies communicate their DEI goals to the company only on a biannual or annual basis.
Beyond these statistics, the behavior of employees reflects how safe they really feel. Despite calls for greater inclusion, many workers still hide their disabilities as best they can. They navigate the work environment without support or advocacy because they don’t feel comfortable disclosing their disabilities.
Let’s look at the number of employees who hide their disabilities and what keeps them in hiding.
Disability disclosure by the numbers
Disabilities can be visible, sometimes visible, and invisible. Invisible disabilities don’t manifest in ways that are immediately obvious to others. For example, brain injuries are invisible disabilities, along with chronic pain, cognitive or learning disabilities, hearing disabilities, depression, anxiety, and fatigue. In many cases, people with invisible disabilities have more opportunities to hide these conditions from the people around them.
According to the 2019 Disabilities and Inclusion report by Coqual, 30 percent of the workforce meets the federal definition of having a disability. However, only 39 percent of employees with disabilities have disclosed this to their managers. A quarter (24 percent) have disclosed their disability to their teams and 21 percent have disclosed the information to their human resources department.
This fear of discrimination is very real. More than a third of employees (34 percent) have experienced discrimination while working at their current companies. This comes in many forms:
- 42 percent of employees have experienced misjudgment.
- 31 percent experienced insults.
- 20 percent experienced avoidance.
- 14 percent experienced discomfort.
Employees that have invisible disabilities might have noticed their peers experiencing discrimination like misjudgment or avoidance. Why would they speak up about their own conditions when they understand what the potential consequences are?
How one woman became an advocate for herself
Some people are starting to share their experiences to help other employees with disabilities understand that they are not alone and that they can advocate for better treatment. Jill Griffin is a career strategist and host of The Career Refresh podcast. She recently wrote about hiding an invisible disability herself, specifically a vestibular disorder.
For six years, Griffin hid her disability for fear of missing out on career advancement. She worried that her employer would eventually fire her for her disability and she couldn’t afford to lose her health insurance. Eventually, Griffin started speaking out. As she advanced in the company she became an advocate for herself and worked to educate her team on her needs.
“I was no longer asking for permission to have my accommodations met,” Griffin writes. “I’d ask them to please quit shaking their leg, which vibrated the floor and therefore me. Or to please cease pounding the conference room table when they wanted to make their point. I clearly explained that these actions created vibrations that triggered my vestibular disorder. It was not easy for people to understand or remember.”
Griffin is one person who took steps to learn about her disability and teach her employees and peers to respect her needs. However, it took several years to do so. For each person like Griffin, there are hundreds of other employees who hide invisible disabilities.
Modern workplace culture creates an environment of fear
When you read Griffin’s story, you start to understand how much she had to risk by talking about her disability. She didn’t want to be treated differently by her coworkers or thought of as less than compared to her peers. This is a reflection of how companies build work environments and value certain traits in employees.
“Since 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act has explicitly prohibited disability-based discrimination,” Pooja Jain-Link and Julia Taylor Kennedy write in reference to the Coqual report. “But the abstract reality of employee protection clauses belies the day-to-day work experience, in which a dominant work culture may implicitly signal – if not explicitly encourage – conformity.”
It’s this conformity that makes asking for accommodation seem like a weakness. It’s what keeps employees with disabilities from being thought of as anything other than high-functioning, neurotypical, and with perfect mental and physical health.
“It’s a vulnerable feeling, thinking that someone is going to judge you and your ability to do a job or task based on your health or an impairment,” says Rachael Mole, founder of Sick In The City, a non-profit that pairs employees with accessible and inclusive employers. “Having to justify yourself, feeling like you have to do even more to make up for a perceived weakness, over-explaining your health in order to take sick leave – it’s exhausting.”
Having a disability can take an emotional and physical toll on employees because they feel like they constantly need to do more and be better to be valued on the same level as their peers.
Fear of discrimination prevents diagnoses
To get an even clearer understanding of the discrimination that employees with disabilities face, consider how many people avoid seeking treatment or diagnoses for potential disabilities.
“Because invisible conditions can be difficult to diagnose, many such conditions often go untreated and individuals are left unsure of what’s ‘wrong’ with them,” writes the team at Canadian Equality Consulting. “These individuals are not immune to the jokes about different hidden disabilities…So even if they have concerns they may have an invisible disability, they may not seek a diagnosis and subsequent treatment because they don’t want to be viewed as having a ‘deficit.’”
High-functioning employees see the avoidance, insults, and jokes that their peers with disabilities experience. They don’t want that same discrimination, which leads them to avoid getting a diagnosis altogether.
Unfortunately, failure to receive a diagnosis can prevent people from getting the help they need for their disabilities. It also prevents the normalization of disability. No one feels open enough to talk about what they are experiencing, so having a disability in the workplace remains taboo.
DEI efforts and invisible disabilities
While companies across the nation focus on implementing DEI efforts, their programs won’t be effective until employees feel safe. This includes employees with invisible disabilities who can get by at work without disclosing their conditions or requesting special accommodation. Just because someone doesn’t ask for help doesn’t mean they couldn’t benefit from it.
Learn more about digital accessibility and physical accessibility in the workplace. You can use our guides and video content to create an inclusive work environment where people feel safe discussing their needs.
Comments