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Working with a disability or health condition

Purpose

Under the Equality Act 2010(EA) employers are required to ensure equal access to work for those with a disability or long-term health condition. Aside from the legal reasons for getting this right, there are many other advantages to be gained from a diverse workforce, so sensible guidance on the subject is very welcome.

The new guidance enables managers to grasp the issues and help their teams achieve their best in the workplace (see The next step ). In particular, it gives employers confidence in supporting the health, safety and welfare of potentially more vulnerable employees.

What’s covered?

The publication describes your legal responsibilities and how to manage the health and welfare needs of your staff during recruitment and ongoing management. Much of the content describes how to deal with “reasonable adjustments”, i.e. the changes that you make to ensure the worker is not disadvantaged as a result of their condition.

It looks at how these adjustments should be discussed with the worker, decided on, financed and monitored. It also looks at wider personnel issues such as staff retention, managing sickness absence and avoiding discrimination during performance monitoring and redundancy situations.

What do you need to do?

Reasonable adjustments begin at the recruitment process. For example, when you invite applicants to an interview, check whether they need any adjustments to enable them to attend.

After recruitment, the need for adjustments can apply during any work trial and on through employment. Many adjustments are not only required for equality reasons but are necessary to keep the individual safe at work. For example, protective clothing may need to be altered, or access improvements made so that someone can safely get themselves in and out of the premises. Some adjustments are less tangible but just as important, such as changing work hours, additional training or increased one-to-one supervision.

Tip 1. Financial support can be obtained for some adjustments via the government’s Access to Work scheme (see The next step ). The employee can potentially receive funding towards specialist equipment, premises alterations, assistance with travelling to and from work and some personal support. This applies both at the start of a job and during employment.

Tip 2. You should clearly state that adjustments are available if needed during the entirety of the recruitment process and then during the job itself. This should help potential employees to feel they can be more honest with you from the start.

Tip 3. Although it might be beneficial to read up on a particular type of health condition, don’t then make assumptions about the adjustments needed. Talk to the employee to find out the specific problems they anticipate or are experiencing and ask them to identify what’s needed.

For links to the free guidance and to the Access to Work scheme, visit http://tipsandadvice-healthandsafety.co.uk/download (HS 17.13.03).