Disability Impact Assessments: Improving Understanding of Disability-Related Disadvantage in Employment

Introduction

When disability is identified in the workplace, the immediate reaction of both employee and employer is often to ask:

What adjustments are needed?

Unfortunately, the discussion can quickly become focused on whether a particular adjustment is reasonable, practical or affordable, often without either side fully understanding the difficulty the adjustment is intended to address.

The purpose of a Disability Impact Assessment is to elucidate what difficulty is actually being created by the disability and what changes may help reduce or remove that difficulty.

By understanding the disadvantage first, employers and employees are better placed to identify effective solutions.

What Is A Disability Impact Assessment?

A Disability Impact Assessment differs from diagnostic or treatment assessments.

It is designed to show how the effects of a disability produce disadvantage within a particular environment, such as employment, education or legal proceedings.

The assessment then focuses on what can be changed or adjusted to avoid or reduce that disadvantage, as required by the Equality Act.

There are often multiple ways of avoiding a disadvantage. By understanding how the disadvantage arises, it becomes possible to focus on finding the most effective solution rather than arguing about the reasonableness of a particular adjustment.

Why Is This Needed?

When disability is identified, discussions often become focused on individual changes that might help.

This can lead to debate about particular adjustments without first understanding the disadvantage that needs to be addressed.

A Disability Impact Assessment is designed to help employers and employees focus on the disadvantage itself.

By understanding how the disability creates disadvantage within a particular environment, attention can be directed towards removing or reducing that disadvantage.

Once the disadvantage is understood, it becomes possible to consider the various ways in which it might be avoided or reduced and to identify the most effective solution.

Why Not Simply Ask The Employee?

Employees often understand their own difficulties very well.

However, they cannot be assumed to have the professional knowledge required to understand the relationship between their disability, their environment and the disadvantage that results.

A Disability Impact Assessment helps identify how the effects of a disability interact with a particular environment to create disadvantage.

This understanding may reveal solutions that neither the employee nor the employer had previously considered.

In some cases, the employee's preferred solution may not be the most effective solution. It may be possible to reduce the disadvantage more effectively, more simply or at lower cost in another way.

The purpose of the assessment is therefore not to replace the employee's experience, but to provide a structured understanding of the disadvantage and the most effective ways of avoiding or reducing it.

Why Use An Independent Assessment?

Discussions about disability often rely on the employee explaining their difficulties and the employer deciding how to respond.

This can place both parties in a difficult position. Employees may feel required to repeatedly explain and justify their difficulties, while managers may be expected to assess issues outside their own expertise.

A Disability Impact Assessment provides a shared understanding of how disadvantage arises and how it may be avoided or reduced.

This gives both parties a common starting point for discussion and helps focus attention on finding effective solutions.

What Skills Are Required?

The person carrying out a Disability Impact Assessment must be able to understand how a disability interacts with a particular environment to create disadvantage.

They must be capable of identifying and explaining the relationship between:

Condition

→ Functional Effects

→ Environmental Demands

→ Disadvantage

→ Potential Solutions

The key requirement is not a particular professional title but the ability to understand the disability, the environment and how they interact.

Who Can Carry Out A Disability Impact Assessment?

The most appropriate professional will depend upon the disability involved.

For neurodevelopmental conditions and many mental health conditions, this is likely to include Clinical Psychologists or Occupational Psychologists with relevant expertise.

For other disabilities, different professionals may be more appropriate. Depending on the circumstances, this may include Occupational Therapists, Rehabilitation Specialists, Audiologists, Visual Impairment Specialists or Specialist Physicians.

The profession itself is less important than the ability to understand the disability and explain how it creates disadvantage within a particular environment.

Why This Benefits Employees

A Disability Impact Assessment helps employees explain and evidence the disadvantage created by their disability.

It provides a structured and durable record that can be used in discussions with employers and others responsible for considering how disadvantage may be avoided or reduced.

The assessment does not replace the employee's lived experience. Instead, it translates that experience into a structured explanation that others can understand and use when considering potential solutions.

Why This Benefits Employers

A Disability Impact Assessment helps employers understand the disadvantage created by a disability and how it arises within a particular environment.

This enables more informed decision-making about how that disadvantage may be avoided or reduced.

By focusing on the disadvantage rather than a particular adjustment, employers are better able to consider the full range of potential solutions and identify the most effective approach.

Identifying Effective Solutions

A Disability Impact Assessment changes the discussion from focusing on a particular solution to understanding the disadvantage that needs to be addressed.

By understanding how the disadvantage arises, employers and employees can focus on how it may be avoided or reduced rather than becoming fixed on a particular adjustment or change.

This often makes it easier to identify a range of possible solutions and select the approach that is most likely to be effective, practical and proportionate in the circumstances.

In some cases this may also identify solutions that are more cost-effective than those originally proposed.

Long-Term Value Across A Career

Unlike many workplace assessments, a Disability Impact Assessment focuses on the individual rather than a particular role or workplace.

While employers, workplaces and job roles may change throughout a person's career, the disability and its functional effects often remain relatively stable.

As a result, the assessment may continue to be useful throughout a person's education and working life, providing a consistent understanding of how disadvantage arises and how it may be avoided or reduced.

This can reduce costly duplication and avoid the need to repeatedly recreate the same understanding each time an employer, manager, adviser or role changes.

Relationship To Access To Work

A Disability Impact Assessment fits naturally within the principles and purpose of Access to Work.

Access to Work exists to help overcome barriers to employment created by disability. A significant part of that process involves improving understanding of how disability affects individuals within the workplace.

Access to Work should therefore consider whether assessments of this type are an appropriate intervention in some cases.

By providing a structured explanation of how a disability creates disadvantage, a Disability Impact Assessment may promote understanding for the employee, employer, managers, colleagues and others involved in supporting the individual at work.

Improved understanding makes it easier to identify effective ways of avoiding or reducing disadvantage and may contribute to more successful long-term employment outcomes.

Conclusion

Many discussions about disability begin by asking what changes should be made.

A Disability Impact Assessment begins by asking what disadvantage is being created and why.

By understanding the relationship between disability, environment and disadvantage, employers and employees are better placed to identify effective ways of avoiding or reducing that disadvantage.

The purpose of a Disability Impact Assessment is to improve understanding so that barriers can be identified and addressed more effectively.

Disability Impact Assessments:

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