Supporting your staffs with disabilities


A disability is any continuing condition that restricts everyday activities. The Disability Services Act (1993) defines 'disability' as meaning a disability: which is attributable to an intellectual, psychiatric, cognitive, neurological, sensory, or physical impairment or a combination of those impairments.

Many people with disabilities can find the workplace environment difficult and can face barriers. They might have difficulty in doing the things that people with no disability would find easy. In these normal processes, people with disabilities might feel compared and low. Often times, this can be mitigated by employers by implementing some changes to the workplace environment. These changes are referred to as “reasonable adjustment”.
Employers have the responsibility to make these reasonable adjustments to facilitate the workplace environment for employees with disabilities. Making such changes could help the employee to do their work effectively. Failure to do so may fall under discrimination at the workplace.

These adjustments should take into consideration the needs of the worker. Making slopes on the side of the ladders to provide access to the premise, separate parking areas for the employees are some good examples of adjustments. Similarly, making adjustments to working hours, modifying equipment for easier handling, or providing training could fall under these reasonable adjustments. These are not too expensive for employers to provide to their employees with disabilities.

While not possible to make adjustments, for reasons such as the adjustment would be too expensive, it would cause hardship to the organisation, or if the adjustment would be time-consuming or difficult to achieve, employers are not required to make adjustments. This is called “unjustified hardship”.

The Federal Government can provide financial assistance to make reasonable adjustments for employers who promote and practice employment for employees with disabilities.
I have highlighted some of the common disabilities and reasonable adjustments to help accommodate them. This could come in handy for your organisation. The list is below.

For a person with mobility impairment (including dexterity impairments)

  • Ramps
  • Scooter
  • Automated doors
  • Height-adjustable work stations
  • Vehicle modifications (work-related)
  • Accessible bathroom
  • Accessible lift
  • Handrails
  • Accessible computer keyboards, mouses
  • Adapted office furniture or equipment
  • Speech-recognition (speech-to-text) software

For a person who is deaf or hard of hearing

  • Hearing loops
  • Vibrating or visual alarms
  • Text Telephone (TTY) or Short Message Service (SMS) text messaging 
  • Live captioning
  • Interpreters
  • Videophones
  • Subtitling

For a person who is blind or has low vision 

  • Screen-magnification (e.g. ZoomText) or screen-reading software (e.g. JAWS)
  • Magnification software for Personal Digital Assistants (PDA) and mobile phones 
  • Braille machines and printers
  • Video magnifiers for reading printed material
  • Tactile Ground Surface Indicators (TGSI)
  • Contrasting work surfaces or trays
  • Braille or tactile map


Also, here is the list of some other policies that could provide some guidance to your organisation regarding reasonable adjustments:





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