A manager is looking at a job candidate’s file. The candidate has disclosed a disability. The manager wants to do right by them, so she starts guessing: quieter workspace, maybe. Flexible hours. A standing desk, if it comes up. She never asks. She doesn’t mean any harm by it — she thinks she’s already helping. … Read more
Most organisations will tell you they support disability inclusion. Fewer will tell you what happens the moment that support is actually tested — at the hiring decision, at the accommodation request, and at the promotion decision. That gap, between the stated attitude and the actual decision, has a name in the psychology literature: the attitude-behaviour … Read more
Your organisation’s attitude toward employing people with disabilities could be quietly getting worse right now, and you would have no way of knowing. Last week’s newsletter looked at making this new financial year actually work — measuring, escalating, and changing, rather than repeating what didn’t move the needle last year. Around the same time, I … Read more
Disability Pride Month takes place every July, and every year the same thing happens: organisations post something. A flag graphic. A quote. Maybe a staff spotlight, if someone was willing to be visible for it. Then August arrives, and it’s gone until next year. That cycle is worth naming plainly, because it’s not really about … Read more
Part 1 of a four-part series: Making FY 26-27 Different Last week, I asked what your disability inclusion spending actually delivered this year. Today’s question is sharper: if your Disability Inclusion Action Plan has been operating across the last twelve months, you should be able to produce three specific numbers without scrambling for them. Most … Read more
Take a minute and think back to the last budget cycle in your organisation. When the spreadsheet got tight, what got cut? The disability inclusion budget? The accessibility audit? The line item for paid lived experience contribution? The training program? The community partnership? Is it the accessible event format that costs slightly more than the … Read more
I spent last week sick. Not dramatically, not hospitalised — just genuinely unwell and unable to work. And yet, if I’m honest, I didn’t fully stop. I checked emails. I drafted things in my head. I tracked what I was missing and quietly calculated how long it would take to catch up. Nobody asked me … Read more
There’s a moment in most inclusion conversations where someone — usually a senior leader, sometimes a frustrated practitioner — says some version of this: “We’ve done the training. We’ve got the plan. We’ve consulted. Why aren’t things actually changing?” It’s a fair question. And it’s almost always the wrong one. The right question is harder: … Read more
Most organisations approach neurodivergence the same way they approach disability inclusion broadly — they wait for someone to disclose, and then try to accommodate the individual. The problem with that approach is that most people never disclose. Not because they don’t need support. But because the culture hasn’t made it safe enough to say so. … Read more
The Darkness famously sang that “Love is only a feeling.” They were right. And I think it’s time we were just as honest about Belonging. Almost every workplace engagement survey has a question that goes something like: “Do you feel like you belong here?” It’s a warm question. It looks great on a slide deck. … Read more
If your organisation is serious about reducing the risk of ableism, awareness alone isn’t enough. Ableism rarely appears as deliberate exclusion. More often, it shows up in systems—in policies, processes, and decisions built around assumptions about a “default” worker. Over time, those assumptions become normalised. When we design for a “standard” that doesn’t exist, we … Read more
There’s a pattern I see often. An organisation is doing “well” with disability inclusion. There’s momentum. There are conversations happening. There are initiatives underway. And almost always, there’s a person behind it. A committed leader. A passionate HR manager. A staff member with lived experience who keeps raising the issues. The work moves because they … Read more
