Bowel Research UK’s Patient and Public Involvement Manager Sam Alexandra Rose is joined by Matt Black and Steven Jones to discuss how workplace culture and environment can impact workers with illnesses and disabilities. Additionally, they discuss what arrangements can be made to improve communication and accommodate people with illnesses or disabilities. Matt had bowel cancer during the COVID lockdown and Steven Jones, founder of the Disability Connect mentoring scheme, is a wheelchair user with spinal muscular atrophy.
Transcript
Sam
Welcome to Can I Butt In, the Bowel Research UK podcast where we welcome bowel cancer and bowel disease, patients, researchers, healthcare professionals and carers to butt in and share their experiences. We’re picking a topic every episode and getting to the bottom of it.
I’m your host, Sam Alexandra rose. I’m the patient and public involvement manager at Bowel Research UK. And as a patient myself, I’m excited to bring more patient and researcher voices into the spotlight.
Hello, everyone. Today we’re talking about illness and disability in the workplace, so what reasonable adjustments do people need? What are companies doing well? And where are they going wrong? So, I am imagining this is going to be a bit of a put in the world to rights kind of session and here to do that with me today we have Matt Black, who is a speaker and like myself has had bowel cancer and we’re also joined by Steven Jones of Disability Connect. So, greetings and welcome to both of you.
Matt Black
Thank you.
Steven Jones
Thank you.
Sam
So first I’d like to ask you both to introduce yourselves, just to give everybody a little bit of context. So, shall we start with you, Matt, if you’d like to kick off?
Matt Black
Sure. My name is Matt Black. I’m 58. I live in London. I’m a father of two and a husband of one so, Holly, Leo, and Steph. I suffered bowel cancer in March, sorry, May 2020 and, please to say I’m perfectly fine from it, and I make it my mission to talk about my experience and symptoms and signs ever since.
Sam
Yeah, thanks for that. And Steve?
Steven Jones
Yeah. Hi everyone. I’m really glad to be here. So, my name is Steven Jones and I run a not-for-profit organisation called the Disability Connect mentoring scheme, and we offer reverse mentors, disability insight services and speaker events. I work in the civil service as well and I’m a wheelchair user, so I’ve got spinal muscular atrophy type 3, I’m sort of really familiar with the day-to-day challenges of disability and disability in the workplace.
Sam
Great. Thanks both, and yeah, I can see that there’s going to be some kind of overlap between what people with bowel cancer or bowel conditions are going to need. Obviously, it’s going to be quite different from what people with other disabilities need, but I think that there’s going to be some overlap of issues like communication and how things are handled and all of that sort of stuff.
So, I wanted to start by asking, Steve. What are you kind of seeing from companies at the moment? Is there are there any kind of common trends of things that you often see that aren’t going quite as they should, or even things that people are doing well?
Steven Jones
Hmm. No, really, really good question and I’ll say at the moment it’s very mixed, it’s very varied. COVID and lockdowns have had quite a big impact on workplaces, how and where we work. And I think one of the top stories, the top themes at the moment is that hybrid and flexible working. So, in in COVID, work from home and working flexibly really became the new normal and this opened a lot of doors up for disabled people and lots of people, well, there’s one person in my network in particular, who was told by her employer it would be absolutely impossible for them to do their job working from home. Then COVID came and lockdown hit and actually, they were able to do it, even more productive and better than they were going into the office really. And that really helped them to manage their own disability and their own and fatigue levels as well. And so, I think it’s opened the door for lots of different opportunities across the country and especially for disabled people who may find it harder getting into the office, that may take more time, may need more flexibility as well.
So, it’s really changed that culture of actually… working from home and being flexible. And what I would say is, flexible working isn’t just working from home as well, it could be taking a longer lunch break if someone needs to go and do physio, or they’ve got a doctors or hospital appointment as well. And I think that’s one of the challenges I’m finding that lots of disabled people are still facing as well. So, they’re getting that flexibility into their home work in. But flexible work is actually something completely different and, I think it’s really inconsistent from company to company in terms of how they operate that policy, and what that sort of means for them. But what I would say as well is, home working isn’t really for everyone as well. So, one of the other challenges are when everyone is in the office, and someone might be struggling with a piece of work, they might be struggling with their job in general, and they may be feeling very stressed, they may have other impacts on them. That’s quite hidden in terms of home working as well. So sometimes it can be even harder to spot actually when, someone needs help and support and even when someone that may not have actually declared that they need any reasonable adjustments, it’s sort of visibly struggling with something as well. So I think there’s really that, pros and cons in terms of that hybrid working and home working approach. Companies should really consider their arrangements be as flexible as possible. And really consult their teams and their people so, I think one of the big themes is that whole hybrid and flexible working and I think other themes are the general awareness. So, I think there’s so many disabilities out there and there’s so much variation within sort of certain disabilities as well. And I think, you know, not every employer is expected to know everything, every single disability out there. But it’s really just improving that awareness and sort of starting that conversation as well.
Sam Alexandra Rose
Yeah. And asking the individual, I guess, because even somebody, two people who have the same disability, might have different needs, so it’s opening those doors of communication and also having a flexible mindset of what you can provide people.
Steven Jones
Yeah, yeah, I think I think that’s such a key one because lots of people have a view on what disability is, and that might be from their personal experiences, it might be from the media, maybe they have a family member with a certain disability. But it can be so varied and even with in my condition, spinal muscular atrophy. The spectrum is so vast in terms of what people can do and can’t do as well, really. So, it’s really just actually having those conversations, asking those open, open questions and really being led by the person in terms of what they need and what works for them.
Sam Alexandra Rose
Yeah, absolutely. So, Matt, what would you have wanted from an employer when you had bowel cancer? Obviously, it was during COVID, so it might be a bit, a bit different to somebody, so I guess that you weren’t going into to work then?
Matt Black
No, no I wasn’t. It was completely different because it was COVID. So, during… my illness was quite rapid. I went from completely normal feeling, I thought, feeling healthy, feeling fine on the 13th of March when lockdown came in, to being under the knife on the 27th of May actually, I think it was. It was a really quick period of not feeling well suddenly being identified, when it was finally identified, the problem was seen. I was operated within 24 hours. Major Operation, s of my colon gone. Two weeks in ICU and hospital, came out of the hospital. But I haven’t been in the office environment, so it wasn’t quite the same shock in terms of when I went back. So, when work re-started… Bear in mind I had lost 23 kilos, so my physical appearance was completely different. People were only seeing me on zoom. They weren’t seeing me in the environment. There’s a mixture so what, What I what I found was actually in 95% of people incredibly supportive, but that was because I made it a mission. I mean absolutely, Steve… So communication is key, I started talking about it very quickly. Yeah, after about four or five weeks, I put a long post on LinkedIn to explain to clients and friends and colleagues where I’ve been cause I just… disappeared without trace, and there’s a really empathetic, supportive reaction that I got back from both the business I was with and the wider industry. So, it wasn’t quite that same shock being in the office but. As I got back to work in this September. There’s no question, it took me time to adjust. I was really tired really quickly. I couldn’t do a full day’s work straight away. You know, there had to be this sort of adjustment, and on the whole people were very, very good because they realised don’t push. I came back. Don’t push him. Just leave him to be, and very, very empathetic. There were one or two scenarios where people weren’t as… helpful, but I think that’s more human nature. And what if people don’t know how to react, and managers aren’t necessarily taught how to react and how to deal with people that have gone through an uncomfortable experience. Yeah, if you think sadly in our lives, when we lose people, how 95% of people will, 95% of people that well, okay, say sorry. Other people just don’t know what to say. They sort of look at the floor and maybe mutter something. So, in the same way my message to anybody listening is, if you know someone going through this. If you have a colleague, if you have an employee or employer going through it, dress it up. Head it up. You know, Say, how are you? or even just send a text, send a message, yeah. One line text, makes all the difference to the recipient. It takes a minute of your time and I know it’s embarrassing sometimes, just how are you doesn’t hurt. And that was the key. I did have a few… I had a scenario where I just got back to. I’ve been back at work up about a month and my line manager said, “I think we need to do your half year appraisal. You were away in the summer when you missed it” well, OK, that’s quite an interesting approach to take, not necessarily the approach I might have taken. And it was very formal on zoom, the first question that day was, “have you met all your objectives for the year?” And I just looked blank at the screen and said “yes”, and this guy was meaning financially, he said “How?” I said, “I’ve stayed alive.” Which completely through, and I just hit it, you know, I faced it straight on. It should, it should never have been the position I was in, but I think I’d say something listening if you are. Don’t be shy about talking about what’s happened, don’t be embarrassed about it. So it’s a long winded answer to say 95% of people are brilliant. Some people just in the working environment don’t know what to say or what to do, and my biggest physical challenge. Once I got back into that environment, I’d say being a bowel cancer survi- I hate using the word ‘survivor’. But having had bowel cancer, my need for toilets is a lot more regular than it ever was and certainly after I’ve eaten and ensuring that, people are not embarrassed for having to get out of a meeting quickly. That was one of the key physical challenges as daft as it sounds. But you just say sorry, this is my problem, this my challenge. See you in a few minutes. Sorry I got an all-rambling answer.
Sam
No, that… that’s great. It really sort of shows that there are, I mean, two very different reasonable adjustments there that can be made for you, one being the physical of, you know, needing to go to the toilet when, you know, when you need to go. But then also a reasonable adjustment of not being asked if you’ve met your objectives when you you’ve been off for so long and having an appraisal and just yeah, a little bit more thought into, yeah your, your work objectives and then how those are handled as well also comes under a reasonable adjustment, right?
Matt Black
I think it does. I Think the problem is, the person who asked that never been trained to deal with someone in that scenario, and probably didn’t have the social skills themselves to think about how to deal with that scenario. So it was just doing what they’re programmed to do. I’m pretty sure had, yeah, had an HR person sat there. They would’ve been absolutely horrified. As you know, as most people would have been. But I only raise it is, I think, it’s just so people think. Think about who you’re talking to what the conversation is and the reason behind it and, if it happens to you, don’t be shy of just giving a fairly blunt response.
Sam
Yeah, and I love… I love your response. I love that you said you met your objective of, of staying alive. That is, yeah, to to the point and really…
Matt Black
And also defuse the situation, I hasten to add. Yeah. So you know, it was, they realised, I heard next meeting was like “actually this is the wrong way we’ve addressed this, isn’t it?” I said, yeah.
Sam
And yeah, just thinking about kind of the communication issues as well. I mean, I always kind of rally against certain language that’s used around cancer. So like the ‘battle language’… He’s fighting, they’ve lost the battle, all of that sort of stuff. But I think that can also. Cause a problem because as you say, people sometimes don’t know what to say and then sometimes they don’t end up saying anything which I messaged one of my friends to tell them that I was having surgery and they just didn’t reply to me and then they I sent them another message, I think a few weeks later, and they replied to that and said “oh, sorry I didn’t know what to say and it just got, you know, certain amount of time passed and it got really awkward” and I’m thinking. Fair enough. I don’t like, you know, some of the language that people use, but I would still rather hear, ‘think positive’ or ‘fight the good’… ‘fight’ or… I don’t know whatever random stuff people might say. I would rather hear that to have the situation completely ignored both from friends and in the workplace.
Matt Black
I mean I think in the instance for your friend. What? What? Yeah, I think it’s great, they have the honesty to say. I didn’t know what to say, because that is 90%. A lot of people don’t know what to say. And it takes a lot to admit it. In my situation, I had a couple of people I thought were very, very close friends and, I never heard at all. And time went on and I never heard, never heard of and actually if you do not hear from me then. It’s so sad but no, they don’t it’s… the world moves on. Very few people like that. But again I don’t find this… it’s very hard and people just don’t know what to say. But please… say something. How are you? Hope it goes OK, one line, 2 lines, it doesn’t matter.
Sam
Yeah. So Steve is just the kind of thing that you address in your reverse mentoring? The communication and all of these different types of reasonable adjustments.
Steven Jones
Yeah, it’s really interesting what you say there about terminology and I think some people as you rightly say, may have never had a really frank and open conversation about disability or illness with someone, and are really afraid of opening that conversation in case of saying the wrong thing. And I mean, in the disabled community some words, some people may say, oh, ‘they’re wheelchair bound’, for example, which some people may feel completely acceptable, but actually that person in the wheelchair may actually feel actually, no, I’m not bound my wheelchair, or referring to people as without a disability or without an illness as sort of ‘normal’. Some people, lots of people trip up on that as well, but I would say people that are going through a certain illness, as sort of Matt described there, or people with disabilities, will be sort of familiar with having those conversations and sort of, having that open discussion with people as well. And I think as well, it’s really up for that other person just to sort of try and end that awkward in that sense and even just saying, do you know what? You know, “I’m. I’m sorry if I say the wrong thing, but I wanted to talk to you about this. As I’m concerned, or I’m interested or want to improve my knowledge and understanding really” and that’s exactly what the reverse mentoring scheme does. It’s sort of, matches executives, individuals from organisations, with a disabled mentor to have those open and frank conversations with disabled people, and to really upskill them in in that sense as well. But language can be quite a difficult one to really navigate, but I think from a disabled person’s point of view. They probably have that conversation, you know, 10/20/30 times. So they’re really they’re really used to having that and explaining that in that in that way as well.
Sam
Yeah, I think that, managers really do have kind of a duty and it be really beneficial for them to have that kind of training to and to understand how to communicate with people. I think it’s also quite beneficial if we, with the illness or disability, can also lead if we can and show people how they can take the lead from us. So I’m just thinking about when I was diagnosed, so I had I had bowel cancer in 2010, but then I also had a duodenal and uterine cancer at the same time in 2018 and my employer at the time, like knew all about kind of my history, and I thought, well, I’ve been sort of diagnosed with this again, I’m going to have two operations. I’m going to be off work… I ended up being off work for five months. I don’t want it to be a thing of, like, only a couple of people. Know or then I I’m left with; I don’t know who knows, and who doesn’t know, and how much do they know? So what I did was I sent out a very silly e-mail to everybody at work, subject line. I’m not adopting a baby goat. And in the e-mail, I sort of said I’m going to be off for a while, I don’t sort of know for how long or when exactly. It’s all being figured out, but it’s not because I’m doing anything fun like adopting a baby goat that I need to take care of or going on tour with Drake or anything like that. It’s because I have cancer again, how boring I know, very annoying. And yeah, really kind of downplayed the whole thing and put my kind of, weird sense of humour on it and kind of allowed people to like, if you will, message me back, you know, even people that I wouldn’t necessarily expect to message me, me back or have like such a positive, you know, people that I didn’t really speak to saying things like, ‘oh I’m here if you need to talk’ and that sort of stuff. So I think that is an example of… I just think that it helps that I took the lead there and showed people how I wanted to communicate about it.
Matt Black
It’s really interesting you did that, and I did something very similar. So I did this LinkedIn… and I worked in a… this American owned corporate, probably 1000-1200 people in London, and 2-3 buildings. And when I got back so this. So, this LinkedIn thing I wrote, sort of had legs, that suddenly within about two days it had 20,000 hits which… and people were commenting great. But also, I was getting in messages from a lot of people saying I’ve had a similar experience, Thanks for talking about it. So, I expanded this to two- or three-page paper, and when I got back to work, I went to HR and marketing said look, this is my story this is my experience, this what I’ve written. What can we do with it? And that became quite an internal… they used it internally and I said; I’m very happy to put my name to it, put my photo… no embarrassment. And it went far and wide. What that meant was all sorts of people were then getting in touch, saying sorry to hear what happened, people you wouldn’t expect, from people you didn’t really come across. And that was so rewarding and so engaging. But I think clearly with what you were saying that I used bit of humour in it. Bit of self-depreciating humour, because I think that’s a really important tool, and I didn’t want to be defined as Matt who had bowel cancer. I wanted to be defined as Matt who talks about bowel cancer because no one else does, but I didn’t want to be victim if that makes sense. I think, as you said, humour in Communication. Those are just really important factors, and we as people who have disabilities, Cancers, or whatever. The more we talk about it, the more we’re helping other fellow travellers for and… but I hate the word battle. I hate the word fight. I hate the word survivor. I hate a lot of words that are involved, but. But you know, it’s a journey we’re going on and I think the more we all engaged, in fact, we’re talking now, it helps others in the same process.
Steven Jones
Yeah, I completely agree with that really. And I think it probably goes back to when we’re talking about being person-led as well. So, for both of you, I think you are very proactive in sort of saying you know this is the condition I’ve got, explaining to others, raising awareness and I think that’s really great. But I guess for other people they might not want to tell anyone. They might feel like, actually do you know what? I don’t want to, you know, almost be labelled, or have this on me, or all of that really. And I think some of that really comes from, potentially who they are as a person plus also their employer, well, is the culture like there what, you know, what might happen, let’s say, I think there’s quite often that fear as well in terms of declaration rates and declaring and coming forward really. And I think that really puts it on to that organisation about how to really make that inclusive culture and make it feel like people can be themselves and share openly and raise that awareness and. I think that is that is really key in that sense as well. And also, I think it really relates to what inclusion is, and I really like your point there, Matt, about not wanting to be defined by your illness and, in theory, inclusion is only really mentioning a disability or illness when it’s applicable or when you need to in that situation. And I’ve been in sort of instances where, someone almost said to me, oh you must find that hard because you use a wheelchair. And it was like. Nothing to do with the situation really. And I was thinking you didn’t really need to mention it in that context really. So, it’s really about actually, yeah, being person-led about, how often they want to mention it, how much they want to really share and really accept it. If someone doesn’t want to share as much as others as well, and also not mention it when it doesn’t need to be.
Sam
Yeah. And maybe also not mentioning it to people, when you haven’t had permission from that, that person or if you don’t know if that they want the information to be spread far and wide. So. So yeah, it’s both sides of the communication coin, isn’t it? Like what you do talk about, and how you talk about it, and also maybe when you don’t talk about it, and who you don’t talk to… about it.
Matt Black
That’s right. Yeah, we all have a right to privacy in in whatever environment and it is our choice whether it is talked about or not. And we need to be able to control that. I would totally concur. With that…
Steven Jones
And really interestingly we spoke a bit about lock down on pandemic and everything. And so, I’ve always had a visible disability. I use a wheelchair. You know you can’t. You know, you can’t… not see the fact that, you know, I’m… I use a wheelchair that in that space and, in lockdown I started a new job, and I was completely working at home, and that was all almost it turned from, turn from visible to really invisible, so actually on those teams calls and zoom calls, no one knew I was in the wheelchair I was thinking. Should I? Should I mention it? But then I was thinking, well, I don’t actually need to. Like, why would it come up in conversation? Cause it naturally just wouldn’t. And then it’s sort of when maybe like 6-9 months onwards and then? I think lockdown starts to be lifted and venues were opening, and everyone was like, look, we never met each other. Why don’t we go and do a team building event and why don’t we go and to like to go ape or something like that? And then I was thinking, well, I can’t go to go ape and climb around all these trees and everything, but then no one knows, so then it was almost that declaration of things like do I then say? Would that make it awkward? and really navigating around that really, so I suppose it goes back to that point about… yeah, having that space and managers having that open conversation where people feel like they can declare and come forward, and having those one to one conversations when it’s not all just about work, it can be about how work is related to your home life and all of that stuff really.
Matt Black
So sorry… So how did you… how did you inform them? Or was it when you turned, you turned up to work? And what was the reaction?
Steven Jones
Yeah, Yeah. A really interesting question though. I mean, I didn’t sort of formally say, “oh, by the way, I use a wheelchair” sort of thing, because I thought that would almost go against the inclusivity agenda. Really, when everyone sort of works together and everyone has their differences and challenges and. Yeah, and all fit together as a team really. So in the end, we just met up in the office and to be honest, there was no reaction. And that actually was a really good point, I think, because actually meant that the people I was working with were really inclusive. They accepted lots of differences. They didn’t make a big deal out of it. They didn’t even mention that sort of thing. And I think that was quite a good way for me to actually think actually the culture here is pretty good and its pretty inclusive sort of thing. But I have worked in other places where, maybe I’ve met someone on the video call or on teams or something like that. And they said, “oh, you in a wheelchair!”. But I’ve even been asked before “what happened?” and that was quite hard hitting. So, I’ve got birth condition, and being asked ‘what happened’, it’s almost like. I don’t know how, I hadn’t had… Is there something wrong with me? Really. And that goes back to that point about how impactful words can be sometimes as well.
Sam
Yeah, and. And all of this kind of adds up to the company culture, doesn’t it? So, what how people react in these situations, and how people talk about it. I just, I just wonder if there’s a way to kind of see if there’s like, these red flags at a company before you start working there. That would be quite helpful probably.
Matt Black
But the challenge is, you know every… the majority, I’m saying, of these companies, have absolute best intentions of having the right, the right culture and, you know, people are human beings and human beings are on the whole good people. Want to engage, want to help, want to do the right thing, and we would hope to have a very inclusive culture. To me, it comes down to clumsy individuals or clumsy individuals who aren’t trained or aren’t advised or have never had to deal with anything that might be slightly different, and therefore it’s about companies managing their people, training their people, or making their people aware. That there needs to be this element which change… but it would be very hard. Yeah, I would hope, majority of companies you look at and talk to today would naturally want to or would have that culture ingrained in them.
Steven Jones
Hmm, yeah, I think that’s a really interesting point because the majority of people leave roles not because of the organisation, but more because of their manager. So, their manager isn’t supportive, or potentially there’s challenges when it comes to diversity and inclusion, for example. And it is really interesting when you said there, Sam, about red flags in a company because I recently did a piece of work with a company where we sort of analysed their inclusion strategy, their culture. Got lots of feedback from their employees, and interestingly, the company policies were always quite… a lot less generous than actually how it worked on a day-to-day basis. So, their sickness policy, for example, didn’t really allow for many days off. It was quite sharp in terms of what it required from people, actually when talking to people that had worked there for a couple of weeks to up to 5-6 years. Actually, found out that the managers are really supportive and let their staff have time off and all that, and are really flexible really. So, I suppose it’s about how those policies actually translate in that organisation on the ground and in the culture.
Matt Black
Yeah, I mean again. I can add to it. When I look at how individuals react, what one of my mentors, old bosses, I call him Alan, who’s now in his early 70s. I suspect he’s never done HR training course in his life. And never read an HR training course book. But the warmth and support of the messages he sent me as soon as he knew I was in hospital, not just to me, but to my wife. And it was “what can I make sure the company does? What can we do? How can we do this? Let me know if you need anything” and these were constant. It wasn’t just one offs, so again it comes back to peoples, inbuilt culture and personality as well. That that’s… Yeah, that’s always… It’s rude when some keep telling me to move because of job that don’t show some people and managers… and that’s always a challenge. And I think what I would all I would well… one of my observations and comments to people listening, who are involved in the business world, just keep an eye look out at your managers, who you know you’ve got someone going through that situation, any of the situations we’ve described just now. You’re not directly managing, you know someone else keep an eye out for them, just check that they’re doing or saying… no, not just doing the right thing. Because it comes from the top. And it’s unfair, a company might get… labelled because of certain individuals when it’s not their intention at all.
Sam
Yeah, I think that’s really good advice. And yeah, that’s what you were saying before we’re all humans first, aren’t we? And work as second and you know none of us are put on this planet to, to work or to go by the, you know, the stringent rules of whatever our workplace may be. So yeah, leading with compassion and yeah, what… feels natural rather than, perhaps going back to your appraisal. And how that was handled if that was to be led with compassion and… human thinking first rather than kind of, understandably perhaps, gravitating to this, all this needs to be done for, for our work this is the like the schedule or the plan that we have to follow.
Matt Black
Give me hours of entertainment telling the story since.
Sam
That’s always something good to come out of this isn’t it. Will say one good thing about my… well actually there’s lots of good things to say about my previous employer because they did… they, they did always lead with compassion, and they handled my last cancer diagnosis extremely well. And I was off from September to February, and then did kind of part time hours sort of coming back in. After surgery, so yeah, I was off work for five months in total, and they did pay me in full for the… those five months, which I don’t know what their policy was or if they, you know, felt they had to do it or whatever, but just to have that to be, you know, financed, to not be one extra thing, to have to worry about on top of everything else that a cancer diagnosis brings was excellent.
Matt Black
Yeah. Again, I was very fortunate with that as well, and it’s a really important stress to be relieved of, because, you know, we’ve got so many things going on. That to have financial stress, you know, really, really is a challenge. I think it would be horrific challenge to people, and again you know, the majority of. This is why they quite rightly have to have a policy and have to have rules and regulations set out. I would hope they do tend to be relatively flexible in this scenario.
Sam
Yeah. OK. Well, I guess we’re kind of coming to the end. Is there anything else that either of you would like to add? Are there any other takeaways that you would like organisations or employees to come away with after listening to us today?
Matt Black
No. Look, I think I would just say, you know. It’s a two-way thing, it’s about employees and employers to address matter. I think as importantly, what I… Take the embarrassment out of it. Be proactive from both sides. Address the issue, talk about it. Some people don’t want to talk about it, and that, managers, it might be, people who’ve gone through something, if it’s clear someone wants to talk about it, raise the subject. Could be embarrassing, but raise the subject, and we come back to simply as we said, you know, a text. Are you OK? Or in conversation, are you OK? Don’t let someone be defined by what they’ve had. But acknowledge they may have gone through something that’s quite difficult. I think it’s my sort of message to all parties here.
Steven Jones
Yeah. Really, really support what Matt said there and completely agree really. I think as well, real big one is. Just don’t assume anything, as well. So, I think with employers, sometimes even in even when recruiting disabled people, employers might think ‘oh well, they won’t be as productive, they may not work as hard, they will need time off all of the time’ really. And lot of employers have come real, really long way in terms of really providing a real inclusive recruitment practise. But I think it’s almost being aware of what those unconscious biases may be in people as well, and really not making any assumptions, just opening that conversation and trying to have a real open and honest conversation with that person about their disability, what reasonable adjustments they need to sort of help them to perform the same level as everyone else really. So, I think reasonable adjustments are such key thing and make such a big difference to lots of disabled individuals as well. So, I would say really be person-led really recognise that everyone is different, and open that conversation.
Sam
Brilliant. Thanks both. And Steve, if somebody if a company wants to use your reverse mentoring services, how might they go about getting in touch with you?
Steven Jones
Yeah, of course. So we’ve got a website, and so it’s disabilityconnect.org.uk where you can e-mail us at info@disabilityconnect.org.uk. And we’re also on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Sam
Great. Thank you so much for talking to me about this today. It’s been a really interesting discussion. So, thanks a lot.
Matt Black
Thank you for inviting. Cheers!
Sam Alexandra Rose
Thank you for listening to Can I Butt In. This podcast was brought to you by Bowel Research UK. Find out more about the charity, our work and how you can get involved. Visit Bowelresearchuk.org where you can join our people and research together network, or PaRT. Read about our research campaigns and fundraising or make a donation to support the vital work we do. Let’s end bowel cancer and bowel disease.