Workplace adjustments should not wait on proof of disability, a Sydney panellist said

The question came from a participant who raised the difficulty of hiring people with higher support needs. People with higher support needs need more resources, they said, and many organisations have only a limited amount. How could an organisation in that position still do it?

A panellist began by saying it should be done. Organisations should absolutely want to hire people with higher support needs, the panellist said, “because everybody has something to contribute”, and that meant providing accommodations. In employment, it meant drawing on the government systems available, which the panellist said were not always easy to find, a point their organisation had highlighted that day in one of its workshops, on knowing your rights. The panellist named the Job Access scheme and an assistance fund. Where an individual had disclosed their disability, they said, there was no reason an employer could not access funding to provide those accommodations, “and it’s discriminatory if they don’t.”