Invisible Disabilities in the Workplace: Barriers to Inclusion
Project Overview
The Accessible Canada Act (ACA) defines invisible disabilities in 6 categories: Intellectual, mental health, cognitive, learning, communication and sensory. The project will identify barriers specifically in the workplace for people with invisible disabilities that fall into all 6 categories of the ACA definition. Beyond the typical barriers, people with invisible disabilities deal with barriers that impact their productivity, privacy, happiness, and meaningful participation at work. This research will focus on the hard to quantify barriers that impact the emotional and mental state of employees including barriers that cause or amplify confusion, prolonged sadness, anxiety, and other related emotional states associated with episodic and permanent cognitive and neurodiverse conditions such as anxiety disorders, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), dyslexia, clinical depression, Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and other similar conditions. The project also aims to understand how to ensure meaningful participation in the workplace and how the physical environment needs to be designed to ensure that participation.
‘People with invisible disabilities deal with barriers that impact their productivity, privacy, happiness, and meaningful participation at work.”
Project Objectives
The primary objective is to develop 3 referenceable case studies for Canada’s employers and those that support their facilities (e.g. architects, interior designers, contractors, human resource personnel) to understand:
- The existing and potential barriers to meaningful participation in the workforce for people with invisible disabilities – including attitudinal barriers
- How to remedy and/or prevent these barriers in work environments moving forward
- How to educate the workforce in order to help them identify and remedy potential barriers in the work environment – including attitudinal barriers
A key secondary objective is to develop a survey tool that will be used to provide a comprehensive view into the needs of people with invisible disabilities in 3 common types of work/learn environments:
- Academic (post-secondary)
- Office
- Warehouse/industrial or retail
The proposed project will have a significant impact on the inclusion and meaningful participation of people with invisible disabilities in the workplace and will help inform Canadian knowledge and understanding of a previously underrepresented community.
“This research will focus on the hard to quantify barriers
that impact the emotional and mental state of employees.”
Project Activities and Timeline
Phase 1: Understand the Challenges in the Workplace (Complete)
- Literature review to uncover global best practices and trends in workplace design for people with invisible disabilities.
- Develop a survey tool for workplace assessment that enables assessors to understand the perspective and experiences of people with invisible disabilities for each type of environment.
- Leverage insight from Adaptability Canada’s experiential inclusive design guide for invisible disabilities along with insights from the literature review to enhance the knowledge base driving development of the survey tool.
Phase 2: Stakeholder Interviews and Preparation for Assessments
- Stakeholder interviews within the public and private sector employer representatives as well as selected employees with invisible disabilities to build more qualitative data on the human perspective on barriers in the workplace for people with invisible disabilities.
- Conduct 3 pilot assessments to create baseline of data for next round of workplace assessments.
Phase 3: Workplace Assessments and Case Study Development
- Conduct 10-15 full workplace training assessments with student assessors assisted by Adaptability Canada senior staff/mentors.
- Analyze workplace assessment data and integrate into content for the case studies to illustrate the barriers for people with invisible disabilities in 3 different sample Canadian workplaces.
Phase 4: Report Preparation
- Prepare and submit case studies and supporting material for peer review.
- Prepare and submit Research Report(s) for ASC submission and public publication.
Who is Adaptability Canada?
Adaptability Canada is a leading full-service firm serving the Canadian market for inclusive design and accessibility solutions for large organizations with diverse stakeholders and complex real estate portfolios. We have gained a national reputation with our proprietary inclusive design methodology and our ability to solve complex accessibility challenges.
Adaptability Canada is committed to being a thought leader in the world of accessibility in the built environment. We have carried out innovative research on how to design for invisible disabilities and we are presently testing a novel design approach focused on customer experience versus building code compliance. Being a leader in this space means considering the needs of a much broader group of stakeholders and a wider spectrum of disabilities (e.g., cognitive, mental, and emotional challenges, LGBTQ+, Indigenous, seniors etc).
Adaptability Canada is a disabled-owned company certified with the Inclusive Workplace & Supply Council of Canada with over half of its employees, including the CEO, identifying as having lived experience of disability.
Adaptability Canada is acting as lead research partner and co-managing the research project. By leveraging our expertise and extensive knowledge base, particularly our proprietary inclusive design guide for people with invisible disabilities in the built environment, we are able to facilitate project activities including research, content development, assessment services, creating assessment methodology, and training student assessors.