Statements alone don’t make labs inclusive for disabled chemists

The Royal Society of Chemistry’s new report, Disability-Inclusive Laboratories in the Chemical Sciences, emphasises how important workplace culture is for ensuring that disabled employees in chemical laboratories receive the support they need to do their work effectively and in a healthy way.

But according to the survey results contained in the report, even if an employer thinks it has implemented an inclusive culture, this often doesn’t match employee experience. While many job ads contain statements about how committed an organisation is to diversity, equity and inclusion, just 25% of disabled respondents agreed that stated organisational values matched their lived experience.

Repeated requests

A big contribution to this is how difficult it is for disabled chemists to get support approved. While most know how to request adjustments from their employer, getting those requests (or a suitable alternative) implemented often requires the individual to repeatedly follow-up on progress and to constantly advocate for themselves.

One of the solutions called for by the report is for all employers to implement a streamlined, simple, clearly documented system for requesting and granting workplace adjustments (and for new labs to be built with accessible design principles in mind). Sadly, the bureaucracy and number of stakeholders involved in such decisions means many organisations will struggle to achieve this any time soon.

In the meantime, managers and leaders should try their utmost to take some of the burden of adjustment requests away from their team members. While it’s important that disabled employees are involved in every decision about what type of support will be provided, there’s no reason why the effort of chasing a request through a system should fall to them too – especially if, until the request is approved, they face a far more exhausting or frustrating working day than other lab members.