#PartOfMePodcast – Episode 7: Robert on Disability Consulting

Esi:

Hello everyone, and welcome to another podcast by Celebrating Disability called part of me. This is podcast seven, and today I have a special guest with me who’s going to explain a little bit about what his impairment means to him and what he does in his daily life for a job. So we’ll just start there. Hello, 

Robert:

Hello Esi. How are you? 

Esi:

I’m all right. Thank you. How are you? 

Robert:

Yeah, not too bad

Esi:

Good, good. Can we start off by saying, by asking who you are and what you do?

Robert:

Okay, my name is Robert joy, and I’m a freelance disability equality consultant and down in Southampton, but I work right across the country, and I also work quite regularly with a number of youth the led organisations local to where I live.

Esi:

Okay, so for our listeners, what’s a user led organisations?

Robert:

A user led organisations in an organisations run and controlled by disabled people and or care rooms, and that means that they tend to be part of the Management Committee, they tend to be part of the star team, and they tend to have a very integral role in running the organisations.

Esi:

So why? I mean, I’m going off script a little bit, and we’ve even just only just started, but I think it’s a really important subject, so if you don’t mind talking about it for a minute, so why are you led organisations? I can hear my listeners thinking, well, what’s the difference between a user led organisations and any other organisations that doesn’t is it run by disabled people and carers

Robert:

I think a user-led organisations manages to actually have a more authentic and relevant voice, particularly in the disability movement. For many years, there’s been a lot of big disability organisations for disabled people, and they may have done that in a very well meaning way. But I think it’s important that just like in the black movement and in the Women movement, it was only when the people who actually belonged to that movement, toy women and black people, actually started speaking for themselves, that actually change happened. So that was having a village organisations running birds of being and commenting on current issues and not working with disabled people in a really positive thing for moving disability equality forward.

Esi:

Excellent. No, I completely agree . So I mean, I run a disability equality business, myself, and we’re not competitors. We’ve worked together in the past. We have been working together in the future. So I’m not going to beat you up after this meeting or anything, but, but so what is it, just from your point of view? What is a disability equality organisation and what is a disability equality consultant?

Robert:

I think they’re one and the same thing, in a way. I think a disability equality consultant is somebody who were very much from the kind of social model and human rights and equality perspective, which means that in all our work, we are trying to make sure that people realize that disabled people are just like people anywhere else within the community, and although we may have done individual need that may be different to other people, that it Really important that our human right and are equal right are affected. And so therefore, I think a lot of my work so being on making sure that we project a property in which your disability for being equal of society, whether that’s within the community, within the workplace, on the within the political

Esi:

Okay, excellent. Thank you very much. So do you mind me asking a little bit about your impairment and what your impairment means to you?

Robert:

My impairment for obviously, people can’t see me, so I’m actually a full time wheelchair user. I also have a speech impairment, which means that sometimes it’s hard for people to communicate with me, but hopefully most of your listeners can understand mostly what I’m saying. And I also have a number of other long term health conditions, which I deal with on a daily basis.

Esi:

Okay, cool. Thank you very much. And how if? Anyway, how does it affect you in the workplace?

Robert:

I think it affects me in a number of ways. For one thing, it absolutely limits what I can do, to some extent, in terms of what type of job I do. So I prefer to obviously, I can’t be a Duckman or a fireman, but what I like to think is that I can bring some of my expertise and my problem solving skills that I have developed through actually having to deal with my parents, and I managed to bring that expertise into the work play. And I also think it’s important because it means that I do come from very much an equal opportunity perspective with me, I try to judge people, and I find them, and I try and look at everybody and having strength and access that I can learn from. And I think it’s really important to have a diverse workforce, just like it really important that we have women and black people within the workforce, particularly within senior management. I think it’s really important that disabled for a representative at all levels of the organisations. The guys think they they bring a they bring a burden, present to the organisations, which means that organisations can not just talk about being diverse, but actually be diverse in terms of actually the way it operates, the way it think about how to treat star, the way it treats it customers, and hopefully IT project a more modern view of what we want, northern I’ve mentioned to being the 21st Century.

Esi:

I complete. I 110 I know that’s not figure, but 110% agree with that, and I think it’s too important, just as you said, to not just kind of say, Oh yes, no, we’re really diverse, because yesterday we talked to somebody who was disabled, but actually to be able to show that through what you do every day and the way you deliver your services, and the way you strategize what your services are going to mean for your customers, but also your employees as well. I talked a lot. Sorry. I know this interview is not about me, but I talked a lot a few weeks ago about being able to open a wider candidate pool by having that diversity already in the business, so that candidates can see, oh, this is a business I can see myself working in because it’s already supportive. And what do you think about the idea of an inclusive workspace being supportive of everybody.

Robert:

 I think it really important. And just picking up on your point, for 10 a year, I was being a manager in an organisations, and as you say, it was really important that when I was interviewing other disabled candidate, I think sometimes disabled come today, actually for me and a role model. And actually kind of for, you know, if this person can become a senior manager, and so can I, and so I think we have a role in, kind of, I hate the word inspiring regarding that, and sometimes he used an attraction idea way. But I also think that in important and disabled people that we do inspire the younger generation, not whether they’re disabled people, whether they’re women, not whether they’re black people, whether they’re gay people or whatever that actually just become we may be in a minority, that that doesn’t mean that we can’t still take a full and equal part in working, being part of an organisations and driving the organisations forward. And I think it’s an organisations can be open to those ideas through things like having flexible working hours, having facilities that are acceptable to people, having an understanding that people may may want to work in a certain way, or they may communicate In a certain way. You know, I thought, for instance, slightly attention to finally, for written, yeah, well, vote disabled people, and I actually freaked that. I don’t think people were voting for them because they actually felt sorry for them or felt pity for them. They actually were voting for them because they could be that they were very talented people, and in a way that what we want all organisations to do to actually view all people, whether they have an impairment or not, and actually having strength and ability that go far beyond what actually appear on their curriculum, fee time. One thing I’m really clear about is that it’s not about people educational background necessarily. You know, you don’t necessarily need to have a degree to be a good manager. Actually, you need to, like, provide people and ability to communicate. And my feeling, I have found a lot of disabled people have developed very good communication now, quite often, because they’ve been used to having to communicate with a wide variety of people in order to get their support needs done at home, and therefore they can translate that scale very well into the workplace.

Esi:

I absolutely I’ve been nodding vigorously. People on the podcast won’t be able to see, but I’m nodding vigorously like because I couldn’t agree more, and there’s nothing else I can add to what you said, because I think you said it perfectly. So I will just move on to the next point and the next question for you, if you don’t mind. So it’s a bit about advice that you might offer people. So if you could offer any advice to managers supporting a disabled person, what would it

Robert:

For a manager? It’s about listening to the disabled person and listening to how, what would make it easier for them to do their job the best way they can. And that not about kind of bending over backwards to accommodate a disabled person, but that what I would do to any, any employee that I know, I would ask them, What will make it easier for you, so that when you’re at work, I can get the fact out of you. So for instance, if somebody’s got a child and they need to come in to work 10 minutes late every day, you know, and stay 10 minutes late at the end to make up for it, then I think that reasonable, because that actually means that when they are here, they actually concentrate things and focus on the task in hand, and I think in the same way for a disable then they need a particular piece of footwear on their computer to fit them, or they need a different chair to make it more comfortable for them to sit at their desk. Or they need a bit longer at lunchtime so that they can eat their lunch comfortably, or whatever. Then, I think so long they you can say, you tell people that, and you flexible to that, and that you can make sure that when people are actually working, they’re actually focused on their job and not worrying about whether they’ll have time to go to the toilet and they’re not too late. And so I think it’s about listening to what a disabled employee wants and also thinking about how that can match up with what an organisations,needs at the end of the day, you also need to make sure that the organisations meet its target and meet its goal, and therefore, by being open and honest with everyone and having an open conversation about it, if they Go being an understanding later on down the line.

Esi:

But I think it’s also, I completely agree with you. I think it’s also about kind of having this flexible and agile working, kind of thinking out the box ideas. So perhaps it might, you know, if somebody wasn’t able to work nine to five for whatever reason, disability or not, disability, it could be about, you know, having a process where somebody could do a job check or any working certain hours or working certain hours from home. So as you said, it’s about thinking outside the box and thinking of all the options that would work best for the employee so that you can get the most out of them at the end of the day.

Robert:

And I think nowadays, with technology and people now work from home a lot more, and people were when they’re out and about, you know, mobile working to save time, you know. I mean, you know, if it’s easier for somebody to be out in the field and not working on their laptop, on Starbucks, then then that’s fine. You know, a lot of people are focused and getting the job done. And then I say, I think technology cannot really help disabled people to be good, employing them to work and effectively, and non disabled employee. And I think sometimes about the naivety. And sometimes people can be a bit frightened about taking on a disabled employee. But actually, in my experience, most of the time, people can come that later down the road there and actually think, actually that disabled employee and actually brought a lot to my organisations, and actually made the organisations think distantly. And I think actually nowadays we need to reflect the volume the way we do things. And, you know, just like with dinner, with a lot of the retail shops closing down, and everything you know the workplace is rapidly changing. And actually, I think any organisations needs to make sure that you get a diverse range of people within the work slave to actually enable them to reflect the VAR and think in a more modern way, and think about how they are going to change their workplace practice nine to five from the age of 18 to 65 and then they retire with a nice fat pension. Oh, they are gone. Therefore workplaces need to be if they actually aren’t flexible, and I think having a diver workforce can actually help them think differently and problem solve around how they can achieve that in the modern world.

Esi:

Excellent. Thank you very much. So, if you were to give advice to a disabled employee in the workplace, what would you give? What would you say? 

Robert:

I think, in a way, about being honest about what your requirements are, about how you think your film can be better you within the workplace. You know, I think about being an even a job interview before you even got the job, about where you think you’re you’re at 13 nine, and how you can get support in order to do things. But therefore, I’m sure you talk to that on a toy car before. You know, there are things like enable disabled employee to actually employ their own support work or assistant to help them to do some of the tasks in their job. And that’s not about doing the job for them, but it seems like maybe driving them to appointment or helping them use a photocopier, or taking a fox file down from the top shelf, and actually, by allowing disabled employees to have had somebody supporting them that way, can enable them a nice day to actually focus on the job in hand and actually make sure that they’re still on their team. Are you in the best way? So I would say to an employee, be honest about what you need. Feel it, about what your support needs are. Research. You know, talk to other disabled people for around, you know, either ruin the workplace or outside the workplace. You know, you do as a diverse workforce make you think about bringing together a network of people for, you know, and I say, from all the diverse community and minority group, as we often call them, to actually make sure you have a strong point about what you need and how you need things to be flexible. But, and I say, I think flexibility and agility are important for any modern organisations, and it shouldn’t be seen that you’re being flexible and agile to fit in with a disabled person. You’re actually being flexible and agile in order to be modern thinking organisations that looks to the future. 

Esi:

I think that’s so true. And as you know, the majority of disability is acquired later in life. So having that agile, diverse workforce shows an employee that does become disabled during the course of their employment at the specific organisations that they will be okay when they come forward and say, you know, there is a bit more support I need.

Robert:

Yeah, it’s really important, because I think no employer will know that it’s a lot better to retain and try and recruit staff, you know. So actually, you do need to think about your retention. You do need to feel need to think about how you’re going to support people as they get older and ultimately now and like day people are retiring later and later in life. But actually we should be using that asset and kind of making sure that that perceived that people have built up flat over decades and paying working in not lost just to come. You know, later on in life, they may, they may acquire 13, which means they need to work slightly differently, or need to work slightly different hours, or they, they need a parking they a big mirror of the main trim to the building, or whatever. So, you know, I think it really important that we really value the start we have. And, you know, because we were all going to get older and that we’re all going to acquire impairment or health conviction at some time in our life, and it’s important that we don’t lose the expertise of those people or when they do, when they do run up against challenging or whatever that they may face.

Esi:

Thank you. Now we just wanted to ask another question that, again we I didn’t tell you about before, if you don’t mind, in the other podcast, we’ve been using the term disability, and in this podcast we’re using the term impairment. Now I just wondered if you wouldn’t mind explaining to people the differentiation between impairment and disability. For people that may have not heard the term before.

Robert:

Okay, I do. I run the whole training course, which are very reasonably dry, spend the whole day explaining the difference, but basically prediction in that I, I believe that I, I work to what it calls the social model of disability. And that’s basically that that people are disabled by the valium within society, so therefore I’m a disabled person rather than a person with a disability. Actually, predictability is working out there with what out within society, and having and having barriers that prevent me from from being an equal project within society. And therefore, we actually got rid of those barium, then I would I would still have my impairment, but I would no longer be disabled by society, because we would have managed to eradicate some of those barium, and I could be any full member society. So hopefully that made a bit of dense but in but in a very kind of pocket definition of why I prefer the term disabled person, not with an impairment, rather than a person disability.

Esi:

It was a very good explanation. I agree with you completely. I feel that I’m a disabled person, but I know other people see themselves as a person living with a disability, and quite a few people on the podcast have identified themselves as that. So I thought it was important, because it can be quite confusing

Robert:

It can be and disabled people will use different terminology, just like in other groups, like women and lucky for and gay and lesbians, for they may decide to use terms that they feel comfortable with. Therefore, I think it’s important to discuss that issue, but maybe not get too focused down done in the terminology. But I think it is important to respect people in the way that they define themselves, and actually not, not for me to define how you should define yourself in the same way that it’s not for you to tell me how I should define myself.

Esi:

Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely. I couldn’t agree more. Okay, so we’re going to go on a slightly different topic. Now we’re nearly finished. Listeners who need to get back to work, I apologize. So it’s all been very, very useful stuff. So we didn’t want to not talk about it at all. So we’ve been talking about employees in the workplace and employers. I just want to talk a little bit about customers and disabled customers, and customer service and experience by just asking you a couple of questions. So as a disabled customer or consumer in the market, so looking to buy a product or a service and the experience that you face. Um, what do you think your biggest challenges?

Robert:

I think it’s probably people’s attitude. To be honest, I don’t know if that is a bit of a clear cliche. I think it is a but amazing how when, when I’m out shopping with my partner, people will quite often come up anything I can help you with or whatever. However, quite often, if I go into a shop on my own, sometimes the shop project may not actually see me as being the customer. They may actually think I’m just throwing things. I wouldn’t necessarily have any money to buy anything, or that, you know, their kind of product or not, not for disabled people and therefore, and to be honest, I mean, I’m not on people can’t see me neither, but I do like to wear quite nice shirt and quite different shirt. And I quite often find if I go into not short term and only give a kind of higher end kind of shot or something like that, that, um, that won’t necessarily see me as being a viable customer for them. So therefore, I think about educating again, people that actually, you know, anybody can be a customer you know, and disabled people for spending money just by anyone else, you know and and you know that then poor disabled people, and they rich disabled people and just by anyone else. The majority of people are not wearing the middle and so therefore people shouldn’t make assumptions about disabled consumer, and they should try and be helpful and accommodating, but also not be patronizing or make assumptions about people purely because they happen to be in a Wheelchair or have a visual impairment or have a communication issue or whatever. Now, I think it’s about trying to send people attitude, you know, you can always feel that round and widen doorway in and give people more room, not willing to stop, which are all important thing to do, but actually, unless that shop has got the right attitude to warn it disabled customer, then no point building a ramp about actually creating a culture of being welcoming to all people, whatever their meaning or requirement are, 

Esi:

I think that’s perfect. Thank you very much. So just lastly, is there anything else that you would like people to know?

Robert:

No. I mean, I think it’s covered an awful lot, and ultimately, I know that you, like me, are very passionate about making sure that people realize that disabled people have a lot of strength and value that need to be kind of recognized within the wider society. And although there are a lot of barriers and challenges within society, I think it really important that disabled people are out there talking about it and being very open and up front about what their requirements are and not what their demand are, in order to make sure that disabled people are treated just like equal at the end of the day, I think is what everybody in the long run, absolutely brilliant. 

Esi:

That’s absolutely brilliant. Thank you so much, Rob. So when I publish this, I will put, if you wouldn’t mind, your contact details on so that if people want to follow up or speak to you about your consultancy, that they can do that. Thank you very much for your time. This has been absolutely brilliant.